Confidence is a Game Changer.

The secret sauce.

Have you ever wondered how to be more confident?

Have you thought, "What is their secret sauce?”

‘What is it that other people seem to have that I don't have?"

“How does she walk into a room and just exude self-confidence?” 

How many of you have heard that self-confidence comes from looking good, standing up straight, wearing that killer outfit,  "just smile more" or that it is about knowing the key people, having the best social skills, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Here is the truth.

Self-confidence is something we all have to work on.   It doesn't come naturally to most people; BUT it can be achieved. Here's how:
Possessing confidence comes with knowing,  and employing,  the mental skills that it takes to show up strong within oneself. Having assurance and certainty about yourself is all about your mental game. It's about how and what we think; not about how we feel.
Surprising, right?  Can I tell you how many times in the past, when struggling with self-confidence, I haven't felt like changing my thinking and how many times I have pushed back against changing my behavior? I wanted the determination that comes with confidence but was very "meh" about believing that the internal work required would lessen my self-doubt. Because change is HARD dammit. But we gotta do it if we want the freedom that comes with employing a Badass mentality. 

Let me share with you some beginning practices that I use with clients when we are working on increasing their courage and determination.  I did this work myself over 22 years ago and it has been a Game Changer in upping my Badass Confidence Game.  And it can be for you as well. 

1. The Big Brain Dump. Find a comfortable space. Maybe get a cup of coffee or tea. Get out a piece of paper and pen and start writing (I prefer this to the computer). Start with what you don't like about yourself.  Your self-critiques with work performance, relationships with friends, family and colleagues, love, your personal and work goals-all of it. For example, in the past I used to spend quite a bit of mental and emotional energy ripping on myself in the past for not being enough: intellectual enough, insightful enough, articulate enough.

2. Sit With It. Don't judge. Just observe what you have written. I know, I know. This can be hard to do, but the objective of this assignment isn't for you to feel worse about yourself; it's to illuminate all those thoughts that you have bottled up inside your head that are compiling your list of negative self-defeating thinking. It can be hard to "sit" with these words on paper. You're going to want to move away from the thoughts or change them and that's ok but stay there and face them.

3. Find the opposite. Write down the thoughts that are the opposite of everything you just wrote. Take all your negative, put-down thoughts and feelings and change them to something more confident; statements that you can start believing in. If you wrote, "I hate my body" then here you might write, "I don't hate every part of my body; actually I really like my legs."  Or let's say you wrote something like, "I never seem to find the right guy." Instead you might say, "The right guy hasn't come my way yet; I've actually dated a few nice guys, they just weren't the best fit for me ." Rather than believing your dating life to be all negative, this thinking at least makes it neutral.  Or how about your thoughts about work performance? If there's a criticism, then you must write out an opposite thought. Make sure that when you write the opposite of your negative thoughts, that these new thoughts are ones that you can actually believe. 

Like I mentioned earlier, I was pretty critical of myself when it came to work confidence. And here's the interesting thing, I would never have had such judgey and mean thoughts about a colleague. Would you?

4. Start practicing the New Thoughts. It's going to take time and it's going to feel weird in the beginning, but start saying the new thoughts to yourself. As in, "Anna, you've done the work. You know how to do this." 

Repeat, repeat, repeat. 

Write those positive thoughts on sticky notes and place them around your house; on your bathroom mirror, in the kitchen, on the washer, in the car. Say your mantras out loud even if it’s just for 15 seconds when you're driving the car. We know that repetition works. In the beginning it may seem hokey, but what we know is that mantras, when repeated over and over again, start to take hold in the brain. Then we start to see self-belief. 

Now go BE your Badass Confident self! 

If you want to do a deeper dive into confidence, reach out to me at badassconfidencecoach@gmail.com. I am here to help you along on your journey to Badassery!