If you’re struggling to feel more confident, it’s natural to think about it like this:I don’t feel very confident. So what should I start doing to feel more confident?This is understandable, but often misguided. Because more often than not, confidence is about what you remove, not what you add.See, most of the time people don’t lack confidence in an absolute sense. Instead, their natural, good-enough level of confidence is being blocked or interfered with by inner obstacles like chronic worry and anxiety, negative self-talk, and compulsive avoidance.

Struggling To Be More Confident

Most people who struggle with confidence also experience a lot of anxiety.<ul><li>They’re anxious about what other people think of them.</li><li>They’re anxious about not performing well.</li><li>They’re even anxious about having low confidence!</li></ul>Unfortunately, the natural response most people have to anxiety is to try and cope with it.When you immediately try and get rid of your anxiety by applying coping skills to make it go away, you teach your brain to view anxiety as dangerous. So stop coping with your anxiety and learn to accept it.

Stop Trying to Cope with Anxiety

The people in your life want to be nice and will tell you things that make you feel better:<ul><li>Oh it was great!</li><li>I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think.</li><li>Don’t worry, everything will be fine.</li></ul>If you always outsource your emotional struggles to others, you deprive yourself of the opportunity to be confident.Your feelings of inadequacy or insecurity are difficult. But they’re your feelings. And ultimately, managing them is your responsibility.Once you accept responsibility for managing your own feelings, your confidence will emerge.

Avoid Reassurance-Seeking

If you struggle to feel confident and also have a habit of catastrophizing, it’s critical that you learn to identify this habit and then start to break it.Even if you know intellectually that the worst case isn’t likely to happen, if you constantly tell yourself it is, that’s how you’ll feel.Difficult as it can feel in the moment, it is possible to control your attention and not let your mind spiral into catastrophizing and worry. Setting and enforcing good <a href="https://nickwignall.com/mental-boundaries/">mental boundaries</a> is a great place to start.

Put the Breaks on Catastrophizing

A good way to never feel confident is to always be failing. And a good way to always be failing is to always be trying to control the uncontrollable.By resisting the impulse to control things you can’t actually control you avoid setting yourself up for failure at impossible tasks. And this is something your self-confidence will thank you for.

Let Go of Things You Can’t Control

From a young age, most of us are taught that it’s important to learn how to deny what you want—whether that’s a candy bar before dinner or dropping out of college because you think it’s boring.It’s hard to feel confident in yourself when you’re constantly denying yourself.A great way to re-discover your confidence is to tone down the self-denial and deference to others, and start <a href="https://nickwignall.com/assertiveness/">expressing yourself and your genuine wants and needs more assertively</a>.

Quit Hiding from What You Really Want

If you want to feel more confident, focus on eliminating habits that interfere with the confidence you've already got.