Unshakable Self-Confidence

Confidence is one of those things that seem like a catch-22. If you don’t already have a certain measure of self-confidence, it’s difficult to become more confident. Don’t you need inner strength in order to build your confidence? It may seem so at first glance, but fear not. This guide will walk you through a simple process to build your confidence. (And it will be easier than you think!)
Connecting With Your Inner Power
At a basic level, an unconfident person is someone who has lost touch with his or her inner power. How do I know? Because your inner power is where confidence comes from.
If I asked you to describe yourself, you’d likely start with a physical description, or perhaps mention some of the roles you play in daily life, like mother, wife, brother, employee, business owner, and so on. But those things are not who you ARE, they are what you DO.
The person you are is the very essence of your being. This being might be called your soul, your higher self, or your authentic self. The label isn’t important – just the acknowledgement that you are more than the physical person reading these words right now.
Your inner essence is wise, powerful, and all-knowing. He or she has a keen intuition and a bottomless inner reservoir of strength. This part of you has a complete understanding of your true potential and constantly tries to bring it to your attention.
If you’re like the majority of people, you haven’t been listening. You probably identify more with your physical self than your inner self, and you probably focus more on your outer life than your inner life. (I can imagine you asking with surprise, “I have an inner life?” ☺) Yes you do; we all do.
However, in this modern age of noise and busy-ness, it’s extremely easy to get distracted by external influences and lose touch with our inner power. At first this doesn’t seem to affect us much, if at all. We still continue on with our daily lives, working and playing, taking care of obligations and responsibilities. As time goes on, we may notice that we feel a little more “spacey” and a little less in tune with our lives. Our inner voice (intuition, if you will) seems to dim and grow distant so we can barely hear it anymore. If we ignore these warning signs, they usually grow in intensity – until eventually we feel completely out of touch, confused, fatigued, weary, and powerless over our lives. We realize too late that we’ve forgotten who we once were.
However, all is not lost! It is very simple to reconnect with your inner self, tap into your inner power, and blast your self-confidence through the roof. When you do, you will be able to create a life of such passion, joy and purpose that you’ll be sure not to repeat the mistakes that led to your disconnection in the first place.
In order to reconnect with your inner power, you need to take a little trip to the very heart of yourself. You need to turn away from outer distractions on a regular basis so you can be reunited with your authentic self. (You’ll be surprised to learn that this process doesn’t take a lot of time, so don’t let the words “on a regular basis” throw you off track.)
There are several ways to reconnect, and all of them involve spending some quality time alone. Here are a few good ways to start:
􀂾 Spend time in daily meditation. If you’ve never meditated before, don’t worry, it’s very simple to do. First, find a place to be alone and focus on quieting your mind. If you feel tense or anxious, try a few minutes of slow, deep breathing and concentrate on releasing the tension from your body. When you feel relaxed and calm, turn your attention to your thoughts. Try to make your mind go blank, and let go of any thoughts that are bothering you. Do this for as long as possible every day if you can (10 or 15 minutes is good to start, increasing up to 20 or 30 minutes as you become more comfortable with it). Over time you will notice yourself feeling much more balanced and centered – and in touch with your inner self.
􀂾 Record your thoughts and feelings in a journal. This is a great way to learn more about yourself, as well as giving you a clear record of progress that you can refer back to later. You DON’T have to have good writing skills to benefit from this process. Write for yourself and yourself only. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar – if you can understand your chicken-scratch, that’s all that counts. Start each entry with an opener like, “Today I feel _________ because _________.” This will lead you to more and more things to write about, and before long you’ll have filled an entire page (or more). Doing this daily will help you tap into your stream of consciousness and connect you with your deeper thoughts.
􀂾 Embrace the silence. This exercise can seem challenging for even the most courageous among us, simply because most of us are not used to complete silence. Usually we have a television, radio, computer or other people around to distract us. The thought of sitting in absolute silence and letting your thoughts drift might not sound appealing at all. It might even sound scary, or perhaps boring. However, don’t dismiss it so quickly. Give it a try over the space of a week and I bet you’ll grow to LOVE those quiet moments. If you can sit outside in a natural setting, it’s even more effective. You won’t believe how calm and refreshed you feel after this exercise, and you’ll carry the feeling of inner peace into everything you do.
How do these exercises reconnect you to your inner power? They simply get you back in touch with the deepest part of yourself. Imagine if you had a best friend that you never spoke to, acknowledged or spent quality time with. How would your friend feel about that? Very likely, he or she would feel slighted, neglected, and distanced from you. Most of us would never dream of treating our friends so terribly. Yet, that’s exactly what we do to our inner selves. We ignore them completely and then wonder why we feel so empty and disconnected.

When you begin devoting some attention to your inner self again, he or she blossoms! You rediscover your passion, joy and vitality, and you awaken a powerful awareness of your interconnection with the universe and everything in it. Don’t be surprised if you also begin to feel closer to friends and family members, co-workers and clients. You might even begin feeling more compassionate toward complete strangers. All of this is the result of a deep connection with your inner self.
Finally – and most importantly – you’ll begin feeling more positive about yourself again. You’ll feel less tempted to be harsh with yourself, and you’ll be better able to appreciate yourself genuinely and sincerely. You’ll have more patience with yourself, and you’ll discover a tiny seed of strength and power growing larger within you, eager to burst forth in new life. That’s confidence, of course!