How to Gain Self Confidence

This week I have had many interactions on email and in conversation with people citing confidence as being their biggest struggle in growing their business. They have either stated:

“I have a lack of confidence”

“I want to feel more confident”

“I just don’t have the confidence I need to ……….(fill in the blank)”

So here I am, following my own advice, and offering a solution to my ideal client’s number 1 struggle hoping that it will serve you too on some level.

Let’s break this down.

What is confidence?

I went to the Oxford on line dictionary to get the “formal” definition of confidence as a reference point and to make sure we are all on the same page here. So here’s what I found:
CONFIDENCE: The feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something.
OK, so how do they define faith?

FAITH: Complete trust or confidence in someone or something

Now I need to see their definition on trust:

TRUST: Firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or somethingr
Great.

Now we are starting to see the commonalities.

Belief and feeling.

Let me address belief first of all.

A belief is the term we give to a bunch of thoughts. So in effect, it is a label or description as are all words really!

Thoughts are created via the Principle of Thought and are in effect arbitrary. So the thought or belief of “I need to have more confidence” is completely neutral until we give it meaning.
What would happen if we decided to make that thought a “good thought”?

**What if a lack of confidence was a good thing?

Perhaps it is in some societies just the same as burping out loud is a compliment to the chef in India and in the UK it is frowned upon. Same thought “he burped out loud” and then depending on culture, the next thought could be “that’s nice” or “that’s rude” and either thought will come with a feeling – comfortable or uncomfortable.

So now I am addressing feeling.

Feelings and thoughts are 2 sides of the same coin. Every feeling is created via thought. No feeling stands alone, it is always, 100% of the time coming from thought in the moment.

Now that doesn’t mean we have to go hunting for the thought or the belief, sometimes and very often, they are unconscious. All we need to know is that the only place feelings come from is thought in the moment.

So if confidence is based on thoughts and feelings according to the Oxford dictionary definition, and thoughts and feelings are arbitrary, then perhaps there is absolutely nothing to worry about or at least nothing to take seriously?

What do I mean by that?

I mean that we have no control over our thoughts – they come and they go created via the Principle of Thought as is everything. If that doesn’t make sense to you, ask yourself what you will be thinking in 5 minutes time. You don’t know and neither do I unless I focus all my attention on an affirmation or mantra or something similar and it looks like I am in control, but the moment my focus wanders, I am back to arbitrary thoughts. So in essence we have no control over what we think, ie, the content of our thinking.

**That means we have no control over our feelings.
Now at first glance that can appear scary, but stay with me on this. Once we insightfully understand that our feelings are just an indicator of thought in the moment and have no understanding of us or attachment to us, or our circumstances or the future, then we can relax and accept them for what they are pointing to …………………

The fact THAT we think.

We live in an inside out world where experience is created 100% from the inside out. Our whole experience of the world is a projection rather than a movie. We are not watching passively at a movie that has been created by someone else, but at a projection that has been created by us. You can see a mentor of mine, Michael Neill: http://www.supercoach.com/, speak about this on a Ted talk: http://youtu.be/xr6VawX2nr4

So feeling a lack of confidence is a self created projection. It’s not something real. Of course, this points to our whole experience of life as not being “real”.

So is it really as scary as we experience it to be?

All depends.

We all have free will on some level. When we truly understand how life works – it’s a projection or an illusion as some people call it or a hologram as others describe it. When we are awake to this fact then nothing is impossible and confidence is just another illusion as is lack of confidence.

Most of humanity spends most of it’s time asleep to the fact THAT we think and that our human lives are projections and so we get caught up in the illusion of a lack of self confidence. We are tricked by the illusion because it seems so real. Thank goodness it does because if we didn’t think it was real it would be a very boring experience just as if we went to the movies and we were aware the whole time that it is just a movie and the actors are playing a role and the blood is just tomato ketchup! I find it really helpful if I do get scared watching a movie to remind myself that it’s just a movie, but most of the time I love getting lost in the experience of the movie being real. I can fall in love with certain characters, dislike others, wonder why they aren’t behaving in certain ways, and so on.

So what’s left when we see through the illusion?

Well, since this article has already gone on longer than my norm let me save the rest for next time.

That’s the really cool part – your innate confidence – it’s your birthright and something that awaits you always.