self-confidence can only be achieved by facing your fears

 Self-confidence is the belief you have in yourself, the ability to trust in your abilities; gradually building up self-esteem. Self-confidence is a slow process which we learn to utilize our fears – no one truly overcomes fear, instead we learn to control it (topic for another post).  Self-confidence is built by exposure to daily struggles and difficulties, these difficulties shapes us to our much-more matured self-i.e. the confident version of ourselves – moving from your naïve self-1.0, to your confident self-2.0. Self-confidence leads to mental growth, which in turn boosts your self-esteem.

While fear on the other hand, is an emotional threat of what’s known and sometimes unknown to us. As humans, fear is inevitable but we shouldn’t let the fear control us. Fear is like a brick wall standing between us and being confident, the only way to get to being confident is through the brick wall (fear). It’s like hitting the nail on the head knowing fully well that it may just strike your fingers – the fear of striking your fingers must first be overcome before you can actually hit the nail confidently.

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The process of facing your fears is called exposure. Exposure is gradually and repeatedly going through feared situations until you feel less anxious. Exposure is not dangerous and won’t make the fear worsen, instead it gives you a sense of believe in yourself, boosting your confidence from zero to a certain increased amount. 

Doing something for the first time comes with a certain amount of fear, don’t wait until the fear is gone – the easiest way to gain confidence is, well….just do it. As Lee Ann Womack says, “When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, choose to dance. The single most important thing you can do to build self-confidence, is to go ahead and do what you fear.” Take risk and set out to do what your heart desires, if your heart wants something, no fear should stop you.

One of the best ways to build self-confidence is by accumulating and overcoming challenges. Many people think they’re confident because of their accomplishments, whereas, in real sense there are confident because of the obstacles they overcame before accomplishing those said goals.

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Self-confidence is an overall mindset about your ability in all areas of life that matters to you. Let’s say you’re confident in football, you have played football your whole life and at the same time, you’re very good at it. That doesn’t mean, “You won’t make mistakes or you’re better than everyone else on the field.” It simply means, “You know how to handle pretty much everything on the field.” The constant practice of feared activities gives us experience which raises our self-confidence.

No matter how powerless you feel in moments of fear, you can still break free and build confidence. Fear is only a learned habit, which can also be unlearned. Sometimes it’s rational, like knowing you shouldn’t touch fire because you’ve been burnt before. Other times it isn’t rational, such as being afraid to start a conversation with new people, even though you’ve done it several times.

Without fear we would have no opportunity to develop courage and test our abilities, without fear we wouldn’t care about protecting ourselves and other people. Fearlessness means mastering your fear. Instead of getting knocked down once and staying down, it means you keep getting back up. The more often you face your fears, the less control they have over you.

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