Habits that destroy your confidence.
Confidence dictates performance, enjoyment and fulfilment.
Here’s nine common habits that drain your confidence if left unchecked.
Think about a time when you were confident. What were you doing? Who were you with? How did you feel before and after? Now think of a time when you weren’t as confident.
We often focus on how to build more confidence and the different techniques for that. But what about the habits that are destroying it? They are just as, if not more important. If you don’t notice & overcome those negative habits, you’re confidence can become fragile and collapse.
As you read through these nine habits, become aware of how they resonate with you and what you can do to overcome them.
1. Comparing to others.
You can’t compare you’re step one to someone else’s step twenty. Or your performance in your unique environment to someone else’s. Yes, it’s important to being honest with yourself about how you’re doing. But don’t use others as ammunition to punish yourself, use them as inspiration to keep growing.
2. Complaining.
Complaining takes agency away from your and puts the responsibility into the environment. When you complain you are asking for someone else to take ownership of the problem to fix it. Notice the problem and decide if it’s worth solving and what your first step will be.
3. Perfectionism.
Don’t let trying to be great get in the way of producing something good. Always bias towards action and strive for continuous improvement. Outside exams, perfection does not exist - there is very rarely one correct answer.
4. Negative self talk.
The stories you tell yourself determine your reality. Your brain listens to those stories, takes them as truth and responds accordingly. A common example, is telling yourself that the situation is nerve-wracking leading to the fight-flight-freeze response.
5. Negative Visualisation.
When you imagine all the things that can go wrong - you behave in ways that make them likely to go wrong. When driving and trying to avoid a collision - people who look at what they’re trying to avoid tend to crash. Those who look at the gap make it through. Start looking at the gap.
6. Suppressing emotions.
Avoiding your emotions doesn’t make them go away. They build up below the surface and become more difficult to control, leading to outbursts. Learning to speak the language of your mind & body is one of the most powerful things you can do.
7. Saying yes to everything.
Taking opportunities is a wonderful trait to have. But saying yes to everything, leads to burnout and emptiness. Decide whether an opportunity is worth taking. Does it align with your values? Do you have the energy? Is the potential upside worth your time?
8. Regularly giving into fear.
Giving into fear gives your impulses ownership over you. Learn to become comfortable being brave & vulnerable. Both of these are challenging but one has so much more potential - choose your challenge.
9. Not keeping the promises you make to yourself.
Building on the above, when you don’t follow through on the promises you make to yourself - you are giving into your impulses. You start to trust yourself less and this destroys your confidence. Build the trust in yourself, give yourself permission to try & fail and keep growing.
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