Confidence drives the ability to disregard external opinions and focus on personal aspirations, yet pervasive self-doubt and societal standards plague the masses, robbing them of their potential.
Take embarking on sobriety as an example: the moment you consider making this incredibly positive lifestyle choice, concerns about societal judgment flood in.
Most people struggle to stay sober not because of their inability to stop drinking, but their inability to manage the emotional strain tied to their goal.
Envy.
Anger.
Self-doubt.
Embarrassment.
Daily thoughts and responsibilities that have nothing to do with drinking (like demanding work schedules, sick parents, and heartbreak) burden us further.
Cultivating self-assurance amidst such challenges is daunting.
Our modern world, abundant with choices, can transform confidence into triumph or anxiety into defeat.
How can we navigate this landscape and nurture the trust within ourselves necessary for genuine confidence?
The Roadmap to Confidence: Follow These Steps
Our blanket understanding of confidence is that it comes when we are good at something.
This is where the infamous advice “fake it ‘til you make it” comes from, yet it doesn't provide the depth needed for real change.
When I started posting on Instagram to promote my life coaching business 10 years ago, I wasn’t confident enough in my coaching services to authentically promote it.
I faked confidence by practicing writing about my services online. Inviting people to coaching calls, webinars, etc.
What I was practicing was self-promotion – not confidence.
As a result, I got better at self-promotion and people signed up for my services, but my self-confidence remained low and self-doubt eventually caused me to stop coaching altogether even though I was experiencing financial success for myself and transformationsional success for my cleitns.
To exponentially transform your life, it's 10x faster to learn and operate from the skill of confidence than to stumble in self-doubt as you attempt to master other skills.
Let's delve deeper into the four pillars of self-confidence:
1. Framing:
Confidence is a skill that stems from something surprising: constraint.
Refrain from getting stuck in past events, problems, or perceived failures (in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT, this is known as rumination) and you will find that confidence naturally exists underneath the layers of anxiety, fear, and doubt that you’re so used to fueling.
Instead: pause, zoom out, and shift perspectives.
We have the tendency to play the victim and think the situation we’re in must only be hard for us, forgetting that every single person around us is equally human.
Super models feel self-conscious about their bodies.
Millionaires feel uncertain when taking financial risks.
The only difference between them and you is they don’t ruminate in these low-level frequencies. They practice the skill of confidence by containing their fearful thinking and framing their perspective to one that motivated them to move forward with their pursuits.
People much less intelligent and with far fewer resources have already succeeded at what you consider your pipe-dreams.
You can do anything.
Confidence is about constraining your perspective (your world-view, beliefs, and overall outlook) to a positive frame.
2. Interpretation:
Actions are molded by how situations are perceived, how you interpret the world around you.
When you enter into an unfamiliar situation you can expect anxiety to spike because your brain has no positive experience with the situation to draw from.
What’s more, as a survival mechanism, our brain will scan our environment for threats and ready itself for a worst-case scenario. In CBT this is known as catastrophic thinking, or catastrophizing.
Keep an open mind to spot opportunities. Look for the miracles instead of the threats.
If you are scrolling social media and don’t perceive a life coach's tweet as an opportunity to reach out and get the help you desire, you won’t reach out.
If you do see it as an opportunity, you may still not send a message because you misperceive the coach as being salesy.
Maybe you send an awkward message that initiates a deeper connection and radically transforms your life.
Are your interpretations of the world opening doors for you or slamming them in your face?
Your perception of others and your self-presentation hold significance.
Subconsciously we know the way we dress and the energy we emit from other people's perceptions of us.
I’m as introverted as they come, but people often tell me how confident I appear based on the way I dress, walk, and talk.
Cultivate confident behavior and appearance through practicing positive interpretations of yourself and others.
3. Mastery:
In my competitive swimming days, we were placed into different swimming lanes for practice based on our skill levels (speed, endurance, strength, etc).
You start in the “slow lane” which means you start where your current ability is and work your way into the “faster lanes” when your speed, endurance, and strength are built to sustain your practice there.
I always had speed but couldn’t last 15 minutes in the “fast” lane because my endurance sucked. I trained for hours (and hours and years) to build endurance and eventually found my way into the “fast lane.”
Transforming your life involves acquiring and refining skills.
Start at your current level and acquire necessary skills to progress.
Each skill attained enriches your toolkit. Continuous learning and skill-building are vital for advancement.
You don’t have to “fake it” in the fast lane to “make it” to the fast lane. Rather, you have to be honest with yourself about the skills that need work… and then do the work.
The key point here:
You can be confident in your ability to practice a skill to mastery without being a master of the skill in the present moment.
Mastery is about confidence and commitment before it becomes about competence.
4. Honesty:
Honesty in action is the art of staying true to your desires in each moment without being swayed by external influences.
When I started my life coaching business and began helping women overcome their emotional eating, I shared my personal story of my past struggle with an eating disorder.
My mother was horrified. She didn’t think it was professional to air my suffering, as if the humanness of my human experience was dirty laundry.
With my mother’s limiting beliefs front and center in my mind, I had to convince myself that my story and experiences had a purpose in order to embrace my uniqueness and resist conforming to her opinion.
Make no mistake: confidence through honesty is a mental game.
You must play it daily.
The Unconventional Yet 100% Genuine Path to Confidence
Sobriety is inherent in your nature.
You are here to embark on new challenges, resist settling, broaden your perspective through self-improvement, and gain feedback on your societal contribution – which transcends “fitting in” for the sake of belonging.
I talk more about unraveling the confusing links between drinking and happiness in the letter Why It Feels Impossible to Stop Drinking Forever (and Why You Don’t Have To).
Sobriety is required for creation.
Being a creator is the art of channeling your divine gift through your unique human form.
Harsh truth: it is not natural human form to be intoxicated with poison.
But it is the seemingly “easier” path to have a few beers and blend in.
To transcend self-doubt and stand in genuine confidence, you must avoid being confined to a situation where challenges vanish.
Stagnation leads to psychological distress, despite the social success and belonging you feel surrounded by and safe in.
Sobriety is the unconventional yet 100% genuine path to confidence for these reasons:
1. It necessitates constant evolution or risk stagnation.
Most people stagnate by 25, adhering to societal norms. They settle into comfort, becoming docile and unthreatening to societal norms.
To thrive in an ever-changing world, sobriety ensures you keep pace if you persist till success.
2. It demands expertise in life skills that everyone admires.
Mediocre understanding yields mediocre results and mediocre influence.
People are easily influenced by leaders who have a lot of:
Money
Security
Followers
But influence shouldn’t equal admiration.
What people actually admire is a leader who has a lot of:
Humility
Boundaries
Transformation
Understanding your inherent confidence and value and worth, distinct from mere knowledge, is an upward expansion of consciousness.
Know about the concept of boundaries but don’t practice them
Drink to fit in or feel better about themselves, not because they want to drink
Throw around the term “people-pleaser” without doing a damn thing to change the patterns that keep them stuck in those behaviors
Theory minus practice equals failure. Daily education coupled with execution is paramount.
3. It requires commitment in order to produce results.
Value is intrinsic to results.
Lack of results signifies room for improvement, not quitting.
Value evolves over time.
Sobriety fosters self-development into a tangible asset in reality: value.
4. It insists on initial failure for eventual improvement.
Fear of failure paralyzes dreams.
Here’s the antidote: expect to struggle initially.
You’ll awkwardly stumble through some social events.
A loved one may challenge your choices and trigger the shit out of you.
You may even drink over it, or perhaps just slam a door in their face like a stubborn 13-year-old going through puberty.
Overcoming initial obstacles leads to rapid progress.
If you’re committed to being honest with yourself (and another person) about how you’re reacting to life, harsh truths will be revealed and lead to exponential transformation.
5. It necessitates revising work, rest, and leisure habits.
Evolving to the next level demands altering your character. Settling impedes growth.
“Drinking is self-care” (yes I have had people tell me this) is utter bullshit. Connecting with another human is self-care. Turning off work is self-care. But drinking… that’s utter delusion.
Stop drinking for 90 days and you’ll agree with me.
6. It demands psychological skills for self-understanding.
Emotional intelligence and self-trust form sober success' foundation.
In today's era, confidence lies not in how many people follow you but by how you feel about yourself when no one is watching.
Living a life that you love so much that the thought of a drink never crosses your mind requires deep self-understanding of your emotions and the ability to respond to them in an adaptable, not self-sabotaging way.
Delivering value to yourself in every moment so that there is no void or lack in your experiences, even the most challenging emotional ones, is the epitome of confidence.
The Rationale Behind Practicing Sobriety for Confidence Growth is Simple
If you’ve needed a nudge to change your drinking habits. Consider this your gentle push.
Here’s what you might encounter:
1. Initial challenges: This happens in any endeavor, not just sobriety. Don't let the unfamiliarity of sobriety intimidate you and, as a result, you’ll gain a transformational skillset.
2. Immediate feedback: You can’t be half-way sober. You will be forced to see what works and what doesn’t work.
3. Self-trust: earning self-trust requires offering genuine value to yourself. If you can’t currently trust yourself then being on the sober path is the right path for you because it will force you to begin exploring how to add value to your life.
Keep it simple, smartie.
Embrace building confidence as a lifelong skill.
Thanks for reading.
Jenna
