2 Keys To Boosting Your Inner Confidence

Over my years of coaching, one of the biggest things I’ve learnt – both for myself and for my clients – is that once we boost our inner confidence, nothing stands in our way.

You may hear of all kinds of strategies, ways of thinking, patterns of behaviour and practical tips for improving your life and feeling better about yourself, however if your deep ways of thinking keep pulling you down, these shifts don’t last long. They act as bandaids, temporarily boosting confidence, however it isn’t until you access the foundation, that is, the real you, the you that you know deep down you are.

In my experience there are 2 keys to boosting your inner confidence.

1. Get To Know Your Values

Personal values are a big passion of mine and I often refer to them in my posts. They are one of the most important things you can know about yourself and are vital in getting genuine inner confidence. Your values lie deep within you, right at the very core of who you are; and they’re the building blocks, the foundations and cornerstones for you. A value is something that is of importance to you, and could include things like family, fun, nature, achievement or freedom.

When you get to know your values, you can start to make choices and align your life around them. It took me a while to work mine out and start living by them daily. It feels amazing when you do because you are allowing who you are to live in the real world. 

2. Exercise the Muscle

Confidence is a muscle, and like any muscle you need to exercise it so that it doesn’t shrink and waste away. The problem is that unlike your biceps or glutes, which tend to stay in the same place, your confidence muscle can be harder to find. How do you develop your biceps or firm up your glutes? By doing exercises that are designed to work that muscle over a period of time until you see the results you were looking for.

It’s just the same with confidence. Let’s say that you’re the kind of person that doesn’t take many risks, the kind of person who goes through each day doing what needs to be done and doing it well, but not really stretching yourself. You might talk yourself out of doing something because it’s too scary or because you think to yourself ‘I’m not good enough,’ ‘that’s not who I am’ or ‘I don’t really want it anyway.’ That kind of person lives within what they know and what keeps them safe and comfortable. The fewer risks they take, the less confident they need to be and so the less confident they become.

To work your confidence muscle you need to be prepared to take risks – big or small. You need to be willing to stretch yourself in an unfamiliar direction, to try something new or try something in a slightly different way. You need to open yourself up to the possibilities around you and push yourself to increase what you know, what you do and who you are. The more open you are to risk, opportunity and possibility the more confident you need to be, and so the more confidence you’ll develop. That’s your confidence muscle.

Where can you stretch yourself and exercise your confidence muscle?

Speaking on video has been something that I have been so scared to do. My action values are to encourage and inspire people as well as to be vulnerable. Aligning myself with these values has helped me take action and share my experience as an Olympic Althlete and Life Coach. I am consistently exercising my confidence muscle by posting videos 3 times a week.

For some inspiring videos visit my Facebook –
https://www.facebook.com/annabaylislifecoach
or YouTube –
https://www.youtube.com/@annabaylis3867/