3 Myths About Self-confidence That May be Holding You Back

I’ve spent the last couple days in Seaside Florida with an amazing group of women for a business retreat. Big groups of women can be difficult to navigate, especially if you struggle with self-doubt, comparison, and confidence.

It reminded me how important self-confidence is for how we show up in the world. And it’s something you get from outside yourself, it’s simply the thoughts you decide to think about yourself.

I want to share 3 myths about self-confidence that may be holding you back. As women, we compare ourselves to other people. We have this story in our head that if we were just like her, or if we were better at this, or if I just weighed this or looked like that or had this job. And none of that will give it to you. It’s a gift you give yourself.

And often, Ce often don’t take inventory of what the thoughts are that we have about ourselves, and those thoughts impact our life. Those thoughts you have about yourself become your life.

Myth one: self-confidence is the same as confidence

The first myth is we believe that self-confidence is the same thing as confidence, so we think that we have to have a lot of experience in something in order to be confident in it. Self confidence is just simply your thoughts about yourself, which creates your relationship with yourself.

Here’s what I’ve learned leading and coaching a bunch of amazing women in my Life Mentoring school—we don’t have good thoughts about ourselves. At least most of us don’t.

The scriptures say, “As a man thinks in his heart so is he.”

If you let the negative thoughts about yourself go unsupervised, “I’m no good, I’m not as good as her, I can’t do this,” those thoughts will wreak havoc in your life and you won’t be able to create the life that you want.

For example, I have a lot of confidence when I teach essential oils classes because I’ve taught a million of them.

Self-confidence is different. It’s not based on evidence in my life that I’m good at something. It’s simply knowing that no matter what happens, I can trust myself to feel the negative emotions that come up, even if I don’t do something well. And that is a concept that can change your life.

The reason the thoughts you think about yourself are important is because the way you show up in your life, for the people in your life, very much depends on the way you think about yourself.

If you’ve got a lot of negative self-talk and a lot of junk going on, and you’re not agreeing with God about who you are and whose you are, that is affecting the way you show up. It’s affecting you in a big way, and it’s holding you back. We’re going to talk about some solutions, but the myth is that confidence is the same as self confidence. And it isn’t. It’s very different.

Myth 2: you either have it or you don’t

The second myth is this, you either have it or you don’t. You either have self-confidence or you don’t have self-confidence. And nothing could be further from the truth.

Self-confidence is a skill that you practice, because if you have a lot of negative talk going on in your head about yourself, you’ve got to retrain you brain. You’ve got to be willing to look at those thoughts and say, “Why do I have such negative messages in my head about myself?”

In the past, I had a story in my head about myself that I was scattered and never got anything done. “I have so many ideas but I don’t follow through on them.” And that felt true to me.

But, what happens when I live from that thought?

I show up overwhelmed, not finishing things, feeling overwhelmed and scattered. I make that story come true because my brain likes to be in agreement, so it’ll just make the stories in your head true. You’ll end up acting out what you actually believe about yourself.

Self confidence is not something you just have or don’t have. It’s a skill that you practice.

First of all, take inventory of how you think about yourself and ask yourself, “Does that agree with what God says about me? I’m loved and forgiven and adored. Is the way I’m thinking about myself helping me show up the way I want to?”

Do you think I want to show up scattered and not finishing anything with a million ideas but can’t follow through with any of them? I don’t want to show up like that, so I have to choose to think differently about myself, and when I choose those thoughts carefully, guess what? I show up the way I want to show up. If we are willing to examine our thoughts about ourselves and be aware of them, we can then generate the kind of internal power in our lives that helps us show up in the world exactly the way we want.

Myth 3: Self-confidence means I’m confident that I’m good at things

The third myth about self-confidence is, we think self confidence means, “I’m confident that I’m good at things.” Nope. You know what it means?

I’m confident that I can handle myself and trust myself in hard situations, even when I fail.

I’m confident that I can handle myself in failure. I’m confident that I can handle myself in rejection. I’m confident I can handle my emotions, even the negative ones. I can handle the inevitable disappointment that my life sometimes brings.

And when we decide that we can count on ourselves not to beat ourselves up when we fail or when we’re rejected, everything opens up and becomes possible, because we stop hiding and we stop living in fear.

What do you make disappointment and failure mean? When you fail, do you beat yourself up and think, “Well you dummy, you never were good at anything,” and talk awful to yourself? You wouldn’t talk that way to a friend of yours.

Can you trust yourself with yourself?

Can you trust yourself with your life?

Can you trust yourself with failure?

Can you trust yourself with disappointment?

Self-Confidence means that you become an emotional adult with yourself.

You stop beating yourself up when you fail. You stop beating yourself up when you put yourself out there and you get rejected. You stop making it mean all these awful things.

You learn to trust yourself with yourself.

I promise you, when you get to that point, you really can do anything in your life, because you know you’re NOT going to beat yourself up! You know you’re not going to be mean to yourself. You know that you can trust yourself when things don’t go well, when you don’t do what you thought you would do, and when it doesn’t turn out how you thought it would.

Self-confidence is so much more powerful even than confidence, because confidence depends on external things. Self-confidence depends on you. And you can control you.

Are you strong enough to be kind to yourself when you mess up, when you get rejected, when things don’t turn out, when it didn’t go as planned? Can you really trust yourself with failure? Can you trust yourself with the negative emotions that you sometimes feel instead of making it so dramatic and so awful? Yes, YOU CAN!

Self-confidence is such a beautiful gift that you give yourself and that in turn give everyone around you, because it allows you to show up knowing for everyone else because you’ve already taken care of yourself.

Our thoughts are so powerful.

We need to take every thought captive because remember, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” How are you thinking about yourself? What are your thoughts about yourself? You should examine them. You should make sure they agree and align with scripture.

The scriptures say you are loved and adored and forgiven. Yes, you’re a sinner. Yes, you’re going to screw up. Yes, that’s why you need Jesus. But agree with God about who you are and whose you are. Then have the courage to treat yourself well even when things don’t go the way you think they should, even when you fail, even when you get rejected.

If you haven’t yet, go get on the waiting list for my coaching program, Life Mentoring School, where we help women get unstuck, rewrite their stories, and create the life they want!