By Jeremy Godwin
What is self-confidence? What is the difference between confidence and arrogance? And how can you stop feeling bad about yourself and become a lot more confident?
That’s what I’m talking about this week here on… Let’s Talk About Mental Health — the weekly podcast about looking after your wellbeing, with simple ideas you can put into practice immediately. So, get comfortable, and Let’s Talk About Mental Health…
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This podcast episode was originally released on 12 February, 2023.
Hello and welcome to Episode 166, and thanks so much for joining me as I talk about self-confidence and mental health!
I’m Jeremy Godwin and I help you improve your mental health, with simple tips you can put into practice immediately. All of my episodes are based on both quality research and my own personal experience of learning how to live with anxiety and depression following a breakdown in late 2011. Each week I look at how to improve one specific aspect of your wellbeing.
In this episode I’ll be talking about what self-confidence is, why a healthy approach to confidence matters, and how to build and maintain your self-confidence. So, let’s talk about self-confidence!
Introduction
In 2015, Demi Lovato asked us “What’s wrong with being confident?” and the answer is: absolutely nothing, Demi, provided we’re talking about healthy self confidence rather than cockiness and arrogance, of course, since they tend to irritate people a fair bit!
Do a search on the Googlematron for the term “how to be more confident” and you’re going to be inundated with lots and lots of articles, many of them written by shouty professional speakers who will encourage you to work on your body language and to ‘just believe in yourself’… and while I don’t completely disagree with them (because self-belief plays a huge role in having healthy self-confidence), I also don’t particularly agree either. Why? Well, aside from the fact that I’m not a big fan of shouty-ness or over-the-top presenting styles, I feel like self-confidence is one of those things that involves a lot of layers and it’s more about building your self-awareness in order to address the root cause (or causes) of whatever might be eating away at your self-confidence and self-belief, rather than simply forcing yourself to slap on a grin and push through those unpleasant feelings in the hope that one day you might wake up with a completely different personality. You won’t, by the way. No amount of pretending to be something or someone that you’re not will actually change the person that you are; only time, effort and perseverance can do that, and that involves learning who you are — and who you are not — in order to work with your strengths and either improve or work around your challenges.
When you apply that idea to your self-confidence, that means digging deep and doing the work so that you can address the stuff that stands in the way of you being more confident and believing in yourself. I’ll talk about how to do that in a little bit, but first I should probably take a step back and make sure we’re all on the same page about the topic at hand; so, let’s go through some definitions and let’s talk about…
What is self-confidence?
And the Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a feeling of trust in [your own] abilities, qualities, and judgement.” So, what we’re talking about here are all the good feelings that we hopefully have about ourselves like feeling positive about your abilities and who you are as a person, being self assured, knowing that you can rely on yourself to get things done, etc.
Self-confidence is similar to self-esteem, which I talked about back in Episode 43, however they have some slight differences; according to the University of Queensland (and I quote):
“Self-esteem refers to whether you appreciate and value yourself. Your self-esteem develops and changes as a result of your life experiences and interactions with other people… [whereas] Self-confidence is your belief in yourself and your abilities. This can change depending on the situation. It’s normal to feel quite confident in some circumstances and less confident in others. A healthy amount of self-esteem is necessary to have the self-confidence to meet life’s challenges and participate in things you find enjoyable and rewarding.”
And I’ll leave a link to that article in the transcript, which you can read for free at letstalkaboutmentalhealth.com.au/episodes in English, Spanish and Portuguese (just a reminder that it’s no longer available in Italian). [find it here]
So, I feel like the simplest way to look at it is this: self-confidence is about how you engage with the world, whereas self-esteem is more internal and focused on your relationship with yourself. Make sense?
Having self-confidence describes the feeling when you believe in your capabilities and when you trust that you can handle whatever task or situation might come your way. It’s when you feel good about yourself and have a positive attitude about who you are as a person and where you fit into in the world. Self-confidence helps you to take on new challenges and not be afraid of making mistakes, because you believe in your ability to at least give it a try and aren’t held back by what other people may think. It plays a very important role in your ability to feel good emotionally and it can have a huge impact on your life, both in terms of your personal life and your professional one. Consider it as the fuel that keeps you going and which enables you to feel good about what you do and how you do it.
I think, if I could boil it down to one song lyric (and you know I’m going to try, because that’s what I do here on Let’s Talk About Mental Health!), it would have to be Lizzo singing, “Baby how you feelin’? Feeling good as hell…” (I mean, the hair toss and nail check are completely optional so I’ll leave that with you to decide on!). When you feel confident about yourself you feel good as hell, because you know who you are, who you are not, what your strengths are and, most importantly, what your challenges and development opportunities are… because you know that nobody is perfect and you’re OK with that, which means you don’t put pressure on yourself to try and be completely flawless. That then allows you to be kinder to yourself and to be more authentic, because you’re able to fully accept yourself — flaws and all — and still know that you are the shit and nobody can tell you otherwise! Which, by the way, you are!
Confidence is one of those things that I think we can tend to take for granted when it’s there, but when we’re not feeling it we can really notice its absence. I feel like, generally speaking, we all have a thing or two where we don’t really feel the most confident; mine are anything sports-related (because I tend to be quite clumsy, plus I’m not exactly slim so I don’t need to deliberately make my body jiggle in public) and I’m also not great at anything related to maths; I can do quick sums and percentages in my head, but anything beyond that and my eyes glaze over and all I hear is white noise. But enough about me and my issues… for now, anyway!
So, moving on, let’s talk about…
Why a healthy approach to confidence matters
And it matters because if you don’t feel particularly confident in yourself and your abilities, it’s going to be tough to find the emotional energy you need to do things! Plus, and let’s just be really honest here, you’re probably going to feel like crap about yourself… which is definitely not good for your mental health. I mean, I’m not saying you have to have the kind of social media influencer level of self-confidence where you’ll happily pose in your underwear in the middle of a street during a snowstorm, because that’s taking ‘confidence’ more into the realm of ‘what the hell?!’, but a healthy amount of confidence is necessary to be able to go about your day-to-day business and to make your way through the world.
So what is healthy self-confidence? It’s about having a balanced view of yourself, which means knowing what you’re capable of and what your strengths are, and taking pride in that, while also being able to see that you are not perfect and being humble enough to admit you don’t know everything. And it doesn’t matter what you look like, because confident people know that beautiful bodies come in all shapes and sizes. Think of it this way: it’s like knowing that you are not shit, but that you are the shit, but not being so deluded to think that you are hot shit and nobody is as good as you!
Self-confidence is important because it helps you to take calculated risks and to try new things; I mean, I would never have started this podcast if I hadn’t have believed in my abilities, knowledge and experience, and if I hadn’t have been confident enough to take a risk. Fear might seem like it’s trying to keep us safe, but for the most part all it’s doing is holding us back from trying new things in order to grow.
When you have healthy self-confidence, you’re much more likely to speak up for yourself in a kind-yet-assertive way, to set goals for yourself, and to go after what you want out of life. It also helps you to bounce back from failure or setbacks, instead of just giving up at the first sign of trouble.
Having self-confidence can also improve your relationships and the way you communicate with other people, because it allows you to express yourself and assert your boundaries. It can also help you to make better decisions, because it means that you’re more likely to trust your own abilities and judgment.
On top of that, self-confidence can help to boost your mental health and wellbeing, because it helps you to accept yourself and have a much more positive outlook on life. People with healthy levels of confidence tend to have better self-esteem and a more positive outlook, and they’re more often resilient in the face of stress and more likely to seek out help when they need it. They also tend to be more successful in achieving their goals and feel more in control of their lives.
OK, so before we go any further we need to have a conversation about the idea of ‘fake it until you make it’ which is an idea that is both helpful and problematic, depending on the context. Here’s why. There’s evidence to suggest that self-belief, positive visualisation and even ‘tricking’ yourself (like forcing yourself to smile, which can actually help to improve your mood funnily enough!) can all be positive (and I’ll include a link to an article from PsychCentral in the transcript which talks about the neuroscience aspect of this if you’re interested in being a psychology nerd like me!). However, the other side of that is the danger associated with convincing yourself that you can do something that you obviously can’t do, not to mention the ethical and moral implications of lying about your abilities (I mean, if you’re going to say in your CV that you can operate a nuclear power plant then you damn well better be able to or we’re all in trouble when you turn up for work on your first day!). There’s a huge difference between faking confidence (which can be a good thing, in that it can help you to get started) versus faking competence (because you either can do something or you cannot; it’s just not healthy or ethical to pretend you can if you can’t!).
Because I can be a bit of a language geek sometimes, I can’t go past this random little fact: the term ‘to con someone’ and its variations are fairly commonly used in English, however did you know that the word ‘con’ comes from a term used in America in the late 1800’s which was ‘confidence trick’, which meant tricking or cheating someone by gaining their trust and persuading them to believe something that is not true. This, for me, is why the whole ‘fake it ’til you make it’ thing is problematic: because often we end up with people in positions of responsibility and influence who aren’t qualified or who have outright-lied to get there. It’s like when you see yet another ‘influencer’ on social media telling you they have a course or an eBook which will completely revolutionise the way you do things in a particular area or niche, and then you buy it and see that they’re just regurgitating the same tired old tips that everyone else is sharing (but this time with a different font!)
Speaking of social media, it’s something I regularly point a finger at on this podcast because you can potentially find your self-confidence and self-esteem plummeting if you’re not mindful about how you’re approaching platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Let’s be completely honest here: very few people are sharing their failures and difficulties online, and most of social media is full of the highlight reels of beautiful people who don’t seem to have to work for a living and who never get a pimple. It’s the reason why Celeste Barber just happens to be one of my absolute favourite Instagram accounts; if you don’t know her, she’s an Australian comedian who gently pokes fun at the beauty and influencer industry by remaking celebrity’s videos in all of her 40-year-old glory, wibbly-wobbly bits and all. I absolutely love Celeste because she’s funny but never cruel, and it seems like almost a badge of honour for most celebrities (at least the ones with a sense of humour) to be impersonated by her. And do you know what makes her stand out? Her authenticity and her confidence. She’s honest and she’s funny, and she knows it. It’s a refreshing change on social media, where so much of what we see is either stage-managed to the umpteenth degree or just outright fake; maybe it’s just me, but I’ll take honesty and genuine confidence over the manufactured stuff any day.
So, what influences your self-confidence? Well, it’s a number of different factors including how you perceive yourself and how capable you believe you are, your level of belief in your ability to achieve specific tasks or goals, your past experiences, your emotional state, feedback and validation from others (especially those who have an important and influential role in your life, like your partner, family, or boss), your sense of self-worth and self-esteem, and social or cultural norms and expectations (which will be influenced by where you live, how you were raised, the people you associate with, etc.).
It’s important to note that your confidence can fluctuate and sometimes it might be lower due to external factors like stress, difficult situations, or life changes. With that in mind, being proactive about building and maintaining your self-confidence is really important because, as I say at least a hundred times a month on this show, prevention is better than cure… which simply means it’s much easier to look after yourself on a daily basis rather than trying to fix things when you’re dealing with a major problem (it’s the reason why we’re encouraged to exercise regularly or to do regular maintenance on our houses, rather than waiting until there’s a problem which will then be tougher to fix).
So how do you do all of that? Well, let’s get into the how-to part of today’s episode and let’s talk about…
How to build and maintain your self-confidence
OK, so my first tip is to start with self awareness — because in order to know yourself, you have to actually get to know yourself! Self-awareness is all about understanding your thoughts and feelings more, and being able to see how your actions affect both other people and yourself. It’s a big topic to get into (and in fact I covered it in its own episode, which was Episode 62, so you might find it helpful to check that out after this one) but basically the simplest approach to start with is reflection and mindfulness; I’ll come back to mindfulness in a minute, but reflection is as straightforward as taking a few minutes at the end of each day to think about what went well and what maybe didn’t go so well, and then to consider what you can learn from those experiences to help you grow. And I think it also helps to be very clear about what kind of person you want to be (as well as what kind of person you don’t want to be) and then you can reflect on that list each day in order to objectively assess how you went; rather than beating yourself up if you fail, the focus here is about being able to gently see your opportunities for development and personal growth and then actually doing something to develop and grow. Here’s the thing: we all have blind spots when it comes to ourselves, whether that’s because we just don’t know about some aspect of ourselves or because we don’t want to know, so reflection and self-awareness can be confronting sometimes… but the more you do it, the better you’ll feel about who you are and who you’re becoming (because it allows you to keep the best of who you are while also actively improving the stuff that might be unhealthy or destructive). OK, next…
Work on your self acceptance — because it’s one thing to be aware of who you are, warts and all, but it’s another thing entirely to show yourself kindness, understanding and acceptance! Do you know why I make this point? Mainly it’s because so many of us spend most of our lives at war with ourselves, being overly-critical and incredibly harsh and even becoming a bully towards ourselves, and that just takes you further and further away from the sort of kindness to yourself that is necessary for good mental health. You are not perfect, you make mistakes, you don’t know everything and you’ll never be right 100% of the time… and yet you are still a fantastic, loveable and valuable human being in spite of all of those facts. So, you need to act like it in the way you treat yourself! I talked about how to do that in Episode 154 about self-acceptance, so check that out for more on the topic. OK, next…
Be authentic — and by that I mean to (a) be honest with yourself about who you are, and live your truth, and (b) present the real you to the world, rather than a carefully-manicured and manufactured version based on what you think the world wants to see. In other words, don’t just present your highlight reel to the world because that isn’t the truth of who you are! I know how much pressure there can be to feel like you have to change who you are in order to fit in, but I promise you that there are other people who will like you for you… and anybody who doesn’t like you for you can go to hell, quite frankly! Other people’s opinions should never hold you back from being true to yourself. And, by the way, I covered authenticity back in Episode 55. OK, next…
Be assertive — which basically means to say what you mean and mean what you say! Assertiveness is a way of confidently and clearly communicating what you need and want, as well as what you don’t want, in a kind and thoughtful way but without apology; you have the right to decide what you will and will not accept in your life, and provided you’re not being harmful or cruel about what you expect and how you communicate it then it’s nobody else’s business. Speak up for yourself, express your thoughts and feelings, and don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. Assertiveness is a recurring theme in my podcast, because it’s very much about being true to yourself (which helps you to feel much more confident) and I talked about it back in Episode 45. OK, so my next point is…
Practice positive self-talk — instead of being hard on yourself, try to focus on your strengths and accomplishments; this is one of those times where I find myself saying yet again to stop being your own bully, because so often we say things to ourselves that we would hopefully never say out loud to another person! I covered self talk all the way back in Episode 9 plus I also covered body image recently in Episode 136 which may also be helpful if you tend to be hypercritical about the way you look. OK, next…
Practice mindfulness — practices like meditation or yoga can help to improve self-awareness and self-acceptance, which can boost your self-confidence. I find just a few minutes a day of consciously being present is the simplest way to do this, which I usually do by sitting on my back step with a tea or coffee while I watch the clouds pass in the sky; it really doesn’t have to be complicated, and it helps to ground you in the present moment. Next…
Try new things — because taking on new challenges, whether they’re big or small, can help you to build your self-confidence as you learn and grow, plus the whole process of going from novice to expert can do wonders for your sense of self-esteem and self-confidence! OK, next…
Surround yourself with positive people — and I probably don’t need to say this but I will anyway: being around negative people doesn’t tend to fill you with positive vibes or make you feel good about yourself, does it? Instead of spending your time with people who drag you down, instead find people who support you and believe in you which, over time, will help to improve your self-confidence. Speaking of time, my next tip is…
Give yourself time — because it’s important to remember that building self-confidence takes time, and it’s not something that can be achieved overnight or because you watched a video online full of ’10 easy self confidence hacks’ (most of which are probably terrible, by the way, or at the very least they probably involve a lot more work than the person sharing them claims they will!). All things take time, and that’s OK; patience is one of the most important life lessons you’ll ever learn. The thing is to be kind to yourself, be patient and keep working on it. And speaking of time, I have to say that part of the whole self-confidence thing is that it becomes easier with age; that’s not to say that it’s actually easier (because it’s not), but what I mean is that the older we are the more we tend to have a strong sense of who we are and who we are not… and the less we tend to worry about what other people think about us. So, it turns out there are some benefits to getting older after all (and I’ll remind myself of that fact the next time I make an involuntary noise when I get up out of a chair, which apparently a thing I do now!). OK, next…
Take care of yourself — eating well, getting enough sleep, and exercising can all help to improve your physical and mental well-being, which in turn can boost your self-confidence. That also goes for looking after your physical appearance, in other words, dressing well and taking care of your appearance. When you look good, you feel good… and that can boost your self-confidence.
Summary and Close-Out
Because when it comes to self confidence and mental health, what it all boils down to is this: Your relationship with yourself is the longest and most important one you’re going to have in your life, and if you don’t feel great about yourself then it’s going to be difficult to find joy and satisfaction! The goal here is to become your own biggest cheerleader by focusing on your strengths while also giving yourself the space and time to grow and evolve. Remember that self-confidence is something that can definitely be improved with time and effort, and it’s important to be kind to yourself along the way and not to give up. Building self-confidence is a process, and it’s different for everyone, so try different methods and see what works best for you.
The choice is yours, as it is with all things related to your wellbeing… so, what choice will YOU make today?
Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the week’s topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you. This week’s quote is by an unknown author, and it is:
“Once you start to believe in yourself, magic starts happening.”
Unknown
Alright… that’s nearly it for this week.
Next time I’ll be talking about self harm. In this episode I talked a lot about not bullying yourself, because it’s harmful, and so it’s probably about time that we had an honest conversation about the ways that we do harm to ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally… and I warn you now that it will be a tough conversation but one that we need to have. So, next time I’ll be talking about what self harm is, why addressing it matters, and how to stop causing yourself harm.
I hope you’ll join me for that episode which will be released on Sunday the 19th of February, 2023.
You can find more practical tips to improve your mental health in my latest book Life Advice That Doesn’t Suck! and in my recent book, Let’s Talk About Mental Health (Volume One) which are both available from Amazon and Apple Books, and sign up for my free newsletter Thursday Thoughts at letstalkaboutmentalhealth.com.au for a weekly dose of inspiration. Plus, join me on Patreon for exclusive extra content and benefits, including early access to episodes; those are all linked in the episode description.
And you can find me on Instagram @ltamentalhealth for bonus content. Plus, check out my other account, @itsjeremygodwin, where I post daily tips for better mental health.
Thank you very much for joining me today — look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness in the world, because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!
Jeremy 🙂
Let’s Talk About Mental Health is an independent program proudly produced by Reconnaissance Media, helping you find gratitude and meaning. For more information visit reconnaissancemedia.com
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Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Simple ideas for better mental health.
Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2023 Jeremy Godwin.
The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or a mental health professional if you are struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.
