blog > a confidence exercise
This is a simple confidence exercise. Use it as often 🙂
Need a confidence boost? Anytime anywhere?
One of the three pillars of confidence is accomplishments. They give us a body of evidence that shows we’re capable. Capable of overcoming challenges and difficult times and succeeding despite the circumstances. You may not think you’ve done much but I’m here to prove you wrong. Do this:
Write down a list of everything you’ve ever done. All the high school course you’ve taken, all the exams you took, the fact that you graduated. If you did sports, add them. If you took AP classes, add them. If you did any extra curricular activities, add them.
Do the same for college. Did you complete labs? Add them. Were you part of student council or any other organizations? Add them. Did you do any presentations? Sports? Volunteering? Add everything.
Maybe you didn’t go to college. You had to start taking care of yourself (and perhaps others) righ out of high school. Add everything you did to survive/succeed.
Move onto your professional life. Write down all the jobs you’ve been hired for. All the raises and promotions. All the large projects you’ve completed. Any recognition(s) for a job well done? Add them.
Look back on your personal life. Write down all the hard times and trauma you’ve made it through. All the good things you’ve done, friends and strangers you’ve helped. Have you volunteered anywhere? Add it.
Add everything.
You should end up with a pretty long list.
Now here’s the trick: we’re terrible at valuing our own accomplishments. We can look at many things on our list and say “well, this isn’t a big deal, it’s not really an accomplishment”. But hang on – if you took an item off your list and then looked around at all the people who have done this thing, wouldn’t you feel like they’re more accomplished? Why give them credit for doing it but not yourself? Give yourself the credit. It’s a legit accomplishment.
From now on whenever your confidence is low, remind yourself (or look at) your list. You ARE capable. You CAN do it. The evidence says so and it doesn’t matter what you think or how you feel. You can’t argue with reality.
Enjoy your new confidence boost. Oh and by the way, it’s not just a temporary boost. It’s there always and forever. Because the things you’ve accomplished can never be taken away from you. Do this confidence exercise as often as needed for as long as needed 🙂