How To Build Real Confidence & Self Esteem
Having the confidence to do absolutely anything you put your mind to is one of the most underrated qualities that one can possess.
Confidence carries you on whenever the outside world is giving you every reason to give up and call it quits.
When it comes to entrepreneurship and the hardships that come along with it, confidence becomes doubly important.
But even why some people seem to have no trouble with being themselves and confidently going after what they want while others…don’t?
Let’s dive in and answer each one of these.
What Does It Mean To Be Confident?
Being confident can mean different things to many people as it is a subjective experience, but regardless of the various ways it can be described, the common factor is a sense of conviction and assurance in oneself to the point where they are able to express themselves fully and make decisions without personality inhibitions.
It feels like a deep sense of trust and certainty in yourself and a certain outcome, an unwavering state of faith.
Sounds great, right? I mean just imagine the kind of things you’d accomplish with that level of confidence?
Pretty amazing things I can imagine, but the question is, how the heck do you build confidence in your own worth and abilities?
Before I answer that, let’s look into where confidence itself actually comes from.
Where Does Confidence Come From?
Growing up it seemed like some kids were just naturally more confident than others, which can make it seem like some people were just “born” with confidence.
But the reality is simple, all of us were born confident and with high self esteem.
Have you ever seen a baby feel too insecure to be giggly and loud? Have you ever seen a two year old who was too ashamed of themselves to cry? Have you ever seen a three year old that was too scared to ask for what they want with the conviction that they’ll get it?
If you were to simply watch a child (especially before age five) you will see that there is a natural and unforced level of confidence and sense of security present within all of us.
Where is this coming from?
This comes from a feeling of being safe enough to do so.
Children typically feel very safe in expressing themselves because they don’t have preconceived ideas that make them feel insecure.
And that is where confidence truly comes from, it comes from the idea of safety which leads to the feeling of it, and when somebody feels safe in their nervous system they have no inhibitions that impede their expression.
When you feel safe in your nervous system, confidence is a natural result.
When you don’t feel safe, insecurity is a natural result.
But how does one lose their confidence?
Why People “Grow Out” Of Being Confident
As I stated above, we are born with this deep level of security and assurance in ourselves.
If that’s the case, then shouldn’t we grow more confident as we grow? It seems like we should, but According to a worldwide study conducted by Dr. Joe Rubino, approximately 85% of people worldwide have issues with self-esteem.
Why is this happening?
Let’s take a look into the psyche of a real human being to answer this question.
A client came to me who was suffering from a lack of belief in himself when it came to closing clients at high price points ($2000+) for his fitness program.
He’d have interesting prospects reach out to him but he’d just “contract” and not follow up with them out of the fear that they’d say no anyways.
Despite being well-trained in the fitness space, he was scared that he wasn’t good enough and felt like an imposter who had no right to take people's money so he’d find himself giving endless free tips with nothing to show for it.
This self-doubt was crushing him, so we did a Neuro-Remapping session to get to the bottom of the problem and do what we needed to do to liberate him from the problem.
Here’s what happened during our session:
Once in a theta-level trance, I guided my client back to a memory to see where he “learned” to doubt himself.
Because yes, self-doubt is a learned behavior.
He found himself at a baseball practice at 7 years old waiting for his mom to pick him up.
All of the other kids and parents had already left, the sun had gone down and it was just him waiting there with his coach.
He told me, “This feels embarrassing, and I’m scared.”
I asked him why he felt that way and he said, “I’m embarrassed that I’m the only one here, and I’m scared because I think my mom forgot about me.”
“And what are you making that mean?” I asked him.
“That I’m not important, because if I was then my mom would be here.”
Boom. That’s it.
That is why he lost his natural born confidence, by picking up a simple belief that made him feel like he wasn’t important.
So when it came to going after what he wanted in business, he felt like his needs weren’t important, which created this feeling of anxiety around charging money for his services because his needs aren’t important, you see?
This is the only reason people lose confidence in themselves.
The Root Cause Of Low Self Esteem
From the story above, you saw how my client lost his self confidence by deciding to believe something about himself based on a temporary event.
This is the same case for everybody who suffers from low self esteem.
They went through an experience in their life that they interpreted in such a way that left them feeling less than they are.
I’ve worked with hundreds of people to eliminate insecurities, and every single time they find themselves believing something limiting about themselves like:
“I’m not good enough.”
“I’m not worthy.”
“I’m not safe or cared for.”
“I’m not important.”
“I’m a burden.”
“I’m too different.”
When you hold any core belief like this about yourself, you are bound to suffer from low self esteem and the mental health issues related to it.
So the secret to building real and unshakeable levels of confidence is to install beliefs that lead to feelings of security deep in your psyche.
All beliefs that you hold to be true in your subconscious mind create an intense energy that you feel as an emotion.
This means that if you want to feel confident, you must adopt the beliefs that create that kind of emotion.
Let’s dive into how you can do that.
3 Mental Strategies That Will Build Your Confidence
As a behavior change specialist, I work directly with my clients’ subconscious minds to rewire and create brand new beliefs that will lead to them having the results they want.
My job is simple with a client: Change the way they see themselves.
I do this by creating a brand new picture in their mind that becomes the new and dominant way they see themselves.
Here are a few ways you can do the same for yourself.
1) Positive Recall
One of the best and fastest ways to build your confidence is to actually revisit past successes, accomplishments or moments in your life where you simply felt good about yourself.
(And trust me, those moments are there, don’t lie to yourself and say they aren’t!)
When you remember past events it stirs up the same “chemical soup” that you experience when you are confident.
This means on a biological level you will be flooded with chemicals that make your body feel the confidence and exuberance from that moment.
The more and more you introduce your body to this “confident chemical soup,” the more and more natural it will be for you to feel that way.
Not only that, but when you recall past successes you will reinstall your sense of self-worth and value.
Your daily experience of life is intimately tied with your ideas of self worth and personal value, therefore by revisiting past successes you reinstall that sense of self worth and value.
Spend 5–10 minutes every morning (or whatever time works best for you) with your eyes closed focusing on past success, accomplishments and moments where you felt brave, courageous or just good about yourself.
2) The Certainty “Carry Over” Technique
One evening I was listening to a talk by Myron Golden and he said,
“When you say you are going to go to the restroom, do you ever say ‘I might fall on my way, I may hit my knee, I may miss the toilet, I might pee on my pants? No, you just say you are going to the restroom and you go!
So why do you think of every worst-case scenario when it comes to your dreams? Why do you put all of this focus on what could go wrong? Why don’t you just do it like you go and use the restroom?”
This was huge for me because there is a principle in the field of modern psychology: find what’s already working for you and transfer it over to what’s not working.
Here’s how it works.
1. Close your eyes and imagine yourself doing something that you are CERTAIN in whenever you do it.
It can be something mundane like eating, sleeping, using the restroom, or something that you’re good at and don’t question yourself in (writing, selling, weight lifting, etc.)
2. Stir up the feeling of certainty and confidence you experience while doing that.
3. “Carry over the feeling” of certainty from one picture to the next.
Once the feeling of certainty has set in, begin imagining a desired future event where you wish to be confident and you’ll find that the feeling from the previous picture sticks to the new one.
This is “transferring” over what works to areas of your life that you want help in, and in due time your mind will associate that feeling of certainty over to what you want to be confident and certain in.
3) Upgrading The Self Image
“Self Image” is defined as the way you see yourself, and the way you see yourself will determine how you feel about yourself.
So if you want to feel better about yourself, it starts with seeing yourself differently.
This means very literally, create a new image of yourself.
Take a sheet of paper and answer this question, “If I were as confident as I wanted to be, what would that look like?”
Describe this in detail.
What would you be doing? What will you be saying? How will you talk about yourself? How will your posture be?
When you have this answered, begin using creative visualization to “install” this new image into your subconscious mind.
Spend 15–30 minutes a day visualizing: ideally before bed or in the morning because during these times you are in your alpha and theta state of mind.
These states of mind make it easier to reprogram your neural-pathways because they are more “subconscious” states of mind.
I created a visualization process that I use with all of my clients.
It’s designed to first get you into theta-level brain waves, and then I walk you through Positive Recall and a simple technique to “normalize” the new self-image.
It’s a lot to break down step by step, so if you want free access to the process I use go ahead and click here to download it.
In Conclusion
Confidence comes from a belief in security and safety in your own self.
When you feel safe in your nervous system, you will feel confident to do the things you want to do and go after what you want to accomplish with fierce determination.
If you want to feel safe in your nervous system, you need to have psychological beliefs to support that feeling of safety.
Therefore, by simply finding the beliefs that are behind your insecurities and then replacing them with new ones — you can and will unlock massive levels of confidence and self-esteem.
That is exactly what we help our clients do with our Neurohack™ Experience.
We use a process called Neuro-Remapping™ to help our clients find the root cause behind their insecurities, fears, and anxieties in minutes rather than weeks, months, or years so we can quickly eliminate the problem and help them build unwavering certainty, confidence, and conviction in themselves.
