Yesterday I have started a series of discussions about challenges in business, leadership, and life balance. This week is the week of CONFIDENCE. If you have missed my yesterday’s post, please review it before reading this article:
https://ivetpavlova.com/the-week-of-confidence-day1/
The most important thing is to choose 1 topic in 1 area (business, leadership, or life balance) where you feel unconfident. It is better if it is the same topic as the one you have chosen on DAY 1.
If you are ready, let’s continue.
Yesterday we talked about that our confidence is in close relationship with our beliefs, feelings, and emotional state.
Today I will pay attention to our BELIEFS and their impact on our confidence.
Whatever we do, usually we do it either because we believe in it or because we follow the instructions or rules that other people have created. In the first case, we are creators. In the second case, we are followers.
Let’s start with the second case: When we follow someone else instructions or rules, we have 3 variants:
- We can be confident when we believe what we do is right.
- We could be confident in doing it, although we don’t believe in it, or we don’t care about whether this is right or not. This contradiction happens because we transfer the responsibility to the people that have created these rules or instructions – “I just follow the rules/instructions. I am not guilty. These are the rules”. The problem is that we are still responsible for our choices whether to follow these rules/instructions or not and very often it impacts our confidence unconsciously. And if it happens, we enter the third scenario:
- When we follow values (the rule and instructions had been created according to someone’s values) that are in contradiction with our values, we can lose our confidence. This impacts the way we communicate with others regarding this particular topic.
So, taking into consideration your topic, I invite you to think:
- Do you follow rules/instructions that someone else has created?
- If yes, how do you feel about them?
What about when we are creators and we initiate things and activities?
The surprise is that we could think that we follow ourselves, but sometimes we follow other people’s values and beliefs unconsciously. Very often we don’t aware of it at all. These beliefs come from our past – from our parents, teacher, friends, and situations that happened. You could disagree with this, but my practice shows that such kinds of old beliefs are the most common reasons that shake people’s confidence in particular moments. And even more, some people say “I lack confidence as a whole”. When somebody feels like this, usually it is due to many unconscious beliefs, feelings, and emotions. But if this is your case, don’t worry, there is a solution for it. It is a process. I have helped many people to bring their confidence to a healthy level just in several coaching sessions with me. I have passed through the same process as well, so I am very familiar with it through personal and professional experience.
But now, I invite you to investigate your beliefs in the context of the topic that you have chosen to work on:
- What do you believe about it?
- What do you believe about yourselves in this situation?
- Are these beliefs yours or do they belong to your parents, teachers, friends, or somebody else?
- What do you choose to believe in?
Sometimes we can change our beliefs just by increasing our awareness about them and choosing new beliefs. But other times we cannot change them alone because they are very deep and require some guidance in the positive direction.
If you want, connect with me to discuss your challenges in regards to your confidence and beliefs.
