Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Paul Enfield on how you have to take risks, to get the rewards. I’ve worked with Paul for many years at Microsoft, and he was one of my early mentors. I’ve learned a lot of life wisdom from him, and I thought this particular nugget was especially useful. It’s about taking a leap of faith.

The big idea is that for so many things in life, there is no way to be 100% certain before we act. We have to take risks. We can spend all our time trying to make things certain, know the unknowables, and wait for the perfect conditions, or we can dive in a little more.  We can do more big things and act on more windows of opportunity.  This is the heart of bold action.

Without further ado, here’s Paul on the leap of faith …

Some life decisions we face can seem colossal. Some seem so large that we can get stuck attempting to reach our decision and fail to ever act. I found myself in one of these situations when I came upon a revelation that empowered me make my decision.

Quite a while back, I was faced with a decision on whether or not to propose to my wife. While pondering the decision, I realized that no matter how much I thought about it, I would never be 100% sure that I was making the right choice. It was at that time that I also realized this correlated to a concept I had learned in college Statistics class called “degree of certainty.”

In a simplistic form, degree of certainty indicates how likely it is that the decision is the correct one. You can be fairly sure of your choice, and therefore have a high degree of certainty.

I also realized that different people will need to achieve different degrees of certainty before they will act upon their decisions. However, the commonality would always be that you can never achieve 100% certainty on your decision. Therefore we are always faced with a “gap” we must jump to reach 100% certainty. I chose to name this gap the “leap of faith.”

I was 90% sure I should make this decision to propose, but was forced to realize that I must make this leap of faith if I were ever to make my decision.

Being armed with this truth is empowering. Once you realize you must be willing to take a chance no matter what your decision, you can move forward and evaluate other factors.  Other factors might include what is the opportunity cost for not making the choice. IOTW, what will I lose if I fail to act?  Also, what is the benefit I can obtain by making the choice?

Empower yourself to make tough decisions. Recognize your personal needs to support your decision and when you reach your threshold, jump. Make your decision and take your leap of faith.

Photo by Hunterrrr.

“As is our confidence, so is our capacity.” — William Hazlitt

Welcome to my collection of the best confidence quotes.  It includes the top 10 best confidence quotes, as well as a longer, organized list of confidence quotes.

According to my dictionary, confidence is "a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers" or "the quality or state of being certain."  Let’s broaden that by rounding up related words and ideas that help us paint a high-definition picture in our mind’s-eye of the power of confidence: bold, courageous, daring, dashing, debonair, self-assured, self-certain, etc. … you get the idea.

There’s nothing like a dash of confidence to "carpe diem" with style.

Confidence is not to be confused with arrogance, although when taken overboard it can come across that way.  Instead, think of confidence as the juice to jazz your thinking, feeling, and doing in more powerful ways.  Rather than second guess yourself every step of the way, or chopping yourself down to size … put a cork in your fear, while uncorking your possibilities.

That’s where big ideas, bold action, and daring adventures come from.

Of course, like anything, there are two ends of the spectrum.  You can dial your confidence up or down, depending on what you need to be effective for your scenario.  One way to dial up your confidence is to have a handy set of pithy prose to help inspire or remind you of the confident way.  Quotes are a powerful tool, and they put the brilliance of minds like Aristotle, Mark Twain, Henry Ford, and others right at your mental finger tips.

The Wisdom of the Ages on Confidence …

If we flip through the words of wisdom from the ages and modern sages, we see a few key patterns and themes for improving confidence:

• Flow your confidence from the inside out.  Don’t hang it from the praise or accolades or reinforcement of others.
• Find your way forward.  Confidence is not the absence of fear, but instead feeling the fear, and finding your way forward.
• See it in your mind’s-eye.   Picture it.  Visualize the confident you, and drink often from your fountain of images.
• Flip the switch.  It’s like flipping a switch. It’s an emotional and mental state that you can drive from.  You just might have to turn it on.   For some, this means fake it till you make it.
• Don’t let critics limit you.  Don’t let other people push your buttons, and know how to push your own.  Sometimes you need the critic to tell you that you can’t, to figure out that you can … but don’t become reliant on reverse psychology to make up your mind.
• Know that confidence comes before competence.  Don’t fall prey to the "if … then" trap (If I’m competent, then I’ll be confident.")  Instead, anchor your confidence to the belief that you will get better with practice.  Expect great things from yourself and make them happen.
• Let your confidence bloom as you do.  You might be sapling where somebody else is a sage, but don’t let their shadow overshadow you.  Simply recognize the stage you are at, and be confident in your ability to grow.  Your capacity is a powerful thing.

Scan my collection of confidence quotes and pluck out the vital few that you can add to your garden of growth.  Here is my growing garden of confidence quotes …

Top 10 Confidence Quotes

Here are the top 10 best confidence quotes:

1. “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” – William Shedd
2. “Knock the ‘t’ off the ‘can’t.’” — Samuel Johnson
3. “Life marks us all down, so it’s just as well that we start out by overpricing ourselves.” — Mignon McLaughlin
4. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anaïs Nin
5. “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
6. “The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. “They can do all because they think they can.” – Vergil
8. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Henry S. Haskins
9. “When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.” — Joe Namath
10. “Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right.” — Henry Ford

Action

Here are the best confidence quotes on action:

• “Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.” — Norman Vincent Peale
• “Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.” — Baltasar Gracian
• “Crystallize your goals. Make a plan for achieving them and set yourself a deadline. Then, with supreme confidence, determination and disregard for obstacles and other people’s criticisms, carry out your plan.” — Paul J. Meyer
• "Experience tells you what to do; confidence allows you to do it." — Stan Smith
• “Gather in your resources, rally all your faculties, marshal all your energies, focus all your capacities upon mastery of at least one field of endeavor.” — John Haggai
• “I think that feeling that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.” — Wole Soyinka
• “I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done.” — Robert Downey, Jr.
• “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” — Dale Carnegie
• “It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.” — Lillian Hellman
• “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” — Helen Keller
• “To win, all you need to do is get up one more time than you fall down.” — Anonymous

Boldness

Here are the best confidence quotes on boldness:

• “A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage.  Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.” — Sydney Smith
• “All of us have wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them.” — Charles Dickens
• “As long as I can remember I feel I have had this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand.” — Bruce Lee
• “Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.” – Cicero
• “Danger breeds best on too much confidence.” — Pierre Corneille
• “Don’t let anyone steal your dream.  It’s your dream, not theirs.” — Dan Zadra
• “Fortune favors the brave.” – Virgil
• “If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.” — Tony Robbins
• “Nothing reduces the odds against you like ignoring them.” — Robert Brault
• “People are slow to claim confidence in undertakings of magnitude.” – Ovid
• “The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.” — Andrew Carnegie
• “The usual channels of university studies or secretarial work did not appeal to me. I cherished difficult dreams through confidence in myself.” — Ella Maillart
• “There can be no great courage where there is no confidence or assurance, and half the battle is in the conviction that we can do what we undertake.” — Orison Swett Marden
• “To me, there is no greater act of courage than being the one who kisses first.” — Janeane Garofalo

Character

Here are the best confidence quotes on character:

• “Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.” — Joe Paterno
• “Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit.” — Francois de La Rochefoucauld
• “Confidence is at the root of so many attractive qualities, a sense of humor, a sense of style, a willingness to be who you are no matter what anyone else might think or say …" — Wentworth Miller
• “Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.” — Vince Lombardi
• "Confidence is courage at ease." — Daniel Maher
• “How often in life we complete a task that was beyond the capability of the person we were when we started it.” — Robert Brault
• “He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.” — B. C. Forbes
• “I was thinking of my patients, and how the worst moment for them was when they discovered they were masters of their own fate.  It was not a matter of bad or good luck.  When they could no longer blame fate, they were in despair.” — Anaïs Nin
• “I’ve always had confidence. It came because I have lots of initiative. I wanted to make something of myself.” — Eddie Murphy
• “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” — Charles Darwin
• “Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” — Lao Tzu
• “Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control.” — Tom Landry
• “Men give their confidence at once, but never their money.” — Tristan Bernard
• “Sex appeal is fifty percent what you’ve got and fifty percent what people think you’ve got.” — Sophia Loren
• “Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.” — André Dubus
• “The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind.” — Felix Frankfurter

Competence

Here are the best confidence quotes on competence:

• “I don’t believe in team motivation. I believe in getting a team prepared so it knows it will have the necessary confidence when it steps on a field and be prepared to play a good game.” — Tom Landry
• "My intent is simply to know my material so well that I’m very comfortable with it. Confidence, not perfection, is the goal." — Scott Berkun
• “Put your future in good hands – your own.” – Anonymous
• “Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.” — Diane Arbus
• “Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.” — George Herbert
• “The big gap between the ability of actors is confidence.” — Kathleen Turner
• “There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.” — John Calvin
• “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” — Michael Jordan
• “You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you’ll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.” — Joe Paterno

Courage / Fear

Here are the best confidence quotes on fear and courage:

• “Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” — Peter T. Mcintyre
• “Confidence is key. Sometimes, you need to look like you’re confident even when you’re not.” — Vanessa Hudgens
• “Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.” – Aristotle
• "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear." — Mark Twain
• “I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.” — Louisa May Alcott
• “I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn’t fall down.” — Allen H. Neuharth
• “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anaïs Nin
• “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” — William Shakespeare
• “Self trust is the essence of heroism.” – Emerson
• “The best way to gain self-confidence is to do what you are afraid to do.” – Anonymous
• “We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Critics / Criticism

Here are the best confidence quotes on critics and criticism:

• “It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.” — Sally Field
• “Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.” — Gene Fowler
• “Other people’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.” — Les Brown
• “Pay no attention to what the critics say.  A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.” — Jean Sibelius
• “The more we refuse to buy into our inner critics – and our external ones too – the easier it will get to have confidence in our choices, and to feel comfortable with who we are – as women and as mothers.” — Arianna Huffington
• “We probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of us if we could know how seldom they do.” — Olin Miller
• “You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.” — Lou Holtz and John Heisler

Limitations

Here are the best confidence quotes on limitations:

• “A person can grow only as much as his horizon allows.” — John Powell
• “Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn’t know that so it goes on flying anyway.” — Mary Kay Ash
• “All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do…. Build, therefore, your own world.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.” — Richard Bach
• “Chiefly the mold of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.” — Francis Bacon
• “If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” — Thomas Alva Edison
• “If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” — Vincent Van Gogh
• “It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.” – Epicurus
• “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” — Edmund Hillary
• “It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.” – Anonymous
• “Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.” — Mignon McLaughlin
• “Never dull your shine for somebody else.” — Tyra Banks
• “No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.” — William Ellery Channing
• “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.” — Bruce Barton
• “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” — Marianne Williamson
• “The light of starry dreams can only be seen once we escape the blinding cities of disbelief.” — Shawn Purvis
• “Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.” — Mark Twain
• “Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.” — Brian Tracy
• “Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.” — Michelle Obama

Self-Confidence

Here are the best confidence quotes on self-confidence:

• “Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level.” — Max L. Forman
• “Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.” — Truman Capote
• "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." — Johann von Goethe
• “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” — Norman Vincent Peale
• “Confidence comes from hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.” — Roger Staubach
• “Confidence is a very fragile thing.” — Joe Montana
• “Confidence is preparation.  Everything else is beyond your control.” — Richard Kline
• “Growing up, I started developing confidence in what I felt. My parents helped me to believe in myself. I wasn’t the best looking guy, I wasn’t the best athlete in the world, but they made me feel good about myself.” — Herschel Walker
• “He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.” — William Congreve
• “I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.” — Edgar Allan Poe
• “I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time.” — Anna Freud
• “I wouldn’t describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that – the ghosts you chase you never catch.” — John Malkovich
• “If a man has been his mother’s undisputed darling he retains throughout life the triumphant feeling, the confidence in success, which not seldom brings actual success along with it.” — Sigmund Freud
• “If you doubt yourself, then indeed you stand on shaky ground.” — Henrik Ibsen
• “If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.” – Cicero
• “Once you become self-conscious, there is no end to it; once you start to doubt, there is no room for anything else.” — Mignon McLaughlin
• “Perhaps a child who is fussed over gets a feeling of destiny; he thinks he is the world for something important, and it gives him drive and confidence.” — Benjamin Spock
• “Self-assurance is contemptible and fatal unless it is self-knowledge.” — George Santayana
• “To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.” — Mark Twain

Self-Talk

Here are the best confidence quotes on self-talk:

• “A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” — Mark Twain
• “Men harm others by their deeds, themselves by their thoughts.” — Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare
• “We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.” — Roderick Thorp
• “What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates his fate.” — Henry David Thoreau
• “When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” — African Proverb

Self-Worth / Self-Esteem

Here are the best confidence quotes on self-worth:

• “Always act like you’re wearing an invisible crown.” – Anonymous
• “Be humble, for the worst thing in the world is of the same stuff as you; be confident, for the stars are of the same stuff as you.” — Nicholai Velimirovic
• “Be proud to wear you.” – Dodinsky
• “Everybody wants to be somebody. The thing you have to do is give them confidence they can. You have to give a kid a dream.” — George Foreman
• “I am not a has-been.  I am a will be.” — Lauren Bacall
• “If I am not for myself, who will be?” — Pirke Avoth
• "If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “If you must love your neighbor as yourself, it is at least as fair to love yourself as your neighbor.” — Nicholas de Chamfort
• “If you really put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.” – Anonymous
• “It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.” — W.C. Fields
• “Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.” — Michel de Montaigne
• “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” — Marie Curie
• “Life marks us all down, so it’s just as well that we start out by overpricing ourselves.” — Mignon McLaughlin
• “Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.” — Michel de Montaigne
• “People are crying up the rich and variegated plumage of the peacock, and he is himself blushing at the sight of his ugly feet.” — Sa’Di
• “Self-love seems so often unrequited.” — Anthony Powell
• “The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.” — Paul Tillich
• “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.” — Robert Hughes
• “The things we hate about ourselves aren’t more real than things we like about ourselves.” — Ellen Goodman
• “The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.” — Sonya Friedman
• “They are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers.” — Christian Bovee
• “Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” — Norman Vincent Peale
• “Your problem is you’re… too busy holding onto your unworthiness.” — Ram Dass
• “Your value is the product of your thoughts.  Do not miscalculate your self worth by multiplying your insecurities.” – Dodinsky
• "Your success depends mainly upon what you think of yourself and whether you believe in yourself.” — William J. H. Boetcker

General

Here are the best confidence quotes that are about confidence in general:

• “A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.” — David Brinkley
• “A timid question will always receive a confident answer.”—Lord Darling
• “Confidence … thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
• “Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how great your natural talent, there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.” – Jack Nicklaus
• “Discipline is based on pride, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of the goal or the fear of failure.” — Gary Ryan Blair
• "He who has lost confidence can lose nothing more." – Boiste
• “Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.” — Lao Tzu
• “Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.” — James Cash Penney
• “In the kingdom of hope there is no winter.” — Russian proverb
• “It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.” – Epicurus
• “It’s hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.” — Sally Kempton
• “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence." — Joseph Wood Krutch
• “No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.” — Ansel Adams
• “The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.” — James Madison
• “We are like the little branch that quivers during a storm, doubting our strength and forgetting we are the tree – deeply rooted to withstand all of life’s upheavals.” – Dodinsky
• “We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.” — Lester B. Pearson
• “When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.” — Joe Paterno
• "Winning breeds confidence and confidence breeds winning." — Hubert Green

My Related Articles

• 6 Guiding Strategies for Building Self-Confidence
• Confidence is Knowing and Going
• Inspirational Quotes
• Real and Durable Confidence

Photo by The Bode.

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” — Michael Jordan

Confidence is a skill you can build.  Self-confidence is about how you feel about your abilities.  Confidence is one of those crucial keys to bringing out your best.  It’s also a key to having the courage to be who you uniquely are.

The confident mind is a powerful one.Whether it’s sharing your thoughts, acting on your ideas, or being bold enough to be yourself, confidence can serve you in multiple ways.  Even humor and style flow better with confidence.

Confidence is Like a Muscle

If you think of confidence as a muscle, then pay attention to all the chances you get to flex it throughout your day.  It even starts with how you get out of bed.  If you don’t think of yourself as confident, then act “as if” and gradually you’ll find your groove.  Keep in mind that while competence breeds competence, confidence comes first – you have to believe to achieve.  Above all, don’t anchor your confidence on external people or things.  Flow it from the inside out, starting with your own belief in you.

In the book, Managing Your Mind : The Mental Fitness Guide , Gillian Butler, Ph.D., and Tony Hope, M.D., write about six ways to improve your confidence.

Six Strategies for Building Self-Confidence

You can use these strategies to help build up, tune, and improve your self-confidence.  Butler and Hope write:

1. “Practice”
2. “Behave as if you are more confident than you are.”
3. “Be flexible in your behavior.”
4. “Learn from your mistakes.  The only way to avoid mistakes is to become stagnant.”
5. “Silence the voice of self-blame, and speak encouragingly to yourself.”
6. “Be kind to yourself.”

Bring Out Your Best

Don’t be your own worst critic.  Be your own best coach.  Learn from your mistakes, but encourage yourself to new heights.  Butler and Hope write:

"Apply the ‘water-under-the-bridge’ rule, and operate a statute of limitations.  Kicking yourself for past inadequacies, confusions, or failures gives fuel to your internal wavering voice — cut off its supply of oxygen and use an encouraging voice instead.  Imagine you had a champion whose job it was to bring the best in you.  What encouraging things would this person be whispering in your ear?  Amplify those messages, so you can hear them loud and clear."

Each time you fall down, be the first to pick yourself up.  Confidence is a habit you can grow.  The seeds are the thoughts and beliefs that empower you to take action.

My Related Posts

• Four Basic Insights on Confidence
• Confidence is Knowing and Going
• Real and Durable Confidence

Photo by Shandi-Lee.

“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” — Peter T. Mcintyre

Confidence is one of those key attributes that can help us with anything from acting on our dreams, to having healthy relationships, to performing better on the job.  In other words, confidence is an attribute you can use on a daily basis to level up in life.

How you think about confidence, can help you act more confidently.  Like many things, you can think of confidence as something you just have, or you can think of it as a skill.  Thinking of it as a skill means you can grow it. build it, and improve it over time.

For now, let’s think of it as a skill.  As with any skill, knowing a few fundamental insights can help you paint a better picture in your mind, and help you start to take more effective actions.

In the book, Managing Your Mind : The Mental Fitness Guide , Gillian Butler, Ph.D, and Tony Hope, M.D. write about the key insights you need to know about building confidence.

The Four Basic Insights
Butler and Hope write:

1. “Confidence is not just one thing.  Each of us lacks confidence in some areas of our life, and has confidence in other areas.”
2. “Apparently confident people may not be as confident as you think.”
3. “We gain confidence from doing things.”
4. “If you tell people they’re no good, they might believe it!”

Use these insights to check against your own beliefs about confidence, and choose the beliefs that empower you to be more effective.

My Related Posts

• Confidence is Knowing and Going
• Real and Durable Confidence
• Top 10 Confidence Boosters that Work

Photo by icultist.

“Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.” — General George S. Patton

Be strong all day long.  Leverage four sources of strength by drawing strength from your mind, body, emotions, and spirit.

Life can have a lot of ups and downs and your ability to bounce back is one of the keys to your success.  This is a simple model I put together as part of my 30 Day Bootcamp on Getting Results to help you multiply your ability to bounce back in any situation.  I wasn’t sure whether to call my model a 4×4 Force Multiplier Frame or Four Sources of Strength.   For now, I’m going with Four Sources of Strength.

If you know somebody who’s been knocked down and needs help getting back up, share this frame with them as a way to help them get back on their feet and find their sources of strength from the inside out.

I tried to keep the model as simple as possible and easy to remember, while giving you a variety of sources of strength and energy to draw from.  I wanted this frame to serve as an “at a glance” reminder of how you are a force of one, from the inside out, as well as from the outside in.  Change your frame to change your game.

The Four Sources of Strength Model
The Four Source of Strength is a simple grid of four boxes and each box has four items:

You can use each of the four boxes as a lens for looking at your source of strength.  For example, in terms of mind and mental strength, some of your primary sources are your beliefs, what you focus on, the mental models you use, and your self-talk.

You can draw from the Four Sources of Strength when you need to bounce back or when you want to make the most of what you’ve got.  It’s a more consistent way of helping you fire on call cylinders.

Mind
Here are some ways to bounce back with your mind:

1. Focus on what you control and let the rest go.
2. Like a rubber ball … Having the right mental model or metaphor is where it starts.  You can be like a rubber ball and bounce back from anything.
3. Set limits on things.   If you let your body go until it crashes or runs out of steam, it can be too late.  You have to set limits either in terms of buffers or boundaries or timeboxes.
4. Ask yourself, “What do you want your life to be about?”
5. Turn resistance into your sparring partner.  Resistance is the enemy.  Respect it, but don’t let it wear you down.
6. Visualize the prize.  If it works for Olympic athletes, it might just work for you.  Picture it, then make it so.
7. Improve your self-talk.
8. Change your beliefs.   Find a model or learn from others what some more empowering or useful beliefs might be.
9. Change your focus.   You can change your focus by changing the question.
10. Focus on what you control and let the rest go.
11. Change your state.
12. Know how to psyche yourself up.
13. Don’t keep solving the same problems.  Burnout isn’t caused by working hard or working long hours.  It’s caused by working on the same problems or not making progress.
14. Mentally prepare for it.   Simply resetting your own expectations can help you prepare for anything.  Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
15. Choose to act strong
16. Turn a setback into a defining moment.
17. Take breaks.   Even little breaks interspersed can help you mentally, emotionally, or physically.
18. Use your renewal patterns.   Maybe this means taking an afternoon siesta.  Find what works for you.
19. Shake things up.   Sometimes the best way to break out of a rut is to shake things up.
20. Shift to the future.
21. Ask yourself, “Who’s in your corner?”
22. Know that resistance is the enemy.
23. Brace yourself and pace yourself.  You might have to chip away at the stone.
24. Remember your heroes.
25. Remember your shining moment.
26. Play the right “head movies.”  If you keep playing the wrong scenes in your head, you wear yourself down.  Find a new scene or movie to play in your head that inspires you.

Body
Here are some ways to bounce back with your body:

1. Allow for recovery.
2. Take action.  Sometimes you have to take action first and then energy and motivation follow.  You can think of this as “fake it until you make it.”  This is especially true for me when I run.
3. Play like a kid, sleep like a baby.   I heard Deepak Chopra say in an interview that children sleep like a baby because of their dynamic activity throughout the day. To know great rest, we need to know great activity and vice-versa.  I know for myself that if I don’t get my downtime, I go into a slump. I’m a fan of giving my all while I’m driving a project, and then taking a break after I ship.
4. Avoid spiking your blood sugar.   Spiking your blood sugar is one of the worst ways to work against your body.  It creates higher highs, and lower lows.  You can reduce the roller-coaster effect by limiting your intake of things that have a high-glycemic index.  Another approach is to balance your ratios of fat, carbs, and protein, such as in the Zone Diet.
5. Swap out starchy carbs for more fibrous ones.  This seems to be a pattern that helps a lot of people find more energy in a consistent way.
6. Eat more frequent and smaller meals.   This is another way to balance your body’s needs throughout the day.   One pattern is to aim for having a small meal or snack throughout the day, such as every three hours.
7. Respect your cycles.  We all have our up times and our downtimes, even throughout the day.   If you find you need more sleep, test giving yourself more sleep.   Know your peak energy cycles throughout the day and leverage those.
8. Don’t bake bad habits in.  When Bruce Lee was “off” or he couldn’t practice a technique properly, he stopped.  The last thing he wanted to do was burn in a habit or practice that was ineffective.

Emotions
Here are some ways to better balance and bounce back with your emotions:

1. Think the thoughts that serve you.  Your thoughts create your energy.
2. Pull yourself forward by what you really want to do.
3. Grow your compassion.  Keep your heart open.  One of the worst ways to kill your lust for life is to grow callous and cold.
4. Hold yourself high.  Your physiology affects your emotions in a strong way.  Sometimes you need to smile before you feel happy.
5. Believe in yourself.  This might mean as simple as deciding that you’ll “give it all you’ve got” and “whatever happens happens.”  You don’t have to put your focus on your ability.  You can put your focus on your effort or your determination.  Where you put your focus will change how you feel.
6. Find your “why.”  This is how you light your fire from the inside out.  Don’t depend on external things to keep you going.  Root yourself firmly in your own foundation.
7. Leverage your relationships and network.  There is strength in numbers or even just somebody who wants to listen.

Spirit
Here are some ways to bounce back with your spirit:

1. Make it bigger than yourself.   Find a cause where you can put your focus on something you think is great.  Having a cause is a great way to get back on your horse or back up to bat.
2. Do what you love or do what you were born to do.  Either way, you win.  If you can’t find your calling, then look for your unique contribution.
3. Connect to your values.
4. Immerse yourself in great literature or music.
5. Find the synergy.  According to Stephen Covey, we unleash our spiritual intelligence when we combine meaning, integrity and contribution – by serving and lifting all stakeholders: customers, suppliers, employees and their families, communities, society — to make a difference in the world.

There is something amazingly powerful about taking decisive action.  It’s like flipping a switch and deciding it will be so.  It’s a completely different experience than waffling or wading through the jungle of indecision.

I was talking through the power of decisive action with one of my mentors, when they shared a quote with me.  The quote expresses the power of bold decisions in an articulate way.  It goes like this:

“Until one is committed, there is a hesitancy, the chance to draw back; always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man would have dreamed would come his way.
I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it.’”

The quote is from W.H. Murray, in The Scottish Himalayan Expedition, 1951.

What bold decision might invent new possibilities in your life?

Photo by Nina Matthews Photography.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Nina Yau on how to live an intensely extraordinary life by never asking for permission.

Nina blogs at Castle in the Air and is a seeker of Truth.  She is also a prolific author, a traveler, a thinker and  a philosopher. I asked Nina to share her story because she writes with might and lives fierce. She has taken the plunge to live life on her terms, while she lives her dreams.

Without further ado, here’s Nina on how to live the life you want while driving from your life style  …

January 2011. I’m sitting cross-legged on the creaky wooden floors of my Chicago apartment, warming my hands in front of the space heater in my small one-windowed room. Jesus, it’s friggin’ cold, I think to myself, as the artificial heat starts to penetrate my dead fish fingers enough so I could type on my Mac. I find a one-way ticket to Taiwan, with intentional stops in Seattle and Santiago de Chile. Booked. Done. Packed my minimalist bag and off I went, into the world, not looking back and with no regrets.

Some folks don’t think you’re ever coming back. Some are glad for you and wish you nothing but happiness. Some are in deep despair, either wishing they can come along or supremely jealous of the fact that you are actually doing what you’ve always wanted to do, and for some asinine reason, they can’t.

Listen up: this one-way ticket to the world with your name stamped on it is not exclusively reserved for the dream maker, the idea creator, the fearless revolutionist, the wanderlust nomad, the entrepreneurial bootstrapper. You can read all you want, you can wish all you want, you can surround yourself with similar spirits, but in the end, only you are responsible for making your life brazenly meaningful and happy. No one else.

This is how you and your one-way ticket to the world dance freely while holding hands in the wild rainstorm of life, gleaned from the most pertinent of experiences and life lessons since I’ve quit my old way of life in order to embrace this new one I’m living.

A Vast Glowing Empty Page

Jack Kerouac, author of definitive generational and cultural novels such as On the Road and The Dharma Bums, has said, “I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.”

Listen, your life is anything you put in it, anything you do with it. Fill it with sex, drugs, booze and rock and roll? Then that’s your life. Fill it with humanitarian work in Africa? Then that’s your life. Fill it with suburban sprawl living and a 9-to-5 with occasional barbecues and golf with the neighbors on the weekend? Then that’s your life.

People will give all sorts of ridiculous excuses and reasons to justify why they can’t have the life they really want. Rather than finding all the reasons why you can’t, why don’t you dig into the innermost cob-webbed corners of your mind, the dark corners where you left your once-ripe dreams to stale and grow mold, and fling that door wide open in a loving embrace that is you and what tugs on your heartstrings.

Your mind is one of the most powerful things on Earth. It can literally transform who you are today into who you shall become tomorrow, merely by infusing an obsessed-over-driven-insane-super-delirious-festive-luminescent-wild-unbridled persistence with the tremendous gall to do whatever the hell it is you want to do, no matter what anyone says or the possible outcomes.

That is key here: no matter what anyone says or the possible outcomes.

I piss people off on a daily basis, not because I’m intentionally wanting to anger others, but simply by living my life with such extreme audacity and fervent tenacity. Because I love life — and maybe they don’t or are miserable — will be enough reason for people to find fault, poke, prod, criticize, call you all sorts of names, tie you up and burn you at the stake of unconventionality.

My life is my own empty page. So is yours. Do what you will with it and care not for others who only want to tear you down.

Give Me Truth

If I could pick only one line I’d live my entire life by, it’d be by Henry David Thoreau from his sensational book, Walden, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

Truth is everything to me, so much so that for my first tattoo, I had veritas, the Latin word for Truth, inked onto my body. What this concept, this principle, this characteristic, this belief, this way of life, what this holds is imperative for you to wrap your mind around.

If you are being true to yourself and your heart’s mission, you never need to apologize nor ask for permission to do anything you want to do. That is it.

I physically disappeared from the Western world for half a year already, choosing to spend my time in Asia, and did not ask a single person whether or not I should or can do this. If you continually seek others’ advice or opinions, that’s all you probably will get. Advice and opinions of other people. You know yourself best. Not your partner, not your parents, not your children, not your best friends.

Look in the mirror. Hi. That’s you. Become best friends with yourself and give yourself the Truth by living it fully and unapologetically.

Full and Naked Exposure

Pema Chödrön, world-renowned Tibetan Buddhist teacher and author, has this quote which is extraordinarily thought-provoking, “Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us … It was all about letting go of everything.”

Moving along the rapid tidal waves of self-evolution is incredibly terrifying. I know this because I’m perpetually in a state of changing who I am, what I believe, how I do things, how I view the world and myself, what I hold onto and what I must let go in order to change and grow into a more beautiful and better person.

This means you have to get naked. Fully and without hidden veils. Though physical bodily exposure isn’t a prerequisite to self-evolution (though it can be!), you do need to be honest with yourself. Do that by exposing yourself to situations, people, places and experiences that literally scare you half to death. You may be surprised as to how you might act in those times.

Strip away your insurmountable and impenetrable walls. Tear down your self-built holier-than-thou pedestal. Forget everything you know and let the world teach you.

Cut Deep, Not Broad

One of my favorite books of all time is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. In it, there is this one passage that reads, “‘What’s new’ is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question ‘What is best?,’ a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream.”

If we are solely concerned with what’s to happen this coming weekend, or what’s the latest going-on’s in celebrity gossip and fashion, or what new TV shows or movies are playing tonight, is it any wonder why we’ve not satiated our deepest longings in our hearts? Us humans are constantly toying with superficial matters, making that our primary priority rather than an optional add-on.

Those who know me know I care for such superficiality, commercial gossip and external validators as much as I care about how many millimeters a baby bamboo plant will grow in a week facing a northeastern sun. That’s right. Zilch.

If you ever get tired of the same mundane day-to-day routine, that is you saying you are ready to opt-out. Opt-in to endeavors which make you happy and which shall challenge you in a positive way. Remember, you need not ask for permission to live your own life — ever.

Educo

The word educate is derived from the Latin word ‘educo,’ meaning to educe, to draw out, to develop from within.

Napoleon Hill of the classic book Think and Grow Rich puts it pointedly, “The person who stops studying merely because he has finished school is forever hopelessly doomed to mediocrity, no matter what may be his calling. The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge.”

Knowledge by itself is simply knowledge. Anyone with a simple brain can memorize facts, figures and random statistics. But harness that knowledge and now you have POWER. Unspeakable power to change the world, your life and everything in between.

Education does not stop after you’ve received your high school or university diploma. What the hell is that anyways? It’s some fancy script printed on nice, heavy-duty paper. Maybe a splash of color or two from your alma mater. Don’t be alarmed. This is coming from a person with two undergraduate degrees and one master’s degree by the age of 24.

I say this because I have learned so much more when the entire world is your classroom and you are the student. This is no exaggeration. It is the characteristics which are within you and which you must draw out from within that will then enable you to truly learn from others, places, experiences, yourself.

Blank your mind and fill it with the world instead.

Expectation Fatality and The End of Planning

Paul Theroux, American travel writer and novelist, wrote in To The Ends of The Earth, “It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is overcertain of his plot.”

I stopped all kinds of life planning agendas, 3-year and 5-year plans, month-to-month goal and checklists of sorts, at age 25. I gave away my watch and threw away my planner. By 26, I stopped owning a cell phone. Why? I was sick of planning, of having my life scheduled down to the very hour and minute of a particular day of a particular week of a particular month. This left me no room for ambiguity, of spontaneous adventures, of freewheeling extravaganzas of my blazing heart’s desires. Now, I almost always travel one-way, preferring to live life fully in the present moment, knowing that I may not have tomorrow. Yes, I’m definitely your modern-day backpacker/hobo/nomad/traveler/wanderer/meanderer/free spirit/hippie.

You know what happens when you give up all expectations and stop planning your entire life? The present moment truly becomes everything. You experience it to your fullest human capacities to embrace every single emotion under the sun and you let it soak you like a parched camel in the middle of the Sahara.

You’re made to feel like you’re lazy, apathetic or ambitious-less when you don’t plan or have goals. Here’s an earth-shattering concept for you: your only ‘goal’ is to live a mindfully meaningful life, obsessively driven to live it to the max, regardless of what other people think, say or do. That is it.

Your short life is affectionately precious and if you’ve not already, you need to have an enchanting rendezvous with your endearing soul. Give yourself unconditional carte blanche over your life.

Your one-way ticket to the world already has your name on it. What are you waiting for?

One of my mentors shared their favorite inspirational passage with me.  It’s The Man in the Arena.

The Man in the Arena is a famous passage from the speech  Citizenship in a Republic, given by by Theodore Roosevelt.  It’s about standing strong when tested.

It goes like this …

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

You grow, by putting yourself out there.  If you’ve ever been in a situation that requires great courage, skill or tenacity, then, you know what it’s like to be “the man in the arena.”

If you’re going to fail, then at least dare greatly, and remember, it’s not the critic who counts.

Photo by West Point Public Affairs.

“Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level.” — Max L. Forman

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Eduard Ezeanu on how to boost your confidence.  Eduard is a communication coach that helps people improve their people skills and open new doors for themselves.  Without further ado, here’s Eduard with ways to improve your confidence …

Confidence is a meaningful topic both in my personal life and my work as a coach. There is a lot of advice out there on how to boost your confidence, a big part of which I’ve tested or researched.

Unfortunately, many of the confidence boosters you’ll discover do little more than create a placebo effect, even though they may promise miracle changes. However, there are also some that generate real results.

For this reason, I’ve decided to compile a list with the top 10 confidence boosters I know that actually work. Here they are:

1. Muscle Relaxation

When you feel nervous, the muscles in your body tense. The mind-body connection also works in the other direction: consciously relax your muscles and you’ll start feeling more relaxed and confident. One exercise I often use for muscle relaxation that works great is consciously tensing and then releasing each muscle group in my body, one at a time.

2. Deep Breathing

Another thing that happens when you feel nervous is that your breathing becomes shallow and unregulated. This is why a good confidence booster is to focus on your breathing and consciously breathe deeper and more regulated. As you do this, you will naturally feel more confident.

3. Run!

One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that it’s pretty hard to feel nervous when you energize your body and you release that tension physically. This is why I recommend running: it will take the tension out of your body, stimulate the release of endorphins and naturally put you in a positive, confident mood.

4. Dress for Success

As shallow as it may perhaps seem, our clothes and our look have a big impact on our confidence, even if it may be only momentarily. People who are well dressed, as if they are successful, tend to think of themselves as being that way and they feel more confident. This is why the way you dress is not to be ignored.

5. Have a Rich Life

A rich life breeds confidence. Have a lot going on in your life and you tend to see yourself as an awesome person. Your rich life creates a rich inner world and this stimulates your confidence. So, don’t spend all day in front of your computer or in a chair at the office. Go out there and get the most abundant life possible for yourself.

6. Have A Strong Social Circle

Our confidence level is influenced by our social status. When you have a strong social circle you know that you can rely on others, that you have your back covered. This can be a huge confidence booster. Don’t settle for just having some friends: meet new people, socialize and build the best social circle for you.

7. Face Your Fears

Most of our fears are irrational. They’re based on an over the top perception of what will happen if we do a certain something: if we say ‘no’ to someone, if we fail etc. However, when you face your fears and do what you’re afraid of, you usually prove to yourself that it’s not that bad and that you can handle it. This in turn improves your confidence.

8. Ignore Your Inner Voice

Many times, we lose confidence because we listen to a little internal voice in our heads that tells us all sort of negative things and often creates an inferiority complex: “I’ll fail”, “I’m not good enough” and so on. The good news is that you can choose to ignore this voice and it won’t affect you as much. This technique requires some practice, but it is very helpful.

9. Manage Your Thinking

I believe that fundamentally, lack of confidence is generated and sustained by the way we think, by our habitual thinking patterns. You can learn to notice your thinking patterns, identify what’s irrational in your thinking and gradually change it. By managing your thinking, you can improve your confidence and have a much better emotional life altogether.

10. Constantly Improve

If there is one kind of people I find to have the greatest potential for high confidence, it’s the people who always improve themselves. This is why I encourage you to invest in your personal development, to keep learning and growing as a person, no matter your age. As you do so, you create a solid foundation for confidence.

These confidence boosters may look good on paper (a… your computer screen), but it is applying them that gives their real value. Put them to use in your own life, employ them with perseverance, and you will see real positive results.

Eduard provides communication coaching and helps people put their best foot forward in communication. He also writes on his people skills blog.

Photo by ubo_pakes.

“The secret of confidence is focusing on what you can control, not on what you can’t.” – Mira Kirshenbaum

Self-confidence is the key to emotional energy. Without confidence, everything can feel like an uphill battle or an impossible hurdle.  Instead of a bounce in your step, or springing to action, you drag your feet, or you expect the worst. Just imagine the energy you would get if you knew you couldn’t fail.

There is a way.  But you have to focus on the right thing. In the case of confidence, knowing what to focus on is more than half the battle. It’s everything!

If you ever feel a loss of confidence or find yourself in the No-Confidence Trap, you need to know how to break out of it. To break out of it, you need to first understand how it works. Basically, you lose your confidence when you focus on the wrong things.  People that lack confidence focus on the outcomes.  They focus on the times they struck out, their mistakes, their failures, and disasters.  Basically, they focus on the things they can’t control. Confident people on the other hand, focus on what they can control, such as taking action or giving their best.  This one little distinction is the key to building your unshakeable confidence and getting back on the saddle again.

In the book, The Emotional Energy Factor: The Secrets High-Energy People Use to Beat Emotional Fatigue , Mira Kirshenbaum writes about the secret of confident people.

Key Take Aways

Here are my key take aways:

• A loss of confidence drains you emotionally. Without confidence you can’t see a way out or you approach things half-heartedly.  When you approach things half-heartedly, you lose.  It’s a downard spiral.
• You can break the No-Confidence Trap if you know how.  The No-Confidence Trap is a vicious cycle: You can’t win without confidence and you can’t get confidence without winning.  However, it’s easy to break out of the No-Confidence Trap, if you know how.
• Focus on what you control. Don’t focus on outcomes.  You can’t control the outcomes for a situation. To build your confidence, you have to focus on what you control, not on what you can’t.  This is the sure-fire way to break out of the No-Confidence Trap and build or rebuild your confidence.

Confidence is the Holy Grail

Kirshenbaum writes:

“In people’s lifelong journey to improve themselves, confidence is the Holy Grail.  With it, you can walk on water.  Without it, you’re soggy toast.  That’s why we all want it.  What gives you more emotional energy than confidence, than knowing that you can step up to the challenge and win?”

With great confidence, comes great results.  But it’s the journey and how you approach things that makes the difference.

"Why Try?"

Kirshenbaum writes:

“Loss of confidence is devastating for our emotional energy.  Without confidence, the two most horrible words in the English language take hold of us: ‘Why try?’  These words are horrible because they’re the beginning of doom for any enterprise we care about, including love.”

Losing your confidence is one way to feel emotionally drained, as if you can’t win.

Focus on What You Control

Kirshenbaum writes:

“The secret of confident people is that they focus on what they know they can do and then they do that in the best way they can.  And they don’t worry about the outcome.  The batter steps up to the plate.  All he can do is keep his eye on the ball and do his best. That’s what all the good hitters do.”

Don’t fall into the No-Confidence Trap.  If you’re asking yourself, “Why try?”, it’s because you’re focusing on the outcomes instead of what you can control.  Don’t focus on outcomes.  Focus on your actions.

My Related Posts

• Confidence is Knowing and Going
• Real and Durable Confidence
• Getting Out of a Slump
• Secrets of Self-Esteem