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Training the skill of self confidence: I love this article for two reasons. The main one being that most collateral out there talks about self confidence as a god given gift. That immediately makes it the prerogative of some people only. The beauty is – confidence, just like any other skill is a trainable asset. Training the skill of confidence takes consistency, effort and learning from experiences. This ted talk from Dr Ivan Joseph talks about training the skill of self confidence so that we can approach our opportunities and challenges better.

Most often, we get the meaning of self-confidence wrong. Building self-confidence is about trying different things and finding out what works best for us. Each one of us has a different trigger connected to our values. These triggers influence our confidence depending on how deeply we connect with them. The inspiration for this article is the Ted Talk by Dr Ivan Joseph who talks about training the skill of self confidence.

Self Confidence is not by birth

When we look at confident people, we think that they are born like that. But let’s make one thing clear. We can’t have confidence in things that we’ve never done before. But what we can be confident about is our ability to learn and pick up what’s required for the task. People who tell you that they are confident about a result are lying.

Confidence takes training – the ones who make it appear natural may not have observed how they’ve undergone the training the skill of self-confidence. They probably won’t be the best example for you to follow. Instead, focus on what can help you train self confidence.

How to Train the Skill of Self Confidence

The reason I chose to write about the ted talk is its emphasis on self confidence as a skill. None of us are really born with all the skills needed. We learn the necessary skills with time – sometimes consciously and a lot of times through experiences. Not everything is a conscious choice, but something that happens through a process.

Naturally when we start something afresh/new, it is hard to be supremely confident about it. This is particularly true if your idea is shot down by a few people in the name of ‘Investors’, ‘Mentors’ or any other labels your network presents. But yes, they do offer a certain threat and fairly right level of questions for your startup idea.

5 Practical steps to train the skill of self confidence

Preparation: This sounds awfully simple. But the more I prepared, the easier it got. I am not going to tell a lie and say that people were kinder. It still hurt like hell, but possibly with the number of repetitions, I started caring less about it.

Values: It is important to know why we are doing the things we do. Yes, money is an answer, but it is almost always a secondary one. Startups are about the vision, mission and plans. We just need to be completely convinced about the idea and approach to make it work.

External Motivation: This might sound silly, but most times, I could find that the network I am with influences my thought processes. So, I had to consciously choose the positive people who actually believe in boosting the idea further. It doesn’t mean that we want to sit with people who blindly believe in us, but with the ones who nudge us in a positive, constructive direction.

A pinch of salt: No one ever takes the journey you do. Everything we listen, hear is an opinion. None of these influences the reality out there to a bullish extent. We need to temper the feedback as it comes in. Obviously a startup cannot have all answers right at the start. It is about figuring it out in the process.

Being Honest: Let’s try to be honest with ourselves. This doesn’t mean we have to work excruciatingly hard. We are talking about the skill of self-confidence. We must nurture and build it by accepting our limitations and working on where we want to go.

References:

https://positivepsychology.com/self-confidence

https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-boost-your-self-confidence-4163098