Being confident will make you happier, land you better jobs, afford you incredible opportunities, bring you more success, provide closer relationships and even cause you to be healthier. In other words, those who possess confidence will have a much better quality of life than those who do not. Confidence gives you a distinct advantage that others do not have. You become one of the rare and elusive that people dream of being near and becoming like.
The confidence factor is this:
The degree of confidence you have is directly proportional to the quality of life you live.
As dramatic as this sounds, it is equally true.
Learning how to be confident is so critical to living an extraordinary life that I am writing a series of blogs on confidence. We ask and explore questions like:
• What is confidence?
• Confidence vs. self-esteem
• Confidence vs. conceit
• The importance of confidence in your life goals, relationships, and even your health.
• Why women lack confidence and how to reframe a few things in your mind so you can readily and comfortably embrace the confidence that is rightfully yours!
• Best of all, I will offer ways for you to build your confidence and step into the life you desire and deserve!
Before I get into breaking down what confidence is and how to become more confident, I want you to absorb just how important confidence is to each and every one of us.
Being confident allows us to think in terms of opportunities and possibilities, which will actually bring you more opportunities. People are drawn to confident people and look at them as leaders. They too want to possess that assuredness so when they are around confident people, it makes them feel good and more secure. When you exude confidence you will move more rapidly and effortlessly toward your goals because your passion will fuel the journey.
People want to work with and promote leaders and those with confidence are seen as leaders. In their book The Confidence Code, the authors found that confidence was more important than competence in getting ahead and being offered opportunities. That may seem shocking, especially for women who tend to focus on competence as a number one work goal. And while competence is certainly important in everything you do, one who shows confidence in making decisions and speaking up, even if they are wrong, are seen as leaders.
This may explain why men seem to get ahead more. They are more likely to speak out a meetings, be more vocal about their opinions and they don’t seem to dwell on mistakes. They also look at aggressive behavior as a plus and don’t care what others think about them as much. This is actually a distinct advantage in many ways. They stay in a positive space of certainty rather than sliding into the well of doubt and regret.
Women, more often than not, will be more timid about voicing their opinions and when making a mistake, we feel like we have to dissect, analyze and figure it out so we don’t make that mistake again. Women tend to care more about what people think of them and men, not so much. We think people will judge us for our mistakes so we will work to be overly competent or avoid a task or responsibility for fear of failure. While I understand and have those tendencies as well, it seems that without confidence, no matter how competent we are, we will be overlooked when opportunities arise. Confidence is the key to great success.
The good news for us women is that we can still develop confidence without taking on the male qualities that may not resonate with us and have kept us from projecting certainty in the past. In this series, we will get to that once we explore the enormous impact being confident has on the quality of your life and take a closer look at what confidence is and isn’t.
Confidence makes you healthier. When you feel confident you don’t worry. This is huge! Worry releases toxins into your system that are not good for you at all. It can also effect relationships, entice you to over eat, is tied to alcohol and drug use and it just doesn’t feel good. When you are confident in who you are, what you are doing and where you are going, you will still have concerns, but because you feel sure that you can handle these things, you will approach it from a better place, get better results and stay healthier in the process.
The part I like best is when you are feeling confident and on top of your game, you are happier. When we think about it, isn’t being happy what we are all ultimately after. Whether it’s that promotion, losing 15 pounds, taking a vacation, getting a new car, we do it all because it will make us feel good and feeling good makes us happy. Once you learn how to be more confident, you will already have achieved the ultimate success in life. The rest is icing on the cake!
Join me for my next blog, “What is Confidence?” We will take a closer look at what it is, why it is so elusive and why women in particular seem to be lacking it.
