What beats self-confidence?

I talk a lot about confidence and gaining it through the way we present ourselves. And of course, there are many benefits to being confident, even if it’s just "appearances". A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that simply appearing more confident makes people believe you deserve more respect and admiration, possibly helping you reach higher social status, while another study found that when people are overconfident, others overrate them as smarter and more skilled.

So, there’s something to the “fake it until you make it” phenomenon and our appearance plays a large role.

But turns out, confidence is overrated. Now, many experts believe that self-compassion includes the advantages of self-confidence but takes it a step further because it is through self-compassion that we grow.

Learning to be kind to yourself takes considerably more effort and it's an area that I've been working on. It's quite hard to accept that we’re human, recognize our failures and frustrations, and avoid dwelling on mistakes.

We often think that our mistakes make us weak, but it is actually our perspective of those mistakes that can immobilize us.

So, I'm learning to change the way I talk to myself, to be less critical and more supportive of myself, to avoid dwelling on mistakes and make friends with my inner critic. Because, it's those mistakes that make us human and being human is so beautiful and interesting!

Do you struggle with this also? I love to hear your stories so do get back to me!  

Joy

Please check a relevant article called The Four Cornerstones of High Self-Confidence. You can check it out here: https://inlpcenter.org/self-confidence/

P.S. Imagine if we obsessed about the things we loved about ourselves.