This post will address 2 questions at once:
How to build confidence every day when you’re not sure what to do?
How to journal effectively?
Building confidence can feel like an overwhelming mission filled with discomfort, strife, failure and fear. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It can actually be fun!
How do we make something fun? Turn it into a game!
You can transform building your self confidence into a game you play every day, with a points-based system of measuring that serves as effective journalling as well.
Simply put: it’s about trying to score as many confidence points per day as possible, while taking care to give yourself credit for the “mundane” confidence building things you’re already doing.
Like in any sport, you only measure what you did. There’s no “losing” points for being “bad” or failing. Thoughts and feelings have nothing to do with points. You simply record the measurable wins.
Like in a game of football, you don’t measure the missed goals and you don’t deduct points for penalties, you only measure the goals scored. This is effective journalling for confidence building.
Join the Brojo Integrity Army Community!
Brojo is now on Skool!
This community is FREE to all. If you’re a self-development enthusiast with a passion for integrity, confidence building, and social connection skills, this has it all.
You can share your experiences, give and receive advice, and enjoy tonnes of self-development content.
Values and Goals
To begin with, we need to define what “counts” towards scoring points, and how many points each action deserves. This will be different for everyone, but we can begin with a generic model you can then adjust and calibrate to your own goals and values.
What are your values? This might include philosophical concepts like honesty, responsibility, courage and acceptance. Or maybe it’s about quality of life elements, such as health, relationships, and lifestyle balance. And every second of the day you engage in actions that affect these values.
Basically, everything you do either contributes to your confidence or reduces it. There is no such thing as a “neutral” action! Eating salad contributes to health, while eating a biscuit takes health away. Going to work contributes to your quality of life… unless the job is terrible and you should have left months ago. Spending time with your children serves the value of connection, while ignoring them to play on your phone breaches that value. And so on.
Scoring Your Actions
You can record this however you prefer, but I’d suggest starting with just a piece of paper and pen in your pocket (or bag), and marking points with tally-mark lines. Any time you take an action that contributes positively towards your goals or values, it gets some points (1 point is the minimum score for a positive action).
From there, you assign more points to more helpful actions. Brushing your teeth might only score 1 point, whereas approaching an attractive stranger might score 10. Eating a salad might be a 5. Confronting your boss might be an 8.
You can decide in the moment, or you can create a guide on how to score things in general (e.g. maybe it depends on how uncomfortable you had to be).
At the beginning, I suggest you set a reminder on your phone or somewhere to prompt you to score your most recent activity. Remember, nothing is a “zero”. You either did something helpful or something harmful. If it’s not one, it’s the other.
If possible, try to keep a list of what you did. So it might look like this at the end of your day:
Brushed teeth – 1
Meditated – 5
Ate healthy breakfast – 3
Took kid to school – 7
Went to work – 2
Answered emails – 1
Confronted my boss about pay rise – 10
Called friend on way home – 4
Cooked dinner for family – 6
Put kids down – 5
Shower – 1
Read before sleep – 2
TOTAL POINTS: 46
Only Score the Wins
Obviously other things happened that day, but I don’t record them unless they positively contributed to my values and goals and overall confidence. I don’t record drinking a Coke, or getting upset with my coworker, or playing on my phone, because these are all negative actions. Recording them serves no purpose, it only increases shame and provokes further bad behaviour.
The point of this exercise is to hyper-focus on your strengths and successes to ensure you want to do even more of them. As someone with confidence issues, you’ll already spend far too much of your time regretting and ruminating and worrying about things you’ve done “wrong”. There’s no need to measure those any more than you already do.
Do NOT redact points for any reason. You don’t “lose” points or reduce how many points an activity is worth for any reason. You approached a stranger… but they rejected you? Doesn’t matter, you still get 10 points. You brushed your teeth… but it was easy and automatic? Doesn’t matter, you still get 1 point. Did good things all day… but then did something terrible in the evening? Doesn’t matter, you still keep all your points.
Small But Significant
EVERY action must be considered for point-scoring. This includes the “mundane” tasks like brushing your teeth, preparing your breakfast, answering emails, going for a run, driving to work etc. Part of this exercise is to train you to see how many positive actions you actually take each day (without which you wouldn’t be alive today).
The actions might be “small” but if they’re positive in that they add to your life rather than subtract, then they count as something that builds your confidence. It doesn’t matter if they’re easy, repetitive, or you’ve done them every day, you still get credit for doing good work.
You must stop dismissing things that are effortless if they are also good. Avoid falling into the trap of telling yourself, “I was just doing it because I have to”. It’s either helpful or harmful, period. That childhood conditioning you received where the baseline expectation was raised every time you did something well is one of the many issues this exercise aims to fix.
Over time, you can train the habit of recognising your wins, no matter how small they might seem to others, and this will build intrinsic motivation to feel more of that proud sense of being on track.
This isn’t really about the points – that’s just for flavour. The purpose is to learn to measure what you do well, acknowledge what contributes to building your confidence, and focus your mindset on increasing those helpful behaviours.
No matter your trauma, limiting beliefs, and insecurities, confidence building is all about consistently good behaviour. The beliefs will follow.
How you can make massive progress in just a few months!
You can do all this on your own.
Through trial and error, books, courses and online content, you can figure it out slowly piece by piece over time if you dedicate yourself to it and are willing to fail often and get uncomfortable in order to achieve social mastery and build strong self confidence.
Or…
You can work directly with me in your corner for a short period of time and achieve the same results in months that would take you YEARS on your own (or your money back!).
That’s what my confidence coaching is really all about. I accelerate your progress significantly by ensuring you:
- Overcome your fear of rejection
- Stop seeing yourself as not good enough
- Develop easy practical social communication skills while still being honest
- Unleash your masculinity to make you more assertive and attractive
- Increase your self-confidence and self-respect
- Get advanced practical tips to eliminate self-sabotage and give you the best possible chances at career advancement, dating opportunities, and deep connections with quality friends
- Help you see your blind spots and errors and develop a measurement system that you can use on your own to ensure ongoing improvement for life
It took me about 7-10 years to figure this stuff out on my own. It takes my average coaching client only about 3-6 months to achieve a level of mastery that leaves them able to continue coaching themselves to further success while feeling absolutely certain that they’re on the right path (proven by the results they get).
I’ve turned virgins into fathers.
I’ve created assertive leaders out of meek people pleasers.
I’ve released overthinkers so they become powerfully decisive.
I’ve transformed shy introverts into social connectors.
I’ve moved highly anxious and depressed guys into a world of permanent self-confidence and optimism.
You don’t need to take my word for it. You can test it out for yourself. Fill out the application form below for a FREE trial coaching session with no obligation to continue, and no sales pitch!
My coaching will either blow you away and convince you that it’s worth it, or you’ll simply spend an hour talking to me without losing anything.
>> Click here to apply for a complimentary trial coaching session
Thanks for reading
Hope to speak to you soon
Dan Munro