If you feel like you have self-confidence issues, I have something very important to share with you.

If you are able to comprehend what I am trying to get across in this article, your life may change forever. When I had this insight it started a journey that changed everything in my life.

Permanently.

My whole life I had been searching for something. I couldn’t put a name to it; I couldn’t articulate what was missing. But I knew my life was lacking in something. I would see these other guys my age and get envious. Seeing the successful ones, the popular ones; it made me wonder why they had it different to me.

However, unlike most people who have low self-confidence, I was lucky enough to have one particular insight:

I knew that there was nothing inherently different about me.

Whatever it was they had, I wanted it. And the small amount of confidence I did have allowed me the hope to believe that I deserved what they had. I knew I was not a bad person, quite the opposite, so I was entitled to the happiness I saw them enjoying.

It’s only now that I realise most of them were faking it just like I was! Funny how we think other people have what we want, while they look at us thinking the same thing.

You see, if you lack self-confidence, then the people responsible for shaping you have missed something. When you were being raised and taught during your childhood and teen years, certain people had the responsibility for teaching you the secret of self-confidence. The problem is most of them didn’t know the secret themselves, so they taught you what they thought was best. Most of this guidance was rooted in fear; the avoidance of putting yourself at risk.

They wanted you to have a safe life.

Get a good job. Find “the one” and marry that person. Be nice to people. Save up for retirement. All these things they taught you, thinking you would be able to develop into a successful person through following this guidance.

Even though they followed the same guidance and felt lacking in confidence half the time as well! Forgive them. How were they to know that the most commonly accepted advice was going to lead you away from confidence, rather than towards it?

Well, I’ve had enough of seeing lost people wandering around like they’re plugged into the matrix, slaves to a false reality. I see too many people spending ridiculous amounts of energy trying to convince themselves and others that the troubles they face in life are fate, and that they should just accept them. The false reality that the pursuit of what everyone else wants must be the secret to happiness.

That is total crap.

And I want everyone to know the truth.

Not only am I going to share the truth about self-confidence, I am also going to share the secret behind how you build self-confidence.

At first, I wanted to keep this stuff for my coaching clients only. But then I realised this thinking did not line up with my true purpose: Helping others build the best lives they could. This purpose means I must share this. Freely and openly.

So (in an Italian accent): enough-a with the suspense already! Here comes the BIG SECRET about self-confidence. This secret is in two parts. Part one is:

1) SELF-CONFIDENCE IS NOTHING MORE THAN A SET OF SKILLS 

Confidence is not something that comes after success. It is not something you are born knowing how to use, or have a natural predisposition towards.

It is in fact a set of different but complementary skills, which combine to create an ongoing belief that you are worthy, capable, high-status, grateful and good. It is a skillset that prevents depression and anxiety from building up beyond a fleeting frustration. It is a skillset that creates long-term ambition, assertiveness and motivation.

But that’s not the only truly amazing fact about self-confidence that everyone forgot to teach you, that’s just part of it. The other part should be obvious by now, but if you’re like I was you can’t see the wood for the trees. Part two of the secret is:

2) THESE SKILLS CAN BE LEARNED… by anyone!

This was the biggest epiphany for me. By the time I finally figured out that what was missing in my life was called self-confidence, my progress in the search for it escalated considerably. That’s when I discovered the hidden skills I could learn to build self-confidence. Slowly but surely I started removing the veils between me and self-belief.

As more was revealed, I came to realise that all of the things I needed to learn I could learn! None of the required skills that create self-confidence were beyond my reach. And here’s the good news for you:

You can learn them too.

I am now going to reveal the different steps I take my clients through when they sign up to my True Unbreakable Confidence program. You can start implementing these steps today, and even without my help you will see progress.

THE 7 LAWS OF BUILDING SELF-CONFIDENCE

1) Discover your purpose and identity

Take an hour or two to plan this out at least. Find a quiet place and get some paper in front of you (or record yourself on video if you don’t like writing).

Brainstorm what your ideal lifestyle would look like. If you could wave a magic wand and have everything you’ve ever wanted, what would that actually be? What would you have? What would you be doing with your days and for a job? Who would you be with?

For just $7 you can get my Getting Started training video on how to do this exercise and much more, just click here.

From that your identity will start to emerge. Describe the person you wish you were, in detail, from the outside physical appearance all the way through to the core beliefs, feelings and self-worth. Write all of this out in as much detail as possible; write a story that describes the ideal you and your dream lifestyle.

You now have something to aim for.

Plan out how to achieve this lifestyle. Break it down into small manageable steps. Then focus on one step at a time; don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed by the big picture. Build your house one brick at a time.

2) Own your Fear

The skillset of slowly overcoming fears, and building the courage to live with them honestly, is huge for self-confidence. Now that you’ve planned your ideal lifestyle, ask yourself why it is you believe you can’t have that. Be honest with yourself and Own Your Fear.  List as many of the barriers as you can.

Then you need to acknowledge that no matter how “real” these barriers seem, they are in fact all in your head.

Tim Harris has Downs Syndrome and yet runs a successful restaurant. Sean Stephenson has that disease where his bones are like fragile glass, and he is a wealthy public speaker and body builder. J. K. Rowling was once completely broke, right before she started writing the Harry Potter series.

Your barriers are only barriers because you allow them to be.

Once you’ve agreed that they are all in your head, plan out how you are going to prove this to yourself. Set goals that slowly and safely stretch out your comfort zone. Learn about the power of desensitization: slowly exposing yourself to increasingly higher doses of what you’re afraid of. Do what you think won’t work, instead of what you’ve always done.

Dedicate time to this step, it will take years to fully master. However the first positive changes and improvements can occur within days, as you start challenging your limiting beliefs and seeing them for the total bullshit they actually are.

3) Build and maintain motivation

Read over your dream lifestyle and identity description every morning. Do your very best to convince yourself that you can have it, that you believe in it. Force motivation into your life. Search for sources of inspiration and take action to make them change your life. Don’t just watch a motivational speech, feel good for an hour, and then just forget it. Do something to cement it into your head.

Learn Mindfulness. Fear of the unknown future is a huge demotivator, so learn the skills involved with mindfulness so that you can focus your attention to the present moment. You will find motivation increases quickly and effortlessly when you can eliminate dwelling in the past or worrying about the future.

4) Live with integrity

I’ve already covered this in detail in this article. Basically, live as honestly as possible and be so openly vulnerable that you become invincible.

5) Define your status

Use a weekly journal to measure your progress on your goals, and make sure you only measure against your past self. Over time you will see that caring what others think is an untrustworthy source of feedback. This practice of measuring yourself accurately will lead to you seeing the truth: we are all equal. A confident person does not compare themselves to others – they only compare their current self to their past self.

Make weekly entries which analyse your progress objectively. Learn to enjoy trial and error rather than trying to get it perfect. Good enough is exactly what it sounds like. You don’t need to be better than that for most things! Learn the 80/20 Pareto Principle.

Once you get to the point where you only measure yourself objectively, you will no longer see other people as having a higher status than you. No more celebrity worship or feeling intimidated by your boss. Status is something you give to other people, not the other way around. So give high status to yourself instead.

6) Learn Frame control, dominance and leadership

I will do a post about frame control one day soon. Actually I’ll probably do a whole video training series about it because it’s so freakin’ awesome.

Find a situation in your life where you can be the leader. You don’t need to be a leader always (though you can if you want), but have at least one area of your life where you are leading others and in control. Through this you should aim to always improve your leadership skills, and learn how to lead others without needing status or a position of authority.

Being a social leader is a great example. You could set up a weekly social event which is organised, run and lead by you. Through this you will learn charisma: the outward manifestation of subtle body language which only truly confident people can convey.

Leadership creates confidence at an advanced level. But I’m talking about leadership, not authoritative control. Try to figure out how to motivate and inspire others rather than boss them around. Here’s a great TED talk by Simon Sinek explaining this concept.

7) Get feedback, test your strategies, and improve for life

Always seek to improve.

Learning to be content with yourself actually comes a lot from constantly trying to better yourself. Staying the same, which is what you were trained to do subtly throughout your life (“just be yourself”, “you’re fine the way you are”), leads to feeling like you’re stuck in a rut. The world will leave you behind unless you are constantly adapting. Use your skill of measuring progress objectively to constantly look for areas to improve.

Acknowledge your strengths and successes while simultaneously looking to improve on them. You should always be grateful for what you did right; take time to feel that appreciation and success. Mindfulness training will help with this.

Then, once you’ve acknowledged the win, move onto your next level.

 

 

So that’s my secret formula. Of course there are many subtleties and tools within each step, but if you try to live by these 7 laws without straying back into your old behaviours, I know you will see changes. Feel free to message me any questions and I particularly love to hear success stories.

And of course if you want to have someone guide you how to live like this, you know where to find me.

Speak soon,

Dan

dan@brojo.org