Confidence is something that can be deliberately built over time by doing the “inner work.” Here are a few strategies for accomplishing it.

Growing up I used to look at people who had a high level of confidence and feel a sense of jealousy. Why wasn’t I given that gift of confidence?

As I got older and dove into the world of personal development, I learned that confidence and self love are things that can be built over time.

Here are some methods for doing just that:

Challenge yourself.

Consider an area of life where you feel the most confident. Perhaps it’s a skillset at work. Maybe your level of fitness. Maybe you’re a quick learner or a fast reader.

Whatever the answer, odds are it’s something you have done repeatedly over and over again, so you feel a sense of TRUST in yourself. You know you can get it done when you need to.

Lack of confidence in a different area of life reflects a lack of credibility with yourself in that particular zone.

Set small goals to challenge yourself, and then achieve them. Even if it’s waking up 10 minutes earlier every day and getting right out of bed. That may seem insignificant, but it is something that shows you stick to your word and gives you a platform to set higher goals to achieve. This is about holding yourself accountable and building credibility with YOU.

Reframe failures as learning experiences.

We ALL fail. The most successful among us have missed more shots than most people ever take.

The difference is, those with a growth mindset will look at each miss as an opportunity to learn. Why did they miss? What could’ve been done better? How can they improve?

By removing the emotion from these situations and strictly seeing a task as trial and error, we can stop feeling bad for ourselves that we didn’t hit the mark, and start being excited about the new things we will learn in order to make it happen.

Focus on one step at a time.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed when setting a goal. Maybe you need to lose 10, 20, or 50 pounds. Maybe you’re training for a 5k and have never run before. Maybe you want to run a million dollar company but you’re still in college.

If we look at the end goal as the FIRST STEP, it nearly seems impossible. We continue benchmarking ourselves against point “Z” and inevitably continue falling short.

If we take a deep breath and pursue point “A”, though, we can then use that as a platform to move to B, and C, and so forth.

Set big goals, yes, but break them up into smaller ones in order to give yourself the wins along the way. Celebrate each one and move forward.

Run your own race.

I used to be a pretty fast runner when I was a kid. I remember running an event in middle school and I kept looking back at the runner who was behind me. Inevitably, this slowed me down because of the extra energy it took to turn around and mentally I lost focus on the finish line ahead of me, too worried about what someone else was doing.

We all come from different backgrounds, starting points, and worldviews. Each of us is predisposed for different abilities and we have skills that others don’t…and, vice versa.

If we spend too much time comparing our journey to others, we will inevitably be disappointed and thrown off track. We will feel badly about ourselves when we see the Instagram model with an 8-pack that doesn’t seem to have a job and just travels the world.

No matter how far you go, there will ALWAYS be someone ahead of you. ALWAYS bigger, stronger, faster, richer, prettier…ALWAYS.

The key is to focus on how far YOU have come, and measure your success against your former self.

Your biggest competition is in the mirror.

Prioritize learning.

One of the best ways to build self love is to put time and effort into your mindset. As we accumulate more knowledge we have the ability to perform at a higher level in all areas of life, which in turn allows us to accomplish goals more effectively, and then feel better about ourselves.

It is an intuitive cycle that seems simple, but is often overlooked perhaps for this exact reason.

Most people want the results without digging into the dirt and planting the roots. The REAL process of self love, confidence, and success is not sexy. It is not flashy or glamorous. It doesn’t have a million Instagram followers.

It is, however, a necessary part of becoming a fulfilled and confident person.

And the good news is: You get to control every bit of it.

(I originally published this article on Medium).

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