3 ways to create confidence in your 20s
Creating confidence in your 20’s can be really tough. Your enviornment is constantly changing (including jobs, friends, housing etc), and chances are you’re BUILDING during this decade. That usually doens’t create a sense of clarity, grounding or confidence.
But it’s also the MOST important time to create confidence…here’s why:
If you can figure out how to create confidence in your 20’s, the decisions you make and opportunities you create for yourself will generate more impact in your life overall:
If you figure out your dream biz at 25, you’ll have 10 YEARS of time to make an impact (and income) vs if you wait until you “feel ready” at 35.
If you’re confident enough to go after the relationship you want at 22, you could be settled down and thriving by the time your 27….vs scrambling to find someone later on in life.
Think about what would be possible for you if you had more confidence.
As a certified life coach, I’ve seen my 20 something clients:
Go from walking dogs to 6 figure photography businesses
Take a leap and finally land the relationship of their dreams
Travel the world hosting retreats
Buy their dream homes, dream cars etc
But first they have to build their confidence….and how do you do that? Here’s the 3 simple steps:
The Ability to Trust yourself
I think self confidence has 3 components:
ability to trust yourself,
knowing you can experience any emotion (including failure) without being harmed
your overall opinion of yourself
Let’s start with your ability to trust yourself. Stop for a minute and ask yourself what you think it means to trust yourself…
Really stop and answer that question for yourself - there’s no right or wrong answer.
I think trusting yourself includes:
Knowing that you will do what you have said you will do (keeping your word to yourself)
Doing the responsible and useful thing for yourself even when you don’t feel like it in the moment
Have you ever set a goal, or said you would do something…then really HOPED you would follow through? It’s totally normal, and so many people do this - but it’s KILLING YOUR CONFIDENCE.
Here’s why:
Hoping, wishing and thinking of doing something leaves room for self-doubt, which is the opposite of self-confidence. If you can’t count on yourself, you will feel insecure and at the whim of your motivation instead of in charge, in control, and self-confident.
How do you over come this?
Let’s do a mini coaching session with some journal prompts.
Grab a notebook and jot these down (if you want them in a fillable workbook form - grab it here)
Write about a time when you set a plan/goal/intention and followed through. What was the goal? How did you apporach it?
What thoughts did you have about yourself as you were going through that?
In contrast, write about a time when you intended to do something, but just couldn’t seem to follow through. What was the goal, and what happened?
What do you think your thoughts are about yourself in that situation?
Notice how the thoughts you were thinking about yourself in the first scenario CREATE THE FEELING OF CONFIDENCE.
And in contrast, when you didnt follow through - the thoughts you were thinking about yourself probably left you feeling overwhelmed, unmotivated or frusterated.
The ability to trust yourself comes from consistently following through on your word to yourself. You aren’t born with self-confidence; you earn it for yourself by keeping your word and doing what you say at the highest level. So what’s an experiment you could try, where you can start training to keep your word to yourself?
Next up in our list of 3 things to help you create more confidence…but first - did you want the journal prompts all in one easy to find place?
Grab the free workbook by clicking the image below:
2. Knowing that you can experience any emotion
It’s important to note that all of our human behaviour is motivated by how we think something will make us feel.
Reaching for a cocktail? You probably think it will make you feel relaxed.
Creating a plan? You probably think it will make you feel organized.
What’s really important is that what we THINK we’ll feel isn’t always the actual emotion we end up experiencing.
That drink (or 5) might make you feel exaughted the next day
The plan might end up making you feel overwhelmed
So many of our behaviours and habits are driven by how we THINK we will feel….and this is really important when it comes to creating confidence….becuase of self doubt.
Self doubt is the opposite of confidence.
And it usually comes up when we are fearful of FEELING a certain way.
We doubt our ability to follow through (we are fearful of feeling disappointed)
We doubt our ability to show up on social media (we are fearfull of feeling judged)
So grab your journal again and write down these prompts around feeling any emotion (and being okay):
What emotions do you fear the most?
Think about an area of your life where you don’t feel super confident (could be body image, relationship, job etc) what emotions might you experience if you went all in in that area?
Think about the last time you experienced the emotions you fear the most…. how did you act as a result of those feelings? What were you doing or not doing?
And what result did that action (or inaction!) create in your life? As an example: Maybe you felt some shame and totally ghosted everyone for a bit…findind yourself with a few fewer friends when you came back.
Okay now imagine you were totally willing to feel ______________(the emotion you fear). You expect it will be uncomfortable, but you feel in control of your ability to control it and you have a “bring it on attitude” that takes the risk out of feeling that emotion. How would things be different?
What do you think you would do, that you aren’t doing right now?
What result would that create in your life?
Understanding YOUR trigger emotions (the ones you fear the most) and what you’re leaving on the table if you continue to avoid them is KEY to uncovering your confidence.
In the next section, we’ll cover the last step to creating more confidence:
3. Your opinion of yourself
In our day to day lives how often do you stop and reflect on your own thoughts and judgements about yourself? Probably never if you’re like most people. We usually just accept them as facts and continue on.
But what you think of yourself is literally what creates or crushes self confidence.
This section is going to teach you how to slow down and uncover your opinion of yourself so you can see how that’s keeping you from the confidence you crave.
Use the below journal prompts to help you get in touch with your opinion of yourself":
What do you think someone who is self confident would think?
What do you think about yourself? List everything that comes to mind (good and bad!)
When you think those thoughts, how do you feel? Write down the emotion next to each thought on your page. Examples might include: empowered, focused, inspired, helpful, confident, hopeless, shame, depleated, sad, scared or self doubt.
What surprises you about your thoughts about yourself?
How do they compare to how someone who is confident might be thinking?
Now the really interesting thing about self confidence is that it doesn’t have to be verified by an outside source. People who are confident usually think of themselves as good, worthy and capable. That doesn’t have to be proven or true…it’s a feeling.
You might be wondering how this is different than arrogance, but the way arrogance works is by trying to get a higher opinion of yourself by comparing. Often, instead of building yourself up, this is accomplished by putting the other person down.
So if you’re craving more confidence…. please know that it’s created by the thoughts that you think about yourself…THEY are what generate the feeling of confidence. No one else can verify it for you (I’m sure we all know a super pretty girl who is constantly told she’s beautiful but just doesn’t believe it).
If you want to feel more confident:
grow your ability to trust yourself
get curious about the emotions you tend to avoid
reflect on your thoughts about YOU.
If you loved this and want to dive into the jounral prompts I’ve provided here -I’ve got you.
I created a printable workbook where you can dive into each of these sections in depth with everything laid out in an easy to follow format.
There’s also a BONUS lesson in there on limiting beleifs, how to uncover them and some prompts to help you discover yours.
Cheers to your most confident self,
xx Justine