Confidence: ‘Belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities.’

Described above, is the dictionary definition. When I consider believing in myself, I think of my values and staying true to myself. And generally, I do believe in my abilities.

I think when we think of confidence, what comes to mind most often is how you carry yourself. If you are outgoing, smile, look people in the eyes, and can articulate what you want to say. But the definition above doesn’t really convey that. Belief in oneself, yes, but that is a lot broader than simply showing outward confidence.

Looking at the definition above, I think, yes, I have confidence. But I have always been a quiet person. Not outgoing, and shying away from certain people or situations.

Last week, I signed up for a webinar on self confidence. It was put on by Mindvalley, and presented by Rolene Strauss, who was Miss South Africa at one time, and Miss World. The series of talks was how to have ‘magnetic confidence.’ I signed up out of curiosity, knowing that there are always things we can improve on, but also, what perspective of self confidence does she have and is willing to share with the thousands of women who signed up. The webinars happened live over 5 days and although it was at 9am each day and I was working, I still signed up, knowing that they usually send the link of videos that are viewable for a limited time afterwards. I didn’t watch all of them, as I had 48 hours access to view, over an already busy weekend.

The takeaways from what I did watch was:

-confidence is a skill you can learn (this is the main emphasis).

– confidence can magnify the skills, talents and potential that you already have. So recognize within yourself, or ask those close to you what they believe your natural skills and talents are.

-build your confidence on ‘solid foundation,’ This means for example, don’t build your confidence on things that will be changing over time, such as your looks, or your reliance on others. If relationships change or if something about our looks change that will affect how we feel, that will shake our confidence in ourselves.

So if we can build our confidence in a good way, it won’t be rocked or shaken easily. She suggests building your confidence on your unique ‘soul print’ – which are your values.

If you take various areas of your life, such as relationships, body, spiritual, career, finances, emotions/ mind, personal growth and fun/ social: evaluate your values and how confident you are in each area, or where you want to improve. Then you can improve where needed and gain confidence in each area.

This is what I learned from what I did watch. A big thing for myself over the years is just knowing that I spend the most time with myself, and you know what they say. You may as well like yourself, be proud of what you do and what you stand for, since I will be spending eternity with me. Ultimately my own opinion of me is what truly matters. I think that’s a great solid foundation to work with. I could always work on the social bit 😆.

Sending Love,

Devon