How to Create Confidence Capital.

Confidence has nothing to do with the genetic lottery. It's a trait that you can choose to generate and bring to any aspect of your life.

The evidence of action generates confidence. Confidence is not one bold move but incremental nudges over time that keep you moving towards your goals.

What happens if your confidence levels are low and you're trying to operate on fumes?

It could be a manager at work, a colleague, an illness – some external factor has shattered your confidence, and you tell yourself that you cannot move forward. This becomes a vicious cycle that keeps you stuck.

The truth is that your inaction reinforces the story; this makes you feel even more powerless to move forward and change it.

What if you could mine confidence in other areas of your life and transfer it to the parts you feel are lacking? Here are some ways to cultivate confidence capital:

Keep the promises you make to yourself.

Why do you trust someone? Chances are they are consistent and keep the promises they make to you. The same is true for you.

If your confidence is at an all-time low, change your focus to creating small wins you can celebrate. You need a mechanism to generate self-trust and a sense of accomplishment if you are not achieving this in your work.

Introducing an exercise practice is a great starting point. It's not enough to think that you will go for a walk today; you have to schedule it into your calendar. Scheduling is less about time management; it is a declaration that you have committed time in your day to yourself.

Showing up and following through with your commitment is crucial to creating confidence. Start at small as possible; you can do five jumping jacks, take your dog for a ten-minute walk, or do three minutes of mindful breathing – it's not how long you do the exercise for, it's building the habit of keeping your promises.

Don't break the agreement with yourself by hitting the snooze button. Your confidence is low because your actions demonstrate you are not worth showing up for, or you don't have any evidence that you can rely on yourself to do the hard things.

If someone arrives late to a meeting with me, I assume they don't respect my time. Therefore if you ditch your appointments, you indirectly communicate that other people are more important and worthy.

You may have the intention to go for a walk but what tends to happen is you open your inbox, see a few new emails and convince yourself you can't possibly go because their urgencies are above your goals.

Creating confidence capital is a three-step process – schedule in time, show up to yourself and create a micro win. Progress generates motivation, while a lack of action fuels your insecurities.

It doesn't have to be a self-care activity – make any promise to yourself and keep it. You could commit to cooking dinner twice a week or reading for fifteen minutes daily. That's how you generate confidence capital. The more you can demonstrate self-trust, the more capital you have to invest in other areas lacking.

If you're in a low place, start as simply as 'when I wake up, I will get up immediately and not hit the snooze button'. Or take it a micro-step further and commit to making your bed daily. This simple action creates a trajectory of positive reinforcement because you have taken ownership of how you start the day. No matter what happens that day, at least you made your bed.

Find a courage outlet.

Courage supersedes confidence. You can't wait to feel confident to take action on something. It's the courage to take the step that comes first. Once you take the step, guess what? Your confidence builds, and you are inspired to do it again. You can build the courage muscle by achieving the win and celebrating it. You need to prove to yourself first with action that you are capable of anything you put your mind to.

When I say an outlet for courage, I don't mean you need to skydive or do something drastic.

Hobbies are excellent courage outlets because it allows your creative side to emerge. Even if you don't think you are creative, you are.

What does creativity have to do with confidence? Everything! Life cannot be purely about work. If you tie your entire identity to work, any time spent outside work feels unproductive or a waste of time.

Is there a hobby you enjoy that completely absorbs you? You don't think about anything else other than what is in front of you – this could be painting, cycling, riding, martial arts, photography, you name it!

It doesn't have to be something arty, but a means to show yourself that with time and effort, you can get better at anything you put your mind to. Whatever this is for you, it requires the courage to feel out of your depth initially.

This growth mindset is the most important thing I try to instil in my kids. When my son started cricket, he was frustrated because he was still developing his batting and bowling skills, and the ball would go everywhere except the wickets. A few months later, we were at a cricket match, and he played kids that reminded him of where he was initially and how far he had come.

His lesson is that if you persevere, you can improve your skills. When you acknowledge and internalise your growth, your whole perception of what's possible changes. Remember, the feeling of being a beginner is only temporary; this should not form the foundation on which you base your confidence.

Find something you love doing, give yourself permission to be a beginner, and start from scratch. Over time you show yourself that you can improve, which is how confidence is generated.

Develop your own life curriculum.

A lack of confidence shows up when there's a disconnect between where you are now and where you would like to be. Let's say you want to move into a marketing role but are currently in sales or project management.

Take charge of the situation and start developing the skillset so you can shift into a new role. You can meet with your head of Marketing and share your career goals – understand what's involved and ask them what they suggest for you to study or read.

If you are naturally a shy person and fear the spotlight, why not empower yourself by doing a public speaking course or watching some TED talks on how to best project yourself. Success leaves clues – not every change requires a degree, but you can always boost confidence with knowledge and action.

Adopt an ownership mindset when it comes to your career, and take charge of filling in the gaps so you can create your own opportunities. Don't let self-doubt interfere with the willingness to try and expand yourself; sometimes, that's all confidence is—the willingness to try and put yourself out there.

Who are you at your best?

Think back to a time in your life when you felt on fire and in your zone. It could be a presentation you nailed or a project you excelled in. It may even be back in university where you were your boldest version of yourself.

Now that you have this picture in your mind think back to what were you doing at this stage. Did you have an exercise practice? Were you meditating? Did you have more social time? Did you read more? What was your energy like? What was your self-talk like?

Whatever you answered is your formula for confidence. It's specific to you, and your success leaves clues.

Can you adopt one new habit that you previously did? Figure out what's missing in your life and commit to introducing it back into your day. The little things have the most significant impact; you need to identify them and ditch the excuse that you're too busy and don't have enough time. Experiment for one week, and you'll be astounded at the boost in your self-esteem.

Place value on all your roles.

Your confidence tank rarely gets depleted over one incident. It's a slow trickle like a tyre with a nail in it. You aren't aware of it until your tyre is completely flat and you're stranded.

This slow trickle often reveals itself when you have experienced a change in your life stage. You don't lose your confidence overnight; it's more like you wake up one day and don't feel the way you used to and can't figure out why.

As a life coach, I see this constantly with my clients when they become new parents or their older kids have left the house and are in the empty nest stage. It could be when someone retires, and their sense of purpose has been taken away. It could be that they have to spend more time looking after their elderly parents, and the relationship dynamics shift entirely.

Change is the only constant; the way to navigate it with complete confidence is to place value on all your roles. Most of us attribute self-worth to work achievements but downplay the value we bring to other areas of our lives.

Acknowledge your contribution as a sibling, child, parent, and community member – unpack all the roles you play and see them through a new lens. When you need to spend more time with your kids or ageing parents, don't obsess or feel guilty that you aren't working.

Understand that these other aspects of your life are 'on the way', not 'in the way'. When you stop seeing the rest of your life as an interruption to work, and instead, with the lens of pride and gratitude, your confidence will begin to rise and replenish itself.

What's your story?

Confidence starts in the mind and begins with the thoughts you tell yourself. What you communicate to yourself powerfully impacts how you project yourself to the rest of the world.

What is your self-talk and the story you tell yourself about your life? It's time to let go of thoughts or beliefs that no longer serve you; the main antagonist is 'I'm not enough'.

Would you ever watch a lousy movie twice? So stop replaying an old movie in your mind over and over again. It's probably the one where you made a mistake or said something you regret. Forgive yourself and find a better movie to watch – like the one you identified above when you were at your best.

Give yourself the role of narrator and director, and start empowering yourself with better thoughts and stories. Find the lesson in your failures, incorporate it as growth and let it go now.

The way to feel enough is to adopt an internal locus of control. This means your self-worth is generated within you; you don't place conditions on how you are prepared to feel about yourself.

An external locus of control is when you place your self-worth on external factors you have zero control over. You do it all the time – you place your worth on numbers. The number on the scale, the number in your bank account, the number of friends or likes you have or the number of clients you have.

You are enough now. Do not make your inner confidence and worthiness conditional on external success; it will only drain your confidence.

Who are you becoming?

There is a way to fill your confidence tank without having to do anything I've just spoken about. It requires ten minutes of your time every day or at least once a week; the antidote to creating confidence in the present is to create an empowering future vision for yourself.

Benjamin Hardy's latest book, Be Your Future Self Now, says that connection to your Future Self creates purpose and meaning in the present.

Spend time journaling about your future self – who are you in one year, three years or even five years from now? Get crystal clear on the vision of who you are becoming. It's not only about their work mission but how they feel, what they do on weekends, how much money they make, and what they do for fun? What's their energy like? Who do they spend their time with?

The clearer you are on where you want to go, the more clarity you have on the actions to take today. It also reminds you that no matter what challenges or obstacles you face, it's just a temporary speed bump or detour, and it is never permanent.

You can also use your future self as a trusted advisor when you feel stuck. Benjamin suggests this simple journaling prompt:

"If your Future Self—20 years from now—had a conversation with you, what would they say? How would your Future Self view your current situation? How differently would you act with your Future Self in mind?"

You are the director of this movie called your life. If you don't like the current scene, write a new one and start playing the role now. Remember, your best chapters lie ahead of you, not behind you.

Final thoughts.

When you find yourself in a confidence dip, get resourceful and actively mine it in other areas of your life to create a confidence eco-system. Evidence-based action is what builds confidence; it's just a matter of looking in the right places:

• Keep the promises you make to yourself.

• Find a courageous outlet.

• Develop your own life curriculum.

• Who are you at your best?

• Place value on all your roles.

• What's your story?

• Who are you becoming?

I'm not a fan of the 'fake it till you make it' mantra because, without the evidence, you will never honestly believe in yourself.

You need a little courage to look in the right places and take that first step.

Here's to your best story yet,

Warm wishes,

Lori