9 Things I Wish I’d Known about Confidence When I was Younger and Struggling

I’ve struggled a lot with low self confidence at certain times in my life. Particularly when I suffered from the skin condition eczema as a student and then again in my 30s.

Here are some things I wish I’d known about confidence when I was younger, as I battled myself and my misery.

Nearly all of these 9 elements can apply to you if mindset and low confidence are getting in your way when you speak in public.

So I thought it might be helpful to share my thoughts with you on how I built my own levels.

1. Self-talk. My endless and negative self-talk was simply trying to keep me safe; trying to protect me from going out into the world or doing anything new in case I was mocked or humiliated – particularly about my appearance. And that talking kindly to those mean, harsh voices was a great balm and antidote to that type of internal criticism. Self-kindness simply can’t be overstated – it was, and still is, that important.
2. Judging others. That every time I criticised or judged someone else I was also holding up a mirror and judging myself most of all. That desperate need to shore up my self-esteem by judging others: it just made me feel worse about myself. That’s no way to build self-confidence. So when I heard myself, I tried to catch it and stop it in its tracks. This didn’t always work, but it helped.
3. Contribution. Looking to contribute and help other people, despite feeling so bad about myself, did far more to build my levels of confidence than putting other people down (see #2!).
4. Searching. Constantly searching for new courses, new books, new support…it often seemed never-ending. That desperate search for something – anything – that might help. There was certainly a place for new supports, but ultimately nothing would change until I started to attend properly to how I saw myself and took action to change that. It really was mainly an inside job!
5. Courage. Finding courage to act despite my fear was far more important to build my confidence than trying to “fake pep-talk” (i.e. I didn’t believe a word of it) my way into feeling confident. Note: talking kindly to yourself is showing yourself authentic support – it’s not the same as fake pep-talk!
6. Accepting ‘reality’. To stop fighting what I saw as reality and instead, just sinking into the reality of my current state was a really helpful starting point. Note: Accepting is not the same as being resigned, slumping and just giving in. Accepting – sometimes that needed to happen on a daily basis felt like “well here I am. This is how it is. And… it doesn’t have to stay this way”. This created a different space and a different opening to possibility, allowing me a foundation to work from. Or it certainly did for me.
7. Self-worth was available. Self–worth, which is at the root of self confidence, was always available and accessible to me, like a well of fresh water. It was just buried under layers of algae and dead leaves (my limiting beliefs and negative talk). I didn’t actually have to do anything to feel worthy of love and connection. This is a paradox – because ultimately it was through doing something that my self-confidence began to grow. These two things can co-exist.
8. Separating external appearance from self-worth. I needed to put more focus into separating how I looked with severe eczema (dreadful!) from my self-worth. Just because I looked unattractive didn’t mean that I was an unattractive person. This one was really difficult. Every time I looked down at my body, or at myself in the mirror, it reinforced how little I thought of myself. It was really hard work to turn this around. Talking to myself as if I were a wounded animal (which in a way I was), was powerful. And visualising internally what I hoped for – clear skin – was also a major factor. To do this, I had to block out how I actually looked, even if I could only do it briefly.
9. Keeping my word. Following through if I said I would do something by the end of the day, and actually doing it – that made a big difference to my confidence levels. Keeping my word to myself, even more than doing it for other people, made a big difference to my self-esteem.

These 9 areas really shifted the dial for me. It was hard to embrace some of them, I can’t pretend it wasn’t – but focusing on, and working with one at a time made a big difference to how I saw myself.

And I hope it can do the same for you: to maybe trigger a new idea or possibility. I hope this list of things I wish I’d known about confidence will help you if you struggle with your own confidence levels.

Best wishes with your speaking goals – and with your confidence!