Build the Confidence to Trust Yourself

One of the hardest things to build confidence in as women is our own opinion. Learning to trust our own inner guidance, and act accordingly, can be a challenge.

Think about it for a moment: How often do you ask others about what you should do?

Who do you ask: your partner, best friend, sister? Your mother, father, kids even?

It’s much easier in many ways to ask others rather than trust ourselves. We can then place the blame on someone else if things go wrong (subconsciously if not literally). We don’t need to take the time and do the work to build true confidence.

We get to take less responsibility for our actions. And it takes less work. Less inner work, anyway. Getting to the heart of our own truth requires processes that can be uncomfortable, tiring, and full of complexities, especially if we haven’t traversed those waters before.

To grow into confident women, we need to get to know ourselves, listening for and learning about the truth of who we are, what we believe, and what we need, and then trusting that truth. It can be the most challenging journey for us as women. Growing up, others who have had their own view of who we are and how we should be in the world have narrated our stories to us. It can take a lifetime to unravel their voices that play inside our minds, to turn off their tracks and start to play our own.

When we stop looking outside of ourselves for answers and turn inward, to our own inner wisdom and guidance system, we stop churning and burning our energy. We stop questioning what we think we believe but replace with others' projections and opinions. We learn to find the calm in our self-created chaos, to understand grace and ease. And we learn that whatever decisions we make, when they come from our core, our own inner knowing, we will be just fine.

The first step is to catch yourself when you are seeking opinions. Catch it mid-sentence, after the fact, or whilst the question is still forming in your brain.

Then pause.

What is it you are really seeking the answer to? If you sat with it for just a few moments, what answer would you come up with if you gave yourself the opportunity?

Tune in to what your true voice sounds like. When you are in your most quiet moments, perhaps during meditation, or after prayer, know what your own voice sounds like. Listen for your truths.

What do you believe? Write it down.

What do you feel about situations, people, your work, relationships, your place in the world?

Before you ask what someone else thinks, practice asking yourself the question first: what do I think about this?

Develop confidence in your own truth. Over time, your confidence in your own voice, your self-trust, and your ability to act on your inner guidance will grow. It doesn’t mean you never care what others think, only that your inner guidance matters first and foremost. It’s one of your greatest assets, and you get to cultivate it as you reclaim and own your power in the world.