The Cycle of Confidence
Have you ever found yourself sitting in a corner of your house and thinking about how to go ahead with the goal in your mind? The answer that seemed to come to you was – ‘I still don’t have enough confidence!’ Soon after this thought appeared, if you convinced yourself that you need to ‘feel’ confident to take the actions for your desired goal, then probably it may take a lifetime to achieve that ‘feeling.’
So, the question is ‘how do you gain confidence to proceed towards your goal?’ Below goes the cycle of confidence –

1. Practise the Skills
The first step towards gaining confidence is to practice the required skills. If one has to excel in a particular task, then practicing improves the skillsets. For example, if one has to win a horse race, the first action should be to practice well enough on the empty grounds for several times to take an entry to the race.
The trick about practicing is that, it cannot be done easily as said. There comes a lot of internal barriers like, ‘I am incapable’, ‘I don’t have the courage’, or ‘I can’t do it’ etc. All these thoughts and apprehensions stop oneself to start practicing to improve the skills. The proverb goes, ‘Practice makes a man perfect’ and in every sense, ‘Practice also is the key is become confident.’
2. Apply them Effectively
Once there is good amount of practice, it has to be applied in the actual scenario. In our example, one has to get in the horse race and apply the skillsets learnt during the practice sessions. Well, this comes with stepping out of comfort zone into the challenging place. The natural response triggers discomfort bodily sensations or intimidating thoughts.
If we get hooked on to uncomfortable responses repeatedly and escape from the actual situations, there is no scope for confidence to improve. To apply the skills effectively, one has to focus on the actions instead of popping thoughts or feelings. When the horse is running, the focus should be on riding the horse faster instead of focussing on thoughts that are emerging from the mind. Mindfulness proves to be a powerful tool to help improve the focus on actions and take actions towards goals.
3. Assess the Results
Once the action has been taken at the actual situation, assessing the outcome should be done. Analysing, what worked at the situation and what did not work. The entire assessing process should be done in a non-judgmental way either not to get carried away by the correctness or get sunk by the unfavourable outcome.
It is normal for the human mind to think to be perfect in the tasks, to be harsh when something does not go the way as needed. Self-encouragement and self-compassion helps in healthy assessment to plan for the next course of action.
4. Modify as Needed
The final step based on the assessments of the results is to modify actions as required to your task and situation. Continue what worked when applied the skillsets and modify action plans for what did not work.
Repeat the entire cycle by practising new skill sets, applying them on the real situations, assessing the results and again modifying if needed. This way there is enormous scope of improvement and learning eventually leading to mastering the skills. The cycle can be repeated as and when required to enhance confidence of the desired task.
Therapist’s Role in The Confidence Cycle
Every step in the cycle comes with inhibitions. The first step of practicing the skills gives rise to many daunting thoughts to stop us from practicing. Without practice, one cannot think of taking actions.
The second step of applying skills effectively leads one to get out of comfort zones which activates, ‘fight or flight’ response to take the path of avoidance. Without application, there will be no question of betterment of confidence.
The third step of assessing the results gives out harsh self-judgement if failed in certain area of tasks. Instead of self-motivating, one can get into the mode of self-blame totally giving up. The fourth step again can pull you back by scaring you to modify the needs.
When therapist comes into the picture, one can learn to manage every challenge arising in every step. Handle the thoughts effectively to have lesser impact on the actions, tackle the bodily sensations when coming out of comfort zones with mindfulness, acquire the skills of self-encouragement, self-compassion, self-motivation which are healthier alternatives to self-judgment and self-praise.
There are number of other tools and techniques to equip you to take the much needed actions towards getting confident, eventually leading to the feelings of confidence.
To quote once again, Dr. Russ Harris says, “The actions of Confidence come first, the feelings of Confidence come later.”

Mallika is keenly interested in writing and human psychology. She loves to interact with people from various walks of life and add value to the society from the learnings through interactions.

Mallika is keenly interested in writing and human psychology. She loves to interact with people from various walks of life and add value to the society from the learnings through interactions.
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