FINALLY, YOU CAN BE CONFIDENT

I used to think confidence came from certainty, but then how do you find confidence in uncertain times? The truth is, we can never be certain given the sheer principles of life. As the old saying goes: “shit happens.” So, do we trick ourselves into believing that we're confident? Do we fake it knowing that we aren't? The issue here is that we’re too smart for that... That might prove to be helpful to get us through a situation, but in the long run there’s no tricking your mind. That only leads to cognitive dissonance which will spiral into anxiety, irritability, and worst of all: anger. Consciously and unconsciously, our minds know whether or not we’re being honest with ourselves. In order to have confidence in ourselves, we must be able to trust ourselves.

So then, where does confidence come from?

1. Being able to keep a promise with yourself

2. Accepting what's out of your control (Amor Fati - a love of fate)

We build trust in ourselves by being honest with ourselves at all times, and by keeping the promises we make to ourselves. What time did you say you were going to wake up? Did you? When did you say you were going to start that workout program? Did you? We often create an internal "boy who cried wolf" scenario. Our body get's so used to empty promises it doesn't believe anything anymore. We've lost trust in ourselves and therefore we've lost confidence in ourselves to do anything. The other side of confidence lies in our ability to accept fate. Fortuna, the goddess of luck, abundance, and fate was a popular topic of conversation amongst the stoics. We must understand the nature of Fortuna is unpredictable, and additionally, we must learn to love all that she supplies.

"The wise person is still not harmed by the storms of life— poverty, pain, and the rest. For not all his works are hindered but only those that pertain to others. He is himself, always, in his actions, and in the doing of them he is greatest when opposed by fortune. For it is then that he does the business of wisdom itself, which as we just said is his own good as well as that of others."

Letters From A Stoic, Seneca

When we accept what's out of our control, we create lack of fear of outcome. Fear often presides in the thought of experiencing mental, physical, or emotional anguish resulting from a (subjectively) undesirable outcome i.e. embarrassment, feelings of letting yourself down, etc. If you can learn to not fear the outcome, but rather trust yourself with commitment to the mental and/or physical pursuit, then you will regain confidence in whatever it is you are doing. But this goes back to trusting that you're going to uphold your commitment to give your best attempt at this thing. If the outcome is not in our control, the only thing we have is our efforts. By definition, you're only ever capable of your best efforts. What hurts is knowing that you failed because you didn't give your best efforts. Failing to control the one thing you can stings. What's stings even more is lying to yourself saying you did try your best. 

But giving something your best attempt isn't easy. It requires sacrifices to be made... Sacrifices that most people aren't willing to make. That often means our priorities are out of line—a discussion for a different time.

Where to start with building confidence? Start by being a true friend to yourself. You should strive to be the friend that you hope you are to somebody else, or that you expect a friend to be to you. You say you're going to start working out, you say you're going to adopt a better eating pattern, you say you're going to start waking up earlier, you say you're going to clean and organize your room, you say a lot of things to yourself... Why would you ever let yourself not uphold those items? Why do you validate your own excuses? You know you have enough time. You know it's the right thing to do for your health and well-being. You aren't stupid. You might think your excuse is good, but you know you're being a bad friend to yourself. 

A big topic in recent years has been self-love—accepting who you are. But accepting who you are is far from self-love. Accept reality, yes, I couldn't agree more (amor fati). But this isn't self-love. Self-love is what comes AFTER the acceptance. Just because you've accepted who you currently are, that doesn't mean you have to be okay with it. That's like being the friend who doesn't tell you you have something in your teeth. For the love of everything, don't be a fake friend to yourself. This would be my one biggest piece of life advice to anybody. Got something in your teeth? Accept it (not that you have a choice), but now go get a toothpick and get that shit out. Who you currently are is most likely not what you would consider the ideal version of yourself. If it is, hats off to you. Either you're dope af all around, you set the bar way too low, or you're lying to yourself. That's for you to decide.

So, you accept who you are, now you can identify who it is that you want to be. This is crucial to confidence. Defining the ideal version of yourself all starts with the relationship you have with yourself. The beautiful thing about defining the ideal version of yourself is that now you have a map to a worthy destination. In the pursuit of becoming the person you hope to be, you find purpose, you find discipline, you find character, you find peace, you find confidence. I'm now defining confidence as the ability to trust in yourself that you will give your best, most conscious effort in the pursuit of the ideal version of yourself. This is no easy feat.

So, if you're not confident just remember that the first step to solving any problem is identifying it. It's not your parents, it's not your boss, it's not school, it's not the weather. It's you. And I say that because I care. Most people don't, so they'll just agree with you that your excuses are valid.

We've identified the problem. Next we'll talk about the steps on how to solve it.

~ Bonde