The 5 Critical Mistakes That Undermine Your Confidence

Why is self-confidence so essential to success?

With unstoppable self-confidence we see the incredible opportunities available to us and we’re armed with the mindset to seize them.

We turn setbacks into comebacks and stumbling blocks into stepping stones. 

And unlock a deep, unshakable sense of calmness and certainty no matter what is happening.

But for many people that true, natural and connected sense of self confidence is something that feels out of reach, something that is only available to others.

In truth most people are making 5 critical mistakes that sabotage and undermine their confidence and success.

Mistake 1: Seeking The Approval Of Others

99% of people in the world suffer from the disease of needing the approval of others.

But people pleasing and seeking the approval of others are the most toxic and confidence and success destroying behaviours that exist.

Here’s why.

The foundation stone of confidence is the freedom to be fully and authentically who you truly are.

The foundation stone of success is knowing and going after what you truly desire.

People pleasing and approval seeking requires that you do PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE of this.

It requires you to be INAUTHENTIC, dishonest about who you are and what you want, so that you can fit in with what others say you should be, do, or have.

It requires that you pretend to be something other who you are and put great effort into that ‘goal’, and as a result all your efforts are taking in the opposite direction of where your confidence, success and happiness lies.

It is an absolute, gold plated, cast iron guaranteed way to destroy your confidence and ability to create the life you want. And make yourself miserable in the process.

Remember that no matter who you are, no matter what you, no matter who you pretend to be, some people will like you and some people won’t. That’s just a fact of life. 

But it isn’t to be feared, it is to be celebrated. 

By being authentic you filter in all the right people, circumstances and opportunities for your best life and you filter out all the wrong ones.

So consider again, if you want to, why do you need anyone’s approval again?

Mistake 2: Being ‘Nice’ Instead of Being Kind

I spend a lot of time with my daughters teaching them the all important difference between being kind and being nice.

Because understanding and more importantly living this difference is critical to living a life on your own terms instead of someone else’s.

Kindness is about knowing your values and living your values. It means acting with decency and integrity and living as the best version of yourself, no matter what. 

Being ‘nice’ is people pleasing by another name. It means doing what others want you to do in order to align with them and please them (or to avoid displeasing them).

It means allowing others to set the frame for your life, your choices, your actions in order to gain their approval. 

And it is deeply toxic and a cancer to your self esteem.

Kindness is strength, niceness is weakness.

Kind people have absolutely no problem AT ALL saying ‘No’ to things that don’t align with THEIR OWN vision for who they are and the life they want to create.

Their reference point for what’s right or wrong, for their decisions and choices is INTERNAL not EXTERNAL.

They recognise that being kind to themselves is as important as being kind to others.

They expect and require decent treatment from others just as they hold themselves to a high standard of behaviour towards others.

And they have no fear of the disapproval of others for saying No.

No explanation, no justification, just ‘No’. 

Most people confuse and conflate kindness and weakness. And as a result create enormous problems in their lives.

There is nothing unkind AT ALL about saying No to things you don’t like, don’t want and don’t agree with.

You can say No with decency and respect but absolutely say it.

Because then you are bringing decency and good values into the world (real kindness), instead of bending over backwards, forwards and every other way in order to simply please others.

Mistake 3: Believing That Love Equals Sacrifice

So much of what we are taught about love is isn’t actually love at all.

It’s really co-dependency.

We are taught this Hollywood, Disney like version of love that says that someone else ‘completes’ you. 

Which by definition means that you were somehow ‘incomplete’ before you met them and that you would become incomplete once again if they ever decided to end the relationship. So now the end of a relationship isn’t simply the end of a relationship, it’s the end of you being a complete person.

We are taught that ‘true love’ means sacrificing anything and everything for the other person. Yet when you really stop and think about it, would ‘true love’ ever really require that? Would it ever require you to give up the essence of who you are, what makes you, YOU?

Is requiring complete sacrifice from your partner really a loving act?

We are taught that somehow life only really starts if and when you find that perfect person. That the rest of your life was simply a pre-amble, an opening scene waiting for the main act to start.

And then of course by implication if that person decides to end the relationship, your real life is over. 

When you slow down and think about it, does any of this sound healthy to you?

Does any of this sounds like ‘true love’?

Can you see, and (as always) can you FEEL how this causes people to act in unhealthy, manipulative and at times toxic ways?

After all if you become incomplete, if you feel you should sacrifice everything and if your life is ‘over’ with the end of a relationship wouldn’t that logically cause most people to act in unhealthy and UNLOVING ways?

Unless and until you truly love you, unless and until you know that are already complete and that your life is a wonderful gift right now, you cannot have a healthy relationship with someone else.

Because only when you don’t require being completed by them, sacrifice from them can you give your love (real love) fully TO THEM without strings attached.

This is when love stops being a trade, a set of covert contracts.

This is why the answer to true happiness and ironically true love comes from working on yourself.

Because then you become happy no matter what.

Mistake 4: Thinking That You Are Broken and Need ‘Fixing’

The single biggest problem with most teaching around confidence and personal development is that it starts from the wrong place.

It starts with the false sense that you need to change who you are in order to become OK.

When the opposite is true.

Confidence and success isn’t about CHANGING AWAY from who you are.

It is about CHANGING BACK to the person you ALWAYS WERE.

Can you see the difference?

One way says that you are fundamentally a flawed, damaged, broken human being who needs to move away form themselves in order to become well, decent lovable and successful.

The right way says that you are ALREADY all of the things you desire to be.

You have simply forgotten and buried that incredible, naturally talented, gifted person under the weight of bad teaching, awful programming and stifling social conditioning.

There is NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU, there never was and there never will be.

There is SO MUCH WRONG with the way that 99% of people are programmed to think, to see themselves and to see how to navigate through life.

The thinking of the 99% is an almost perfect system for not being happy, for not being confident or successful and for not getting what you want.

So frustration, misery and low self esteem is just the logical consequence of that bad thinking.

All the 1% did was to fail to get programmed with (or learnt to UNLEARN) that bad teaching and toxic social conditioning.

They retained or reconnected with their natural success and confidence mindset.

The same mindset you were born with too.

So remember, you are not broken. You never were.

And the journey is not to change away for who you are but to reconnect with the incredible power and talent that has always been within you.

Mistake 5 - Misunderstanding Failure

How do you view success and failure?

Do you know that failure is an essential part of the process of success?

Or does that idea just remain something you read in a quote, but never applied?

Despite ALL the quotes on failure most most people still fear it.

Which means they never understood what the quotes were really saying in the first place.

Because if they did they would run towards failure not away from it.

They would recognise that without failing they would never succeed, never become who they wanted to be and never create the life they want to live.

Because the building blocks for the life they want come from the lessons learnt through the failures along the way.

The next next stage of your growth cannot take place UNTIL you have learn the lessons that ONLY your failures can give you.

It’s the experience that takes something from knowledge to wisdom.

It’s how you turn what the world calls your setback into your comeback, into the thing that makes you stronger, wiser, better and ready to move to the next stage of your growth and evolution.

Into becoming the person you need to become to create the life you want.

Failure is not to be feared. It is to be embraced as your very best friend.

It is the universe giving you EXACTLY what you need.

So every time you try you either win or you win big.

That’s why what the 1% think of as failure is very different from 99% o the world.

And it is exactly why the get the life they want.

And now you know it too.