The Secrets to Having More Self Confidence: Part 2

If you’ve been following this blog for awhile you might remember one of my previous posts about the 3 things I need to be happy. 

One of them is exercise.

Guys, do you know how hard it is to get 4-5 workouts in each week? 

Like for reals.

Most days I have to get up really early in the morning . . . . like before 5:30 . . . . and work out first thing before the babies wake up.

Most people don’t even realize their alarm can be set that early in the morning!

With the medication I take in the morning, I can’t eat any food for at least 30-60 minutes, which usually means I workout on an empty stomach. (Let’s not even talk about how this is like a gazillion times worse when I have morning sickness.)

And several days a week I have to workout BY MYSELF in my cold basement when really I prefer classes. Heck! I was an aerobics instructor for crying out loud. People motivate me. 

Getting my workouts in on a daily basis is seriously one of the hardest things I have to do right now.

But I do them.

Every. Day. 

I know that I will physically and mentally feel better if I workout, but honestly, at 5:05 in the morning that is not nearly enough motivation to get me out of bed to go downstairs and do burpees.

When the rubber hits the road (or at least that alarm goes off) I’m getting out of bed, because I said I would. I made a plan, and I’m going to stick to it.

In my previous post I mentioned that I would be dedicating a few blog posts to the subject of self confidence.   

This is a topic that my clients have been bringing up a lot lately, and honestly, it’s something that I continue to work on myself. And probably will work on until the day I die.

Brooke Castillo says that self confidence consists of 3 things:

1. The ability to trust yourself.
2. Knowing that you can experience any emotion.
3. Your opinion of yourself.

So this go round, I want to focus on #1: The ability to trust yourself. 

Trusting myself, to me, means that I make and keep commitments to myself. 

I know that I will always do what I say I’m going to do. 

That means if I say I’m going to workout tomorrow morning, I’m going to get up and work out tomorrow morning.

If I say I’m going to publish a blog post on Thursdays, then I will make time to write and post the blog.

When I keep commitments to myself, I never have to wonder if I’m going to follow through.

I never have to beat myself up for not doing something I say I’m going to do.

I know that if I make a commitment to myself, it’s just as firm as if I’m committing to someone outside of myself.

But here’s the best part that I didn’t even realize for the longest time. 

Every time I do something I say I’m going to do, I increase my self confidence.

Think about it. 

If I planned to do something for myself, but every time I cancelled the plan, I would doubt myself every time I made a plan.

Self doubt is the opposite of self confidence.

Doesn’t the same thing apply when we look at this when it comes to relationships with others? 

We trust others and have confidence in them when they keep their word.

The same goes for ourselves.

We create a relationship with ourselves by the way we treat ourselves.

If we’re constantly breaking promises to ourselves, we probably don’t have a great relationship with ourselves. 

This leads to self doubt and the destruction of self confidence.

I’m not going to lie. I pushed the snooze button twice this morning when it was time to get up, AND I almost didn’t. 

But I did.

I made a commitment to myself, and I kept it.

If nothing else today, I can be proud of that.

Originally Published 1/9/20