How To Build SELF-CONFIDENCE

Last week, I gave a speech about owning who you are and how this related to confidence in business AND ourselves. When I was finished, the first question someone asked was, “Where do you get confidence, and how does someone build confidence?”  As I have never been asked this before so I was caught a little off guard and said, “Now that is a great question!”

I’m going to be honest, I have to work on confidence every day. Even today, I still get scared before every speech, and it doesn’t matter if I’m speaking to 10 people or 10,000. Every now and then, I find that I second-guess myself while teaching a class. I wonder if the point I made was a good one. At times, I’ve even caught myself questioning if I am smart enough to be giving other people advice.

I remember the first warm up I ever did. It was at a 5k race where my business partner walked over to me and said, “Hey! Go grab that microphone and start warming people up!” I told him, “NO F-ING WAY!” I had made up all these excuses like: these people don’t know who I am, they don’t want to hear from me, no one asked me to warm anyone up, and etc. He got in my face and told me, “It’s time to step it up! This is who you are and the business you are trying to build.” I actually started crying. I was crying out of fear. Fear of what people would think, fear of people hating me, and fear of people making fun of me. He then said, “It’s now or never, so GO.”

Since that day, I have warmed-up 10,000 runners for the Lululemon Half Marathon in Canada. On a yearly basis, I warm-up 6,000 women in Santa Cruz, and 3,000 in Santa Barbara for the SHE.IS.BEAUTIFUL races. I have made a career out of motivating people to let go of fear and chase their dreams. And I am not telling you this to boast. I am telling you this so you know I didn’t just walk into this line of work confidently with my head held high thinking I’m fearless and I’ve got this.

I have given amazing speeches where I literally have had people crying in the audience and I walk away thinking that it went amazingly. I have also spoken to groups of people who made it clear they did not like my personality or what I had to say. Years ago I was speaking to a small corporate group where a man stood up and said, “You are full of BS! This self-love is selfish.” He questioned everything I said, telling me I am “all fluff.” I walked away broken, feeling like a failure, and second guessing everything I stood for.

I left that experience vowing to never let anyone make me feel that way again. People can only make you feel the way you allow them to. There are tons of people out there who don’t love this loud, bright colored, self-loving, and confident woman, but that’s okay. I am NOT here to serve those people. I am here to serve those who need me, those who want to be lifted up, and those who want to take their lives back. Not everyone may need to hear my message, and that is okay.

I know every time I am pushed out of my comfort zone, my confidence grows. Every opportunity I take, whether I have a great experience or a bad one, I walk away learning something new.

Confidence also came to me when I started to believe in what I said more than what other people said about me. I started taking every opportunity that came my way, no matter how uncomfortable it was. I started saying YES to myself and NO to pleasing other people.

We waste a lot of our energy seeking approval from others. When you behave authentically and live a life that you believe in, your confidence can’t shatter when people don’t approve. Every time I give a speech, teach a class, or do a warm-up, I go all in with my authentic self and whatever people get from that is their own story.

The bottom line is this: confidence comes from DOING. It comes from taking chances, failing, and believing in yourself. You don’t gain confidence sitting around in fear talking about what you should be doing, what you want to be doing, or what other people are doing. It comes from actually DOING.

You don’t have to stand in front of hundreds of people and give speeches and become an entrepreneur in order to be confident. It’s about taking the smallest step in the right direction to bettering yourself. Confidence comes from stepping into fear instead of running away from it.

I am going to ask you to make a commitment TODAY.  Pick one thing you have been putting off because you have not had the confidence to do it. It could be as simple as trying a new workout, taking a class at the local city college, or sitting a family member down to have an open conversation. In order to build confidence you have to DO. Make today the day you say YES to opportunity.

I love all of you and believe in each and every one of you!

Thank you for continuing to let me tell you my story,

Jenny