Receipts

Gaining Self-Confidence

Photo by Dynamic Wang on Unsplash

I have always struggled with self-confidence. I tend to see myself through the lens of all of my failures and weaknesses. I am absolutely my own harshest critic. I consistently underestimate myself and doubt my abilities. For years, I would put on an air of confidence and try to hide how I was feeling inside, insecure. However, the more I accomplished, the more that feeling changed. I still struggle with self-doubt, but I have learned to deal with it — through work.

I was listening to a podcast recently and heard a quote by Alex Hormozi, “You don’t gain self-confidence by shouting affirmations in a mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Outwork your self-doubt.” Undoubtedly, I have found this quote to be true. By consistently viewing myself through a lens of all of my weaknesses and failures, I was unknowingly stacking receipts. The proof that I was better than my self-doubt that Alex Hormozi was talking about.

While I fully acknowledge that constantly viewing yourself through a negative lens isn’t good, neither is having self-confidence issues. The fact is, I was lack self-confidence because of how I viewed myself already. I would not encourage anyone to intentionally view themselves in a negative light, although everyone should be humble and constantly examine themselves for potential weaknesses. It is critical that you don’t let your self-doubt handcuff you and prevent you from taking action. Even if you doubt yourself, try anyways. I turned my self-confidence issues into motivation to get to work. I consistently work on my weaknesses and issues. This is one of the reasons I started writing these articles — to help me and others examine ourselves, reflect on our past, and improve moving forward. In order to build receipts, you must take action and get to work.

Once you get to work, despite any self-confidence issues, you can begin to stack receipts. With every issue you overcome and everything you accomplish, you are building a resume of work that allows you to reflect on who you are. If you don’t think you can do something and have nothing to reflect back on, you obviously have nothing to build your confidence. Even if you are endeavoring into new ventures if you know you have done other things or more difficult things, you can use that as fuel to build your self-confidence. Each achievement that you have is another receipt to add to your stack. Eventually, you will be able to look back on your stack of receipts and know that you are who you need to be in order to accomplish anything. Therefore, those of us that lack self-confidence simply need to get to work. But that first step is always the most difficult. Every marathon starts with a single step, but that first step is the hardest when trying to build self-confidence.

How do we take the first step if we don’t believe we can even accomplish our goal? The answer to that is to start small. It is true that a marathon starts with a single step. Almost everyone can take a step, but not everyone can run a marathon. Therefore, you must start small. You can’t start building your pile of receipts with the biggest tasks and loftiest dreams. Start with things that are hard, but you are fairly certain you can accomplish. Once you have those receipts, use those as fuel to do something a little harder. Consistently build your receipt pile in this manner until you have gained the confidence to know that you are confident and when you look into the mirror, you will see someone you are proud of because you will have a stack of receipts behind you that proves you are just as good as you think you are.