Building Your Confidence from Scratch (a Personal Confession)

WOW. Thank you SO much for posting this! I struggle with confidence as well and am in the process of creating my own. You give me hope when you say things like it took a year or so to see results, and having to commit & recommit. I feel like I have been working at this for a while, and it’s not getting any easier – yet.
And gaining external validation? OMG that’s me. I only just recently became aware that I do that.

Emilie, when you say you have the tools to feel good, and it’s a lot deeper than affirmations/self talk, what do you mean?

Yup, I did. Once growing up, second time after a divorce.

Thanks for this honest post, Emilie. I found myself a few times in your words.
I’ve always been (or appeared) very confident on the outside. But the inside didn’t resemble that at all. When I look back to my teenage years, and even up to my early twenties, I was so insecure with my personality. I was so worried about what other people thought of me – mostly the small things. Maybe it’s cause I’ve lived in so many different places in my life and moved a lot. I’m not sure.

The last couple of years have made such a difference to my confidence. I#ve noticed this recently actually.
Must have been the full-time travelling and being properly in love and happy for the first time in a relationship. And Berlin – almost everyone is 20%-100% nuts here – you can be anything you want and it’s ok.

So I wonder, Emilie – you say you know exactly what to do to feel good about yourself again. Can you elaborate on that?

Emilie, I’m completely enamored and invigorated by your selfless, illuminating and introspective level of audacious candor! I thought for a moment there, completely immersed in reading your entry that you were talking about me!

The act of witnessing your unabridged authenticity has alloted me a renewed perspective and greater sense of compassion and courage for myself. To say the least I was Lord Of the (fill in everything “weird” and cringe-worthy) throughout my entire school career. That, coupled with a strange inclination to dissect and cross analyze what others did and said made me the quintissential poster child for what a doormat is.

Emilie as well as Jason- you both make stunningly eloquent observations about learning to have/create a grounded sense of autonomy and self-actualization- often times propelled by the recognition that external forces can at best serve as transient substitutes for a truth we all must embrace through a personalized, solitary experience.

Putty peeps- through your intimacy and candor you’ve let me know that its perfectly okay to be that wall flower most others overlooked- in the hearts of those that were meant to be a part of my life, my existence was a reflection of their lightness and love, and that’s all that really matters. You all rock!

Great post! (Now you’re used to it, aren’t you? ;-)). Such a post can only be expected by you because these topics are perhaps deemed as trivial or forbidden. Most of the normal people are blessed with confidence (we aren’t normal, normal people aren’t scanners). But some people lack confidence and self respect for unavoidable reasons or it could be innate too. What I have realised is that the only reason you have less confidence is when you consider others to better than you which is most of the time wrong. Comparison is the reason why we suffer scarcity of confidence. No matter how innumberable people are there in this world one can never be a complete match for the other. Even if I compared myself to Einstein, although he was more intelligent than me but there would be something that he would have lacked that I have. I used to suffer with less confidence still I do from time to time but I have overcome a lot. Like Someone said you are what you think, so the person you look up to is the person you are. I look up to Chris Jericho and Daniel Day Lewis so this way I possess the qualities of both the guys and I feed to my mind that I am them. So this way anyone I meet couldn’t be better than me because most people aren’t as good as them. Emilie honestly when I was going through a rough time it was you who came along and worked as an instant confidence booster I really respect you for that. Thanks

I’ve dealt with a lifetime of “not good enough” and the related anxiety and frustrations. Funny, I never thought of it as a lack of confidence. Even though I seemed to have the confidence to do things in an effort to be “good enough,” it’s never been enough.

As you’ve discovered, being happy with myself just the way I am – knowing inside myself that I’m good enough – has made all the difference. While before I would do things to try and measure up to other people who were never actually judging me (it was always in my head), now I do things because those things make me happy and can help other people. Being good enough at it is much less of an issue.

I’d love to hear about the tools you use to get back your confidence when it wavers.

Thank you for writing this post Emily. If you do decide to pursue the issue of self-confidence in any form, I would love to read it and learn more.

Thank you for opening this topic up. I was just working on a post the past couple of days, tackling the subject of self-image. My daughter has just started to compare her looks. She’s only 3 and 1/2! I wish I knew how to help her learn her worth/beauty NOW.

So, if you have any thoughts on what your parents did or didn’t do to help you find your self-confidence, I’m all ears! Of course, at some point you came to the decision yourself, as you’ve shared. But, I guess what I’m really asking is, can I help a child learn this earlier than most of us?

And, then I wonder about the fact that there are lessons all of us have to learn on our own time. I can’t make my child learn anything. Part of the process is being ready, and that is something I cannot make happen!

As for my own confidence, I’ve always had an oddly strong sense of self on one level (like what I believe to be true about life). But, in other areas, yes, I had to build from scratch. It’s those creative areas or reiterations of my artistic growth that I’ve lacked that same level of confidence.

How have I overcome it? I’m still working on that…but, it helps to just do things. Once I overcome one thing, I have the strength to keep on building.

Just a knowing smile/nod/hand on shoulder combo.

Really fantastic post, Emilie. I, too, dealt with a lot of childhood bullying. For four years in high school I was tortured every single day and threatened and it was awful. And from all that, I told myself I wasn’t good enough and I didn’t deserve the things I wanted. I was a closeted writer back then. Desperate to get out, but afraid of the backlash I’d get from others. It wasn’t until I was into my third and fourth year of college where I started to realize it was OK to be me, but it took me years to finally fully 100% accept myself and love myself as I am, flaws, mistakes and all. Now I, too, am my own best friend and feel so lucky every single day that I get to be me. Thanks for sharing your story and for inspiring people to come out of their shells and be who they really are. Multipotentialites for life!!

Thank you very much for your post. One more proof to me that personal adversity is a blessing. It gives you the neccesity to change yourself for the better. And suddenly you find yourself succeeding even more than people who don’t have this kind of adversity.

Wow. What you wrote resonated so strongly with me because I SO relate. You’re right that the hard work is an ongoing process. It would be great if we could somehow achieve confidence and then be done, but it does ebb and flow, doesn’t it? Right now I’m in the very early stages of redesigning my career and have this dream of Being Me for a living. I’m inspired and fueled by people like you, Emilie, who are making it happen. And I thank you for sharing that this is still a process for you.

From where I sit it is really easy to think that everyone else has it all figured out, and that triggers exactly the kind of thinking you were talking about. That this kind of life is for others, not me. So, thanks for pulling the curtain back and sharing your real thoughts here. It helps a lot!

I agree with many of your punchlines. Real worth reading. Well I may not be the right person to share this, but this is my personal observation: think less about yourself and more about the task at hand. Enjoying the process instead of concentrating too much on the outcome reduces the anxiety. If one doesn’t enjoy the process, what’s the point in doing it?

Hi Friend! I am instantaneously addicted to your site. I should read a post about productivity next cuz I have stuff to do. 🙂 This is an awesome post! I too had a “screw this unhappiness shit” day about 10 years ago and never looked back since. Not that everything was rosey and blissful, but my attitude changed for good. I stopped making excuses for why I can’t do what I want or be what I want or have what I need. I stopped wallowing in my own self-pity (which was actually just anger used as self-destruction as revenge toward those who claimed they loved me). I too, now, am a huge fan of myself. 😉 So I know whatcha mean!!! 🙂 Looking forward to future stuff. Thanks!

I know I’m a bit late on this train in terms of commenting, but having only found this site a few weeks ago, I wanted to say something regardless of how late.

I’m in the middle of building up my confidence. I have always had demons – everyone around me seems to think I’m a confident, happy person – people have even not believed me when I’ve told them I struggle to make friends, despite the fact I only have a handful at the best of times. My insecurity has been crippling, to the point in which, after years of building up, I inevitably suffered from a major depressive episode for a few months earlier this year. It totally broke me, and even though I have never felt like I’ve known who I am – I know what makes me up, but I have no idea how it fits together – I lost even the slightest idea of myself. Coming out of that, I have never felt so lost, alone and scared in my life. That’s when the rebuilding started.

At first, when it lifted, I had a confidence I’d never felt before – a euphoria and sureness about myself. But that quickly left. Instead of going back to being lost, though, I set to work. Now I knew things about myself I didn’t before; that I need nature in my life more often (I live in London, and need more than a park to set me right, although now I try to get down to the Thames often, which is enough), I need to not be sitting still – I was meant to travel, and I haven’t travelled in years. My insecurity turned me self-centred, because all I can think of is myself, and what other people are thinking about me. That’s ugly. I struggle with that the most.

But it’s getting a little better. I’m talking to strangers when I can, occasionally smiling at people I know. Now and then, I can drag myself into the present, and I’m taking better care of myself – eating, sleeping etc. I have to stop letting myself go un-looked after. No one else is going to look after me, after all. I’m also trying to keep in good contact with friends that I have left neglected.

It’s hard, and I fail almost every day except for a few hours. But I don’t feel full of sadness all the time anymore, just occasionally, and I can be alone without tripping myself out. It’s a lot of self-loathing to dispel, and I reckon I need to give myself 2-3 years to properly eliminate it, but do you know what? I’m so glad I realised that it IS hard work, and it won’t happen overnight. I’m so glad I’ve realised that most of the aspects about myself that I dislike are caused by my insecurity, so as I gain confidence, they will fade more and more.

Knowing that other people have been there, have dealt with this, is a relief, because often I feel like the only person I know who has had to rebuild. But even if I was – I’m trying to make myself a better person, not just for myself, but for other people. Once I’m confident, I can be there for people who might not be, and help people in ways I couldn’t dream of before, like putting them at ease.

If only more people were aware they could rebuild, I’m sure it would make the world of difference. This isn’t all we are, we can change that.

hey Emile. I have very low self confidence. I am not sure about anything. I sometimes find even the simplest task hard to do when someone is looking at . my positive talk is only the day dreams that I have in I am the super confidence man. I need help. due to low confidence people think that I am dumb. they thing that I am some sort of mental patient with low brain. help me out from the sratch.