I tend to think of confidence as a muscle. It needs to be exercised and strengthened. It is an iterative process of testing yourself, learning, growing and building your confidence and self-belief though smaller incremental steps.
I look back at my life journey, especially my time as a professional sportsperson, and I have to pinch myself. There are many athletes who have an Olympic Gold or a World Championship victory as their life-long ambition. It’s what they have strived for since they were a child. I didn’t have that. I never imagined I would become a professional athlete, let alone four time World Champion. However, if I have taken one lesson from sport, it is that the impossible is possible – there are no limits on what we can achieve.
However, it is common to place limits on ourselves or have negative and toxic beliefs about who we are and what we are capable of. For example: "I always fail exams", "I couldn't never be a runner", "I am not flexible enough to do yoga", "I don’t fit in", "I'm not good enough". These thoughts are like a virus that infiltrate our brains, with impacts on our health, our confidence, our life satisfaction and our personal growth. Of course, not everyone feels this way but I have heard these comments (and even said them myself) enough times to know it isnt a rarity either.
It's not only ourselves - we might even place limits on others. As a parent this has been something my husband and I have been very conscious of. A few years ago we took our daughter to Yr Wyddfa (or Mount Snowdon) in Wales, hoping to climb to the summit. She was five. At the bottom a stranger said “but what if she can’t do it?” To which we replied “but what if she can?”
It is not for us to set the limits for her - it is our role to give her the wings to explore what she is capable of.
So if you have limiting beliefs that may be holding you back, it might be worth trying some of the following:
Identify the negative beliefs: Listen to the negative thoughts that emerge at certain times, and see how often they occur. For example, do you find yourself saying ‘I’m not an outdoor person’, ‘i can’t run’, ‘I don’t look good in leggings’. How often do you have these thoughts, and when might they arise?
The personal cost: Think about the consequences of holding onto that limiting belief. What opportunities might you forgo or dreams might you not fulfil? Have you said no to a new opportunity, a promotion, decided not to start writing a novel, or not starting a Couch to 5k programme. This is the personal cost of the belief that you hold.
Evaluate the evidence: Challenge yourself to find evidence both to support the belief, and also challenge it. For example, ask yourself - is this belief really grounded in reality and supported by facts? Is this thought realistic or is it an exaggeration? Are there alternative explanations for what happened? Is it a generalisation based on one instance rather than a recurring reality? Maybe ask yourself when you last did something you were proud of or pleased with. Think about why and how you did it, and the emotions it evoked.
Identify the root cause: It might not be possible to identify precisely when the limiting belief emerged, but think about what the source might be - a comment from a friend, a social media post, an article in a magazine, an experience you had.
Support: Lean into others who can give you encouragement and counter the view you have of yourself or an outcome. Can you ask them to specify a few things that they like about you. Specifics are good, so rather than saying "you're a great person", they could pinpoint your bravery, resilience, kindness and give examples of when you have demonstrated those qualities.
Remember we are complex: We are complex individuals, sometimes motivated, sometimes not. Sometimes candid, other times we might shy away from being brutally honest. I might have relentless willpower in a sporting context, but be unable to stop biting my nails. Patient, but lacking the same skill when faced with building Ikea furniture. Try to remember that this is normal, natural and try not to succumb to generalisations which say “I am always impatient” or “I never have any will power”.
Establish new beliefs: Think objectively at the evidence and use that to develop a counterfactual, positive belief and affirmation. Use these as the vaccination against the virus. Every time a negative thought pops into your head try to counter it with evidence to the contrary and a positive affirmation.
Use action: Begin to behave in a way that challenges the negative belief, and creates that sustained inoculation against debilitating negativity. If you don't think you are a good writer try writing a single blog, or start a journal. If you think you can't run, why not head to your local parkrun and chat to others at the start, even doing the first few minutes to see how you feel? Maybe you can wake up and immediately put your yoga clothes on and do a few light stretches. This is an action that takes you one step closer to countering the thought that “I am too lazy in the mornings”.
I often remind myself not to wait until I feel confident to make a change or to try something. We are all fearful, we are all scared of what might happen, and of the unknown. But we also don't want to be left wondering, or miss an amazing opportunity.
So set small goals that are ambitious yet realistic, and just take that first important step, to start. Once you achieve those goals you set new targets, building momentum and confidence as you go. Of course there might be setbacks but they are part of this journey, to be expected and embraced as opportunities to grow, to become stronger, to challenge the beliefs you have about yourself and to make the taste of success all the more sweeter.
My incredible, inspirational friend Sam, who has Motor Neurone Disease, cannot move, eat, talk or breathe unaided. Yet he still had a dream of finishing the London Marathon. He had a purpose, he is always willing to innovate and step off the path, he developed a plan, he built a team around him, he was willing to fail - in fact, we did fail to finish in 2023 - but in crossing the finish line at the London Marathon in April this year he raised the bar and smashed any limitations that may have been placed on him.
When we give ourselves the freedom to explore, to try, to fail, then more often than not we surprise ourselves.
Thinking about this topic, I thought it might be useful to sign off with a excerpt from my autobiography. In fact it is the final paragraph:
“…how can I speculate on what the future holds, when the present is so astronomically removed from whatever expectations I might have had in my youth? My only policy throughout has been to keep an open mind and, whatever I may do, to give it my all. It still takes my breath away to think where that simple outlook on life has taken me. I never set out to be a world champion – not many ordinary girls from Norfolk do – but neither have I ever wanted to be left wondering, ‘What if..?’ At so many stages along the way, the limits that I thought I could see lying ahead dissolved as I approached them. And that has been the most exciting discovery of all”.
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