Many people define self-confidence as the feeling of trust in your own abilities and judgment. While that may be true, it doesn’t really describe the progressive continuum in developing confidence in yourself. That means, you may not be confident in one area, but gradually are becoming more confident as you go through the process of trying, failing, tweaking, trying again, succeeding a little bit, etc. Confidence in yourself is not a yes/no, on/off deal.

It’s a feeling

Some days you feel more confident, others you don’t even if you’ve felt confident in that area in the past. Many things can contribute to how you’re feeling about succeeding in one area. If you’re ill or under the weather, your confidence may ebb. If your skin broke out or your hair isn’t cooperating, that might dent your confidence. But, sometimes it’s just that you haven’t done something recently that you’ve done well at in the past. For most people, the challenge isn’t in trying something for the first time. It’s working it a second time and failing after they’ve already succeeded to some degree. They don’t want to not live up to themselves.

Talking down to yourself promotes this feeling. The only way around this is to step out and do it. Of course, if you fall flat on your face, you may not want to do it again, but really, failing gives you an opportunity to make adjustments and improvements.

Who’s in charge?

The challenge is that your feelings aren’t always controlled by you. Sometimes they’re controlled by your gut microbes. “What?” you say. Bugs? Well, yes, the bacterium that lives in your gut. The growing body of evidence says that the feel-good hormones in your body like serotonin and dopamine. That means if your gut flora is not healthy, you may feel less confident.If confidence eludes you even though you know you can do it, perhaps you should work on a gut-friendly diet.

Stop over-training

When you over-train a muscle, it ends up sprained or strained and needs time to heal. When you over-train your psyche, you fill your mind with so much information that you overwhelm yourself. Don’t think you have to do it all or try it all at once. Instead, try things the way a baby does. A little at a time, a step up, a fallback—do that until you know you can take that second step. If you’re always a “no” person, try to say “yes” every third time. If you’re a “yes” person and therefore get taken advantage of, practice saying “no” until you can say it firmly.

If one of the things you’re not confident about is buying a home, don’t try to do it on your own. Utilize the expertise and experience of your professional real estate agent.

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