What can you do when you lack self-confidence? When you doubt yourself and your abilities? How can you gain self-confidence quickly? Here are 5 powerful steps you can take to stop doubting yourself and gain self-confidence.

1 – Looking back on your victories to boost your self-confidence

When you lack self-confidence, it’s essential to look back and realize how far you’ve come.

All too often, we doubt ourselves and put ourselves down, because we think we’re weak and helpless.

But when we look back, we can see that we’ve already come a long way, and even achieved a great deal.

But we forget that. And that’s a big mistake, because self-confidence is built precisely on the memories of our victories.

So, to gain self-confidence, we need to look back on our victories. That’s the first step.

To do this, take a piece of writing paper and list at least 10 of your victories. Look back over the past month: what have you achieved? Then go back a little further, to the month before, last year and so on.

List at least 10 of your victories. Take all the time you need. You can even ask people around you to help you.

Make this list and let a feeling of pride and joy swell your heart.

2 – Reviewing failures

In fact, self-confidence is also based on our past failures. Because our failures are nothing to be ashamed of, not at all.

In fact, the opposite is true. Our failures are learning experiences.

The problem is that we’ve learned to be so ashamed of our failures that we hide them under the carpet, without realizing how useful they can be.

So, to gain self-confidence, we need to look back on our failures.

To do this, take some writing implements and list at least 5 things you’ve failed at. Go back. Little by little. And list at least 5 things.

Don’t feel ashamed or guilty. On the contrary, take a deep breath and feel immense compassion for yourself, and even pride.

Indeed, you’ve tried to do things, they haven’t succeeded, but so what? You can be proud of yourself.

Then, for each of the 5 failures, list at least 3 lessons you learned from them.

You’ll see that this will do you a lot of good and give you greater self-confidence.

3 – Becoming a student again

We think that believing in ourselves means never doubting ourselves. But this is completely false. In fact, we can believe in ourselves and still doubt ourselves. In fact, it’s very healthy to do so.

In fact, it’s important to understand that self-confidence is not the same as believing oneself to be infallible and all-powerful.

Self-confidence means knowing that we have the ability to succeed, because we are capable of learning whatever we need to learn.

In other words, to gain self-confidence, we need to be able to recognize that we need to learn certain things in order to succeed at other things.

And that’s our big problem today: needing to learn, just like needing help, is something we find hard to admit. But it’s perfectly natural and healthy.

So, as you’ll understand, to gain self-confidence quickly, you’re going to have to make an inventory of the things you need to learn.

To do this, take a piece of writing paper and list at least 5 things you need to learn to get ahead on certain projects or in your life in general.

Finally, for each of the things you need to learn, list at least 2 ideas for actions you could take to start learning.

4 – Build an action plan to boost your self-confidence

Self-confidence means knowing where you’re going, having a vision, a plan. Indeed, when we don’t know where we’re going, we wobble on our foundations, we’re timid and fearful.

That’s why, to gain self-confidence, it’s important to build a plan of action.

To do this, take a piece of writing paper and ask yourself: “What’s my direction? What is my vision, my plan?”

Start slowly. Start with this month, then move on to the next 6 months, the next 12 months.

Then, out of curiosity, ask yourself, “What’s my direction for the next 5 years?”

Understand that an action plan isn’t something that’s set in stone. In fact, you can always modify it and even change it along the way.

But right now, you need one to build your self-confidence and take the right actions to start moving forward.

So make choices! Right now.

5 – Taking action and building self-confidence

It’s all very well making lists, but at some point you’re going to have to take action. (laughs)

Indeed, knowing is good, but taking action is even more important. Because, if we don’t change anything in our lives, then nothing will change.

So, reread everything you’ve just written. Take your time. Then, list at least 10 action ideas that you could implement right now.

Don’t think too much about how you’re going to do it. Let your creativity flow.

Finally, choose from the 10 actions the one that appeals to you most, or the one that seems easiest or most urgent, and take action!

If you find it difficult to take action and/or you have self-confidence issues, I’ll be happy to guide and coach you. To this end, I offer telephone coaching sessions.

Find out more:

I invite you to read these 2 complementary articles:

Discover Fear of disappointment: 7 tips to overcome it
Discover How to accept yourself as you are: 8 useful tips

I recommend this inspiring book:

The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal
This book delves into the science of willpower and teaches strategies to strengthen your determination and self-confidence.
This is such a transformative book. It requires you to do the hardest thing of all: be honest with yourself. The author does an incredible job of explaining how our brains work, why we have these feelings and how to identify them.
Since reading these books (and a few others), I’ve gone from being an insecure person, constantly blaming others for my own failures, to a happy and confident person, able to recognize my failures, take responsibility for them and do something about them.

Thank you very much for reading this article.

If you liked it, let me know in the comments.

Take care of yourself