Just Decide: The Secret to Confidence

Confidence isn’t real. Yep, there’s nothing wrong with your screen–what I’ve just said is a fact. And to prove it, here’s a short list of things that are actually real: the human body needs air and food, the earth is round, and when you’re feeling good serotonin is coursing through your system. See what I mean? Some things aren’t up for debate.

But confidence…confidence is made up. Like many things in life, it’s only a thing because we say it is. It’s truly arbitrary. We say to ourselves, “I feel good in this situation, so I’m confident. I’m feeling nervous about this or that, so I’m not confident at the moment.” When the truth is, those are just the things you tell yourself.

You’ve decided that a certain situation, or reaction, or response means something. You’re the judge, jury, and executor of your own self-worth and of your own life really. And the good news is that you can cut the confusion out today.

Screw confidence and the fact that you even think that it’s important or real. You’ve decided, somewhere inside you, that confidence is something  you have to acquire or achieve and that my friend is your problem. In fact, it’s your one and only problem.

You see, even if confidence were real, the belief that you have to get it, means that you’ll never have it. It’s futile, like trying to chase the horizon, you’ll never touch it, you’ll never arrive. You just frustratingly go along, like a hamster on a wheel.

You can only have what you decide you’ve already got or just received at any given moment. And this decision, this choice works for you every second of every moment of every day.  You can feel nervous or sad or mad but those crazy hormones, chemical reactions, or bodily functions don’t define you. You can choose how you value and categorize them. And that’s why they’re arbitrary. That’s why your perception is the only thing that makes things real.

And when you come to this realization, you know you don’t need confidence or motivation. After all, these are just labels people use to define their good mindsets, choices, and actions. For example, want abs? Decide that you’re a fit person today and the subsequent workouts that line up with the reality that you chose will get you those abs. When life hands lemons, the reason winners make lemonade is because they’ve decided that those lemons don’t get to run their lives. The beautiful things is you have that same choice, just make a decision and the subsequent actions that result from that decision will do all the work for you.