Affirming Self-Confidence

Confidence can refer to having a sense of belief and trust in your own abilities or something situation-specific. When do you feel the most confidence? When you are engaging in an activity that you are most experienced in. You know your strength in that area. However, when you are experiencing change: such as being a new mom, getting a new job, achieving a new goal, you are unaware of your abilities: strengths/weaknesses.
Here is where fear, self-doubt, and lack of self-confidence come to play. You gain self-confidence by focusing on your strengths to control your fears and strengthen your weaknesses. This also comes with practicing and researching to gain knowledge and experience in whatever you’re working on and trying to gain confidence in.
According to Meyer (2006), confident people do not focus on their weaknesses; they develop and maximize their strengths. Let’s just say I am a basketball player who can barely shoot a layup; my shooting skills are at a level 10, but hitting a layup is at a level 6. If I continue to practice improving and believing I can master my layup, I will eventually gain enough confidence to shoot a layup. But if I continue to dwell on my weakness and not try, I will not achieve the belief that I need to hit a layup. Self-confidence is gained through believing, practicing, experience, and achievement.
According to Meyer (2006), lack of self-confidence is like a sickness, and just like a sickness, underconfidence is caused by a deficiency of one thing (confidence) caused by too much fear. It is essential to have confidence in yourself because it can help you become successful in all areas of your life. If you want to grow spiritually, physically, mentally, socially, you must have confidence and believe in your abilities to take action and accomplish goals. Having confidence is like having the motivation to pursue your dreams. Without you will continue to be equipped with fear. And fear is a dangerous virus because a fearful person has no confidence and can never reach their potential in life (Meyer, 2006).
2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but power and love and self-control. When God made us, he made us to be powerful and in control of who we are and what we’re supposed to do. He did not place fear in our hearts. He does not want us to quit anything because we feel uncomfortable or anxious. He wants us to lean on Him for guidance and strength so that He can help us complete the task we are set out to do and become the fearless, confident, and wonderful human being he designed us to be. We just have to get out our own way, love ourselves, and get active!

Meyers, J. (2006). The Confident Woman. Hatchette Book Group