Confidence is a popular area in coaching. Every client I have worked with has wanted confidence coaching. There is a lot to be said about what confidence actually means to us. It is a very personal concept and means something different to each and everyone of us. This shows just how important an area it is for self discovery and personal development. Confidence can make the difference in our lives because it emphasises our strengths by unveiling and nourishing our unique individual assets.

The way to approach issues around confidence is to embrace the feelings of insecurity with an alert and accepting attitude. Often we can feel overwhelmed and embarrassed by feelings of insecurity, we don’t read them correctly, we try to hide them, deny them, push them away fight them and even fight others over them. These are all a waste of time and energy. In fact we every time we do these things we are harming ourselves. 

Instead the approach that you need to take is a much more pro-active one. This is where the real difference is to be made in your life. When those feelings of insecurity and lacking of confidence arise in you, they are signals that you are not completely happy with yourself and that you need to do some work on yourself. More importantly these feelings are telling you that you need to gather your resources, educate yourself and develop yourself in the particular area that you are feeling the lack. 

The context of where confidence may be lacking will be different each time, maybe it’s work related and needing to train on extra skills or gaining the trust and confidence of your team. Maybe it’s at home and about cooking skills, or being a calmer, happier and more effective parent. In every case the solution is to listen to what your feelings are telling you and to do something about it.  There is a lot that you can do to increase your confidence by developing the part of you that is nagging. The greatest change you can make today is to listen to yourself, do not ignore the signs, they will keep arising and may even produce themselves in other areas of your life. 

Once you can read your emotional signals you are in the driving seat, you can choose whether to see someone about the correct weight change or exercises for your body, you can choose whether to request some additional training at work or increase your opportunities, or get help with draining habits, get counseling to deal with a challenging past, develop your interpersonal skills and to really live your life to the full. Developing confidence is always within your grasp, it is always something that you can take action about. It requires self awarenss and self acceptance with a proactive attitude. Once we have changed our attitude towards confidence, the rest is about a working progress.