How Your Habits Can Rob You of Confidence

The three key pillars of personal confidence are: our self-belief, desire to belong, and self-acceptance. If we do not feel we belong, don't believe in ourselves, haven't achieved enough, or don't really like ourselves, our self-esteem and sense of worth tend to suffer. When it comes to achievement, in particular, there are numerous ways to lose confidence and many of them relate to the limits we unwittingly put on ourselves, particularly relating to routine habits, and not knowing what we want.

There are three main ways to limit personal achievement: through our thought processes, ignorance of what would make us happy, and the habits that we cling to daily for comfort and security. Each new day, through those three elements, we unconsciously put artificial barriers on what we can achieve.

1. Unconsciously Limiting Achievement

Our actions are controlled by our thought processes. For example, if we are in a car driving to an unfamiliar destination, we mentally talk ourselves into getting there, while remaining alert to avoid wrong turns or accidents. We are likely to have a route map in our mind, or a mental picture of the destination, and to follow it to the end. We might get slightly lost along the way, but, having the basic idea of our destination, we can either retrace our steps and get back on track, or stick to the wrong turning with the hope that it will join with the right route in the end. Either way, we will only have a temporary loss of orientation and discomfort because we know our destination and can always ask for help.

Not so, for our lives and careers.

We tend to head off in no direction at all, have no idea where we are going, or what our main objective is, and actually expect to get out the other side feeling completely fulfilled, or in the dream job of our choice. Yet this short-sighted approach is like asking a blind person to find his/her own way in totally unfamiliar territory - something guaranteed to reduce their sense of competence. In this confusing and ambiguous way, many dreams do not see the light of day, leading to much personal frustration and disappointment.

If you are still in confusion about that, still using old habits to guide present thought and actions, it suggests a conflict between what you aspire to be, and your actual experience.

2. Not Knowing What You Want

When it comes to self-belief, the bottom line is this:To get where you want to go in your life, and ensure a high self-esteem, you have to know what you want, and at least the direction you should take to get it. You also have to be flexible with your habits.

Nothing happens by accident. Your present knowledge and actions are dictated almost entirely by your general education and social background: and this includes everything you learnt from your parents, family, people you met, and everything you did. All those aspects would have influenced YOU as the individual and moulded your current perceptions and character. They would have formed your identity - the person you are, and the things you do. If you are still in confusion about that, still using old habits to guide present thought and actions, it suggests a conflict between what you aspire to be, and your actual experience.

3. The Power of Habits

If you want to know what future you are likely to have, just look at your habits NOW, and the kind of thoughts you dwell on. Negative, inflexible, habits that are dictated by fear produce negative results which keep us feeling frustrated and inadequate. Most important, routine habits limit achievement dramatically through constantly reinforcing inappropriate behaviour.

It is easy to get into a pattern of action that includes certain habits that drive your present, while you are stuck in the past regretting lost actions, yet not improving the present ones either. Needless to say some habits often hamper achievement and lower self esteem. Positive, flexible habits that respond to change, give flexible, and often unexpected, results that can be used to good advantage.

We are all creatures of habits, but reviewing those habits regularly, to prevent us being a slave o their negative effects, is the best way to keep them relevant, self enhancing and in tune with what we desire.

Aristotle once said: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

What are your current habits?

Do they indicate who you are, what you really want, and where you are going?

Or do they tell more about where you are coming from, and where you could be stuck at this moment?

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Author: The Essential Guide to Confidence (ebook and print)