How to Build Confidence and Overcome Self-Doubt

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:00

All right, so here's the thing. If you struggle with self doubt and want to build confidence in yourself and your abilities, this video is for you. So as a psychologist and executive coach, I've been studying psychology for like over 16 years at this point. And a lot of people really struggle with self doubt and want to build more confidence in themselves and their abilities. What does confidence actually mean? These are the three pillars I've found that make up what most people call confidence and how you can work on each to improve your own.

Let's get started. So the first pillar of confidence is self-esteem. And what self-esteem is, is belief in yourself. Right, basically, do you believe that you are a good person? Do you believe that you are worthy? Because if you struggle with self-esteem, it's really hard to build confidence. Right, like if you deeply believe that you're just a broken piece of shit, or you're unlovable, or you're just not a good person, or you're unworthy of success, or love, or achievement, or whatever, that is really gonna pull you down.

that's gonna affect how you show up in your work and your relationships and your life in general. So then how do you build self-esteem, right? How do you improve your self-esteem to then build your confidence? One super simple thing you can do is ask people how they would describe you, right? What are my good qualities and traits? And you can have them submit them like anonymously, right? Like if you're afraid to like ask people in person, cause you're afraid you're gonna be like a narcissist or some shit, that's fine.

But sometimes if you struggle with self doubt, it's really hard for you to see your own good qualities. So rather than me telling you like, write down all the good things about yourself, that's cool. And you should totally do that, right? Like you can add into like your morning journaling routine of three things you really enjoy about yourself, three things you're proud of with yourself, right? So for example, maybe I am a kind person. I am a compassionate person. I'm a good listener, right? These are things you 100 % can and honestly should do on a regular basis, but

if you think you would struggle with that on your own, another way to kind of bypass it is to literally just ask other people what they like about you, what they think are your good traits. Because a lot of times we are blind to how other people see us. And that plays into our own self-doubt. Because if all we see are our own perceived character flaws, then not only are we overlooking our strengths, but we also just assume nobody else sees our strengths and only sees our weaknesses. Okay, so.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 02:18

First pillar, self-esteem. Take an inventory, both on your own, of your good qualities, but then also ask other people what they think your good qualities are. The second pillar is self-efficacy. Now this is a term you may or may not have heard before. It's super common in psychology, but honestly, psychologists, we don't use this term very often in public. And self-efficacy is basically your belief that you are capable of doing a specific thing, right? So self-esteem is, I think I'm a good person. Self-efficacy is,

I think I can actually do this. I can achieve this. I can build this. I can succeed at this thing. Right? So already you're probably seeing, I can believe that I'm a good person, but doubt that I'm capable of doing something. Conversely, you can also see that maybe you think you're a broken piece of shit, but you're the most capable person in the room. Right? These are not mutually exclusive. I see people all the time who have high or low self-esteem and low or high self-efficacy. So then how do you improve your self-efficacy?

your belief that you are capable of achieving a given thing. Well, this honestly just comes down to your track record, right? Taking an inventory of what have you actually objectively accomplished, right? Do you have expertise? Do you have a degree? Have you published a bunch of newsletters? Have you built a company to a certain amount of revenue? What have you actually done that is proof that you are capable of doing more in the future? And you just write down, what are you good at relative to other people?

Right, maybe you're a really good listener. Maybe you're really good at editing. Maybe you're really good at coming up with ideas. Maybe you're really organized. Maybe you know a lot about copywriting. Maybe you know a lot about exercise physiology, whatever that is. What are you better at, generally speaking, than most people? What are other strengths you have? What expertise do you have? What accomplishments do you have under your belt? Because, another thing we say in psychology is past behavior predicts future behavior.

It doesn't guarantee it, but it predicts it. Meaning, if you have a track record of success, of accomplishments, that is a huge piece of evidence that you will likely continue to succeed and achieve in the future, which improves your self-efficacy, which improves your confidence. The third pillar of confidence is what I'm calling self-reference. And basically this is how do you compare yourself to yourself and to others? So there's this thing in psychology called upward and downward social comparison.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 04:42

It sounds super academic, but really all it means is if you constantly do downward social comparisons, meaning you compare yourself to people you perceive to be lesser than you or behind you, right? People who maybe they're not as educated, maybe they don't make as much money, maybe they're out of shape relative to you, whatever that is, just a downward social comparison. If you only

do downward social comparisons, then you're probably gonna be a narcissistic asshole. Right, you're gonna be like, I'm king shit relative to all these fucking peasants. But, the converse, if you do upward social comparisons, meaning you compare yourself to people you perceive to be better or further ahead than you, people who are more in shape, wealthier, smarter, more accomplished, whatever. Well, if you exclusively do that, then you're always gonna feel like an unaccomplished piece of shit, right? That is going to severely impact your

confidence and cause a lot of self-doubt because you're always comparing yourself to people you think are ahead of you or who objectively are ahead of you. But the trick is is to find a balance to both do upward and downward social comparisons because that allows you to strike a balance of look how far I've come which gives you some confidence but then also look how far I still have the potential to go which helps drive ambition and if you want to go a layer deeper than that

Don't compare yourself to other people, compare yourself to yourself. Think of you now versus you three years ago or five years ago. How much progress have you made? Compare yourself to yourself. That will build a shit ton of confidence because you will look back and be like, fuck, I have come so far. It may not feel like it right now because I'm struggling or I have all these other lofty goals. That's fine, but look at how far you've already come. These are the three pillars of confidence. However, I have found a much more effective way to

conceptualize confidence. Because a lot of times when we think about confidence, we mean like courage or bravery or something. And I think this trips up a lot of people because you're not always gonna feel brave. You're not always gonna feel courageous. You're not always gonna feel confident. But a much more effective way I've found is to try to cultivate conviction. And here's what I mean. Conviction is basically, this worth doing? What is worth doing? And this is the biggest piece that...

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 07:00

can really help you overcome anxiety and doubt. For example, I was on the Smart Passive Income podcast with Pat Flynn, and he and were talking about this, you know, in the context of stage fright. So Pat and I were both talking about how, how much we both talk publicly, we both get nervous right before we have to go on stage. Like me, I typically have to pee immediately before an interview or a speech. My hands get sweaty, I get a little nauseous, it's a whole thing. And I've been doing this for years.

And I love speaking, right, like I'm doing this fucking video. But I no longer try to be more courageous or be braver. What Pat and I were talking about was we focus on conviction, meaning we say, despite my own anxiety, my selfish anxiety and insecurity and self-doubt, rather than focusing on that, how can I focus on my audience? What do they need? Why do they need to hear this message? Also, on a meta level, it's the whole fucking reason I'm doing this video for you right now.

to hopefully help you. I'm more concerned with helping you than my own need to pee or some shit. Because when you focus on what other people need that you deeply believe needs to exist in the world, a lot of that anxiety and self-doubt just goes by the wayside because you're focusing on what you have conviction in. You're saying this matters and it matters so much, it is more important than my own perceived self-doubt, inadequacy, insecurity, whatever.

So this is a much more effective way to think about things rather than just confidence, because this allows you to build trust in yourself, belief that what you're doing matters, and the satisfaction that you are doing good work. So hopefully this was helpful. Until next time, take it easy.