Level Up Your - Courage, Confidence and Self Esteem

Theres always one point in our lives that we remember back to thinking:”Yep, this is !@$%ing miserable, everything has failed, I am a wreck.”This is what rock bottom for most of us looks like.

Truth is, life has a funny way of throwing a curve ball usually right when or where it really hurts. Everyone has been through periods where it has crippled them.

These times crush confidence, ruin self esteem and riddle you will self doubt if you let them.

I can think of many times i have been ruined, left with nothing.At the time i thought that the world is falling appart and life as i knew it was over.

We tend to get knocked into a “Rut”.We focus and ruminate with a negativity bias.We feel like a failure or a reject and we have evidence to prove it. Right?

We dont question these thoughts and accept them as fact.All while forgetting one crucial thing, we have the CHOICE to believe this or not.

We may try therapy or medication to help us cope, but at the end of the day its our lives and our mindsets that need improvement.

Looking back i can see now that during these times i was tested so intensely that it led to massive personal growth.

Being a failure and having a failure are very different.

Dont be afraid of failing, be afraid of being a failure.

Being a failure is giving up hope, surrendering your goals, and loosing belief in yourself. They hit a failure and quit. It was too hard.

To grow you must fail because thats the indicator that you are at the edge of your capabilities and that you are taking action towards your goals.

Any meaningful endeavour in life requires trial and error.To avoid failure at the cost of action, is to avoid success itself.

The 3 Amigos

Courage

Courage is the ability to take action despite fear.

From our first steps as a child to creating a business as a young adult.Courage is vitial to taking meaningful action towards our goals.

From this courageous action we obtain results, this is the evidence confidence needs to have trust or faith. Slowly but surely we build a portfolio of past actions or success which builds our confidence.

Imagine it like a bird collecting sticks to build a nest.The bird must have courage to take action to bring them back and build the nest of confidence. Courage being the action despite fear, Confidence being the result of successful action

Confidence

Confidence comes from the Latin word fidere which means "to trust".To me, Confidence is the ability to trust or have faith in something, yourself or others.

Like the bird we slowly build our confidence nest with time.Its the achievement of goals, like reps in the gym. Every rep makes you stronger.Confidence is built on accomplishment

As we know, life does have a tendency to break our nest from time to time.Luckily for us, this process can force us to rebuild stronger.

Confidence is universal and respected by all.Everyone sees it from your spouse to your colleages.

Self Esteem

Self-esteem is your overall opinion of yourself, and your beliefs about your abilities and limitations. Self-esteem is shaped by your thoughts, relationships, and experiences.

The difference between ego vs self-esteem can be explained in terms of the source from which that confidence comes from. Self-esteem is based on true accomplishment, whereas ego is unwarranted and based on nothing but entitlement and imaginary validation.

We often feel worthless when we tie our self worth to our trials and tribulations.As we know failure is an inevitable part of success, disconnecting self worth from failure or success is vital for our wellbeing.

Construction from the ground up.

Truth is, we all start at Level 1 in everything. Only we can level up ourselves.

Watching a baby walk for the first time is an incredible moment.

First, the baby unconciously builds courage and takes action. Fail, learn and repeat.The little wins stack up, crawling, stumbling, falling slowly gaining confidence.And finally, BAM! Crowds cheering, everyones going wild! They finally did it!

Its fundamental human nature, we are goal striving beings at our core.

Its through taking action that we build up reasons or examples of us doing something well, encouraging us to be more confident and competent in that domain.

One day at a time, One win at a time, One lesson at a time.We dont level up in the past or the future. Its in the here and now.This moment is all we have and all we will ever have

Credit - Sean Flaherty

1. Courage and Concious goals - The first stepping stones to freedom.

The turning point for me in my life was setting concious goals.

To do so i had to ask myself deep introspective questions to remove what i was conditioned to believe and uncover what i truely wanted out of life.

Once the goals were set, i had something worth having courage to act on.The key here is taking COURAGE. You will feel uncomfortable.

Asking things like this can fuel your courage to take action:

- What is the true pay off if i succeed in this endevour?- How are other areas of my life affected if i succeed in this?- Will i look back 10 years from now and be glad i did this?

Breaking down my goals into smaller bits and acting with courage results in more evidence for being successful and competent.(This positively impacts Confidence and Self Esteem).

If you want to be good you must first be willing to be bad…Its the cost of entry to the club of success.

2. Talk to Yourself Properly

We often talk down to ourselves when something doesn’t go our way.

The 3 ways i like to put a positive twist on things:

• Everything is a skill, this skill i havent leveled up enough YET.

• Ok, I failed. What lessons is life trying to teach me here?

• “Impeccability of the word” This is so important because the word is you, the messenger. The word is all about the message you deliver, not just to everyone and everything around you, but the message you deliver to yourself.

Following these questions will steer you in the right direction, as it has done for myself.

3. The Win Bucket

Record these wins in what i call “The Win Bucket”

Like collecting firewood to last through winter we should collect our wins to last through failures. They will knock you down and it will be easy to loose hope. This is when you pull your wins out, using them fix your self esteem and confidence.

4. The Power of Ideal Vision

Im sure most of us have heard the term “Fake it till you make it”, but most of us fail to understand the true workings of it and the misconceptions.

It works because, first of all, it allows us to get out of our heads - and our comfort zone - and take action despite our fear and self-doubt.

Doing so skips over the limiting beliefs and emotions holding us back, opening us up to expeirence a new version of reailty. A reality from the ideal version of ourselves.

To make this hack even more powerful i have a helpful tip i use.

Say i want to improve in a certain area, i will ask myself:

“Who is best known for having incredible XYZ values that i idolise”

For me, the answers are clearly noted for my vison using an app called “Notion”.

• I want to Articulate like Jordan Peterson

• I want to be Charismatic like Kevin Hart

• I want to be Strong willed like David Goggins

• I want to be Disciplined like Jock Willik

• I want to have the spiritual wisdom of Alan Watts or Eckhart Tolle

• I want to be Wise like Naval Ravikant

• I want to be Confident like Dwayne Johnson

So i would then ask myself in an effort to be more Strong Willed:

“What would David Goggins do in this situation?”

From there, i can act from the perspective of someone who already was what i desire.Priceless and Powerful.

During the previous Newsletter “Escaping the Status Quo” we made a values list.

Refer back to the worksheet and use those values and any others you think of in this excercise for best results.

5. Break the Link - Self Worth and Success

Your self worth has nothing to do with your “success”.

I am not a bad person just because i failed at something, I am not any less of a person either. Our inner critic loves to come up with all kinds of examples for us being “less of a person” or “Not good enough”.

Its up to us to catch ourselves and say:“My self worth has nothing to do with my “success”, Im enough with or without it”.

“When i’m doing my best, acting towards ideals and being honest with myself that is enough”.

Conclusion and Action Steps

I want to be extremely clear with you now.

Its through trial and error i have created and implemented these. Through action.

If you don’t answer or introspect with any of the content in this newsletter,we will have both wasted our time.These are not just words on a page but a recipe for your success.

Its through YOU taking action that you can make a change.No ones comming to save you but you.

The onflow effect from your personal growth is unfathomable until its actualised.

So make your own list, it will take a maximum of 5 mins.

If you have found value from anything in this newsletter or have some thoughts i would love to hear from you in the comments!

Your feedback and opinions are very valuable.

Hope this helps, Until next week!Leigh.