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What does confidence really mean? · Wellbeing Solutions - Ask A Counsellor

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  SPEAKER_00: What does confidence really mean?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Confidence is a feeling and a belief that you can achieve and succeed at whatever you want to.
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  SPEAKER_00: Confidence also looks like trusting your own judgment and having a well developed sense of self and recognising your own strengths, praising them, but also your weaknesses and being accepting of these.
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  SPEAKER_00: Importantly, feeling confident about yourself alleviates self-doubt so that you can live your life and achieve things without anxiety or that negative voice in the background saying you can't do that or you're not good enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: The confidence stems from the Latin word confidere, which means to trust fully.
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  SPEAKER_00: How we experience the world through relationships, situations and life events will shape how our confidence looks.
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  SPEAKER_00: Adverse experiences such as being around critical caregivers, being bullied or abused in any way will take away our confidence and make us doubt ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: These negative patterns can turn into never quite feeling good enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: Punishments experienced early on can lead to an acute sense of fear around failure.
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  SPEAKER_00: So low confidence and fear of failure can keep us stuck in the familiar, and our ability to thrive through achievement and growth adds to our lack of confidence.
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  SPEAKER_00: So our inner confidence grows from a number of factors, which include positive praise and encouragement growing up received from parents, teachers, friends and siblings, and even through achievements as we grow.
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  SPEAKER_00: Others give us validation, which helps to build our confidence.
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  SPEAKER_00: The best conditions for self-confidence are self-compassion for when we make mistakes, so you can also call this tolerance of failure if you prefer.
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  SPEAKER_00: Being around positive, encouraging and supportive people at home, at work, wherever you are.
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  SPEAKER_00: And having good successes and experiences of success to build on from your past, remembering what you can achieve.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're all born with confidence, however, life can erode this away, so it's important to rebuild and maintain a level of confidence which can help you thrive in life, not just survive.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are many ways to improve confidence, but it all starts from within and not from the past but in the here and now.
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  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to achieve and what's stopping you?
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  SPEAKER_00: I hope that this has been helpful in explaining what confidence is and also how important it is to nurture and build your confidence.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for listening.