 There's a thin line between being confident and being cocky and the latter usually passes for confidence until a real confident person shows up. So what is confidence then? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, confidence is the quality of being certain of your abilities, of having trust in people, plans, things or the future. But that's not the only way you can define confidence. According to psychology today, confidence is a belief in oneself, the conviction that one has the ability to meet life challenges and to succeed, and the willingness to act accordingly. But if it comes to my own definition or my personal definition of confidence in my experience and encounters with people, hence my self-confidence, it will be that I know what I know and I'm happy to admit that it's not everything that I can know and I don't feel threatened by this notion in any way so I can accommodate more or diverse knowledge should I encounter it. I'm also confident in my ability to deduce logic in situations where I'm not confronted with fact-based conversations. So essentially, I perceive myself as someone who is willing to learn and adapt in most given situations. But confidence takes a while to build so how did I get here? Before we get into that first, let's learn a few things about confidence. Confidence is something that's within us all. It's within all of us like a muscle waiting to be used. It's like learning to walk or swim or drive or a new skill. First, you have to admit that you don't know everything and that it's okay to learn and practice and build that knowledge or muscle. I mean, take a cue from how babies usually are in a hurry to pick up new skills and adapt to the environment. That is how you build confidence, that curiosity. Coming from the first point, we should also remember that confidence takes time to build and it's a journey that almost never ends. Confidence will grow with you and like everything you have both physically and mentally, it needs to be nurtured. It needs to be upgraded. It needs to evolve as time itself. We're constantly finding new ways of doing things, which means that your past knowledge and skills might not necessarily fit in the current space even though it's something that you've worked so hard to build. We learn to walk and then run and then run faster and then we learn new ways to beat that record and then we learn sprinting, long distance. We learn to run in different terrains and so on. There's always going to be something different and never stops. Confidence isn't afraid of competition. Not because it knows you can beat it, however, being confident is being tolerant of competition. Being confident means you rather encourage competition because healthy competition offers you the opportunity to learn something new and different. It also means that you welcome the challenge to explore the limitlessness of improving yourself. Being confident means that you're accepting of divergent views and practices and it's usually healthy competition that we learn that we're not absolute and there's always possible levels to achieve. Confidence also starts with remembering that you too deserve the rewards that come with being confident and enjoying it. This could be validation, praise, earning money, respect, all those things that come as a result of expressing your confidence in whatever capacity. Acknowledge that you are also someone worthy of all these things. You deserve it. Your environment and your experiences count a lot in shaping your confidence but let's just say you're a blank page. I want you to remember that you are worthy of your human given right to take up space, to belong and to enjoy all the benefits and growth that comes with building your confidence. So let me tell you a story. My earliest encounter with seeing my worth and taking up space was from my mother. She would help us realize that we also deserved the good things and at a time I didn't know that was what was happening but she made us see that we need to take up space and go for the things that we want. She would do this through for example the things that she would buy for us. She would almost always opt for quality rather than cutting corners which made sense because cheap things end up costing you more. For her, her kids deserved not just the functional things but the best of it. I remember when I was growing up in a home where I'd realistically say it was lower middle class and it wasn't everything that we had as kids and that can psychologically take a toll on you and your confidence. As kids, you don't often know how to empathize with your parents struggles because you may or may not know what they're going through but you just want to be provided for so that you too can belong when you go out with your friends and that's one thing that my mom tried as much as possible to let us know and remember that even though we may not have had those things at the moment it wasn't ever because we didn't deserve it. So how do you build confidence then? The first thing to remember like I was just saying that remember that you're worthy is the first step to building confidence and recognizing your existence that you're here you have a place here and there's a reason for it you're part of this big picture this big puzzle you're part of something otherwise you wouldn't have existed in the first place so own that space that is you everything that contributes to your happiness and ease of life so long as you exist everything that makes you a time here worthwhile you deserve it and you can attain it remember that that is the first thing secondly is to take care of yourself if you believe that you are worthy of your existence here in this life and space that you're in then what better way than taking care of that thing practicing that self-worth on yourself taking care of yourself physically and mentally and practicing self-love that is one sure way to improve your confidence if you've taken your time to do this for yourself and you truly enjoy how you make yourself feel chances that you will not let another person disrespect your space or take away your happiness which leads essentially to certain boundaries and not accommodating things that demean your efforts or sense of self remember that you're this is also utterly different from you know being selfish and not willing to compromise in any way or exist with others but do not allow people to take advantage of you and demean your existence be curious curiosity is one of the surest ways to build confidence the hunger to learn and build on what you already know is building confidence i don't think there'll ever be a time where hunger to know more is going to be a bad thing i mean granted there are situations or special cases where your curiosity might open you up to some traumatizing events but when it comes to the curiosity of acquisition of knowledge and skill it's never never a wasted effort based on the interest i have i widen my horizon by learning little things about things even if it's purely the foundational level of that knowledge because i know that with that at least i have room to build and to learn more the more you know the more confident you become so learn be curious avoid excessive comparison i would say comparison is good to an extent comparing can help you see where you may need to improve comparison can inspire you to know that there are things other than achievable if you put your mind to it where comparison becomes a dangerous thing is that you feel to apply discernment in knowing that not everything that seems good will be good for you discernment in knowing that not everything that seems good was actually achieved with hard work or the right way and using that as a basis to even judge your current situation usually is unfair to yourself you also have to employ discernments in knowing that you have your own journey and that should be your ultimate focus for example you're creating um content here in Africa versus those in other parts of the world and we're seeing all these creative fronts you know their gear and how it makes your content look a certain way and the places that they live and you also want to acquire those things for yourself that's not always a solution if you're going to be buying a new piece of gear doesn't automatically make you a good storyteller some of these things or some of these creators have collaborations with these brands and they are in countries where payment systems make it possible for them to own these things and pay over a period of time so jumping into this head first without you know doing a lot of research is going to end up you're going to end up paying more which is going to make you miserable so strive to improve yourself here and now while you can another thing is that you should know your limits being confident is knowing that you have limitations you can't know it all and being accepting of that fact especially in the world where there's so much knowledge accessible to us what you remember from learning now has already changed and this is especially true when it comes to raw knowledge like the things that can be easily challenged or verified so leave room to learn more and this kind of mattresses my point about being curious knowing that you have limits you'd open you up to rather learn and apply your knowledge in different ways there are no absolutes even when you are an expert at something which is also ironic because this thing you're listening to right now is in the absolute so challenge what you're hearing challenge what you're seeing comment your diverse opinions in the comment section below ask questions and engage in the discourse that leads to better knowledge and application of it be more tolerant of others knowing your limitations should open you up to be more tolerant of others as already stated there's always going to be more knowledge than is available to you so that means that allowing others opinion will enrich your perspectives and this will in turn make you more confident as you bag more diverse ways of thinking new ways of looking at things and it also allows people to see you and enjoy your way of thinking which will essentially also boost your confidence as well so tolerate people and trust your instincts and intuitions we all have instincts and intuitions the things that you know that you can't explain how you know but you just know that you know trust it if you want to build your confidence instincts are often tied to the knowledge of self and the clear awareness of situations that we encounter to be able to decipher and reduce things based on how they make you feel at any given time trust those instincts it's so easy to you know doubt and second guess because we're often afraid to be wrong however if you have confidently encountered your own instincts at work you know that is almost always right 99% of the time and finally i'll say share knowledge often people you know gain knowledge or find ways to do things um and they got it they hoard it and it remains the same as it is it doesn't grow it's not open to new additions because to them it's working and they are fine with the way it is but the opposite is rather much more beneficial not only to the people around you if you share but more to yourself it's been said time and time again that the more you teach the more you learn when you share what you know with others what you think is absolute based on your experiences you open it up to scrutiny you open it up to being challenged which in turn broadens your scope of looking at that same morbid thing from different angles you get to learn more from the little things little things that you knew and inspire others as well and the bonus point is try it anyway if you have something on your mind if you want to build confidence stop second guessing try if you don't try you wouldn't learn that it will work or not and you could gain experience you have nothing to lose so try it when you have something in your mind that you want to do just accept that you can never be right completely all the time so just try it because you are also even worthy of even taking up that task and enjoying it too the regret of not trying is always going to be worse so please do it do it if you found this video useful in any way kindly smash that like button also subscribe to the channel for more content like this and many others that will be coming your way hit that notification bell it's very important so you get notified when I post new content and I do have some motivational relaxation shorts showing up on the screen um yeah you can also watch those they are in the one minute anyway so watch and like those too and I will catch you in the next video peace