How Beliefs Affect Your Confidence

“I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It’s there all the time.” –Anna Freud

What's at the core of your confidence? Your beliefs. (Hint: they’re tricky.)

Thanks for joining me again for a deeper look at how we develop and expand confidence. Confidence is a hot topic among my clients.

One of the top reasons clients come to see me is to attempt to regain self-confidence after a lifetime of feeling small, silent, less-than, or even “too much,” and fatally flawed as they watch their life goals remain out of reach.

They wonder why they cannot seem to create what they want in their lives—why they don’t speak up when they see opportunities, or continue to slog away in the same habits and behaviors they know aren’t getting them where they want to go.

Why can’t all those lovely people who seek my help just...change? If it were that easy, I'd be out of a job. 

Today, we’ll uncover why it can be so challenging to amplify your self-confidence, so that you can reach for (and often achieve!) exactly what you want in your career, relationships, or financial situation.

Spoiler alert: It’s your beliefs.

Your beliefs are emotional, not logical

You may have heard me talk about this before, and it is important to repeat. Here’s the thing about beliefs. We establish them very young, before our logical brains even turn on. But there’s good news. You came into the world assuming you were the best thing ever.

Think about babies for a moment, if you will. They love attention. They flirt and sparkle and get us to coo and “ahh” at them. They never second-guess whether they deserve to be valued, noticed, or even question their ability to produce delight with just a smile and a giggle.

That innate sense of value and confidence only starts deteriorating when other data comes in and we cannot logically tell which data is true or false–because our brains are not yet able. Here’s what I mean.

Let’s say you read out loud in school, and the other children laugh at you. To keep you safe from the same embarrassment in the future, your subconscious (emotional) mind may tell you that you’re “Not Smart Enough.” 

If you have this belief, you’ll stop raising your hand and putting yourself out there to avoid the shame that may come from being laughed at. 

In this way, you’ll stay “safe” in the classroom (your brain’s primary objective.) And this is how a biologically appropriate safety strategy is adopted.  BONUS tip: With this information, see if there is a behavior that you may have adopted as a child that you can have some understanding and compassion for now when you recognize it as a safety strategy.

As you get older, this false belief will hold you back from reaching for what you want, because you still subconsciously believe that you’re “Not Smart Enough,” even though you now probably have loads of real-life data to disprove that statement. 

Other common confidence-busting beliefs

In addition to all the “Not Good Enough” variations, your subconscious brain may also be running these statements on high rotation:

• What I want is not available to me
• I don’t belong anywhere
• I’m different
• Everyone will leave me

If you’re struggling with these beliefs, know that your emotional brain took them on as a form of “protection” for you early in life. 

Perhaps your family compared you and your siblings and you picked up a label you never wanted as “The Black Sheep,” or “The Perfect One.”

Maybe a parent moved out of your home and you felt abandoned and unworthy of their love.

It’s possible that you never quite got the love, attention, safety, and visibility you needed to thrive as a kid.

Here’s the real mind-bender about beliefs

Once you’ve established a belief about yourself (“I’m not smart enough,” “I don’t fit in with my family”), you’ll create more ways to make that belief true—because your brain loves to be “right.”

So, if you have a belief that you’re not smart enough, you may subconsciously sabotage your study efforts for the SAT so that you get a low score. 

It’s not exactly on purpose—it’s your brain doing what it does best. Confirming that your (false) beliefs are true, as a way to protect you from taking a risk in feeling the same shame that led you to the belief in the first place.

I cover this process in detail in this video–I hope you’ll watch it to get a clear picture of what your confidence-limiting beliefs may be.

Change your beliefs the same way you built them–emotionally

Hypnotherapy can help you identify your limiting beliefs and change them. Hypnotherapy helps you “rest” your logical mind while allowing your emotional, subconscious mind to “rewire” the beliefs that kept you “safe” as a kid, but now hold you back in developing self-confidence and achieve what you want in life.

If you feel the call to learn more and book a session, here’s the link you need.

Let’s get to know one another and I’ll share how hypnotherapy might be precisely the way you can finally change what you believe about yourself–and move forward with self-confidence to get what you want. 

You CAN begin to feel more courageous and confident in your life in a gentle and nurturing way. I’m excited to show you how. 

If you missed any of the past articles, you can go back and check some of them out as well.  Here are just a few, among many (it's a popular topic.)

• The KEY to Regaining Self Confidence to get over your Fear of Failure

• FREE Mini Training about Confidence

• Is It Possible To Walk A Completely Different Path With Confidence?

With care and support,

Sara