At October Research’s second annual Women’s Leadership Summit, Michelle Fraley of Michelle Fraley Counseling and Life Couching, LLC, hosted a workshop titled “Cultivating Confidence” to share advice and strategies for overcoming fear and building confidence.
“I love talking about confidence, especially with women, because I really look at confidence as being an essential component of having a happy life, a life full of purpose and meaning,” she said.
Fraley began her talk by addressing misconceptions about confidence. It’s not a personality trait but rather a skill that must be worked like a muscle.
“The other thing about confidence is recognizing that it’s not about knowing it all. It’s not about having all the answers. … Instead, confidence is a belief in who you are,” Fraley said. “Confidence is knowing that you’re worthy simply because you are you.”
That is not synonymous with arrogance, she stressed.
“When somebody is showing up in the world and they’re egotistical and arrogant, perhaps even narcissistic, I’m going to assure you that that does not come from an overabundance of confidence. It comes from insecurity,” Fraley said.
“If you start flexing your confidence muscle, don’t worry. You are not going to end up arrogant. In fact, you’re going to end up being magnetic. You’re going to attract people because it feels good for us to be around other people who are confident.”
She then offered several reasons why working on your confidence is beneficial. Increasing your confidence:
- Leads to less worry about rejection and not fitting in.
- Increases your ability to learn new things.
- Leads to being more assertive, which aids in creating healthy boundaries and relationships.
- Decreases negative self-talk.
- Reduces the urge to compare yourself to others.
- Increases emotional resilience
Some signs of low self-confidence include struggling to make decisions, asking other people to make decisions for you, having a victim mentality, fear and catastrophizing, Fraley said.
Fraley provided seven exercises with journaling prompts for flexing your confidence muscle:
- Take inventory of your unique strengths and qualities: Women tend to disregard their strengths and point out their flaws, she said. Write down your three biggest strengths and brainstorm how you can create opportunities in your life to use them in a proactive way, rather than reactive. Then write down three things that make you unique.
- Get connected with your unique journey: Write down what your current priorities are, what matters most to you, and what brings your life meaning and purpose. Next, ask yourself what is taking up your time that isn’t a priority.
- Expect setbacks, mistakes and failure: Reframe mistakes and failures as points to learn from rather than a sign to quit. Describe a time in your life when failure seemed unavoidable, but you didn’t give up, and what you learned from that experience.
- Start taking action before you feel ready: Instead of viewing confidence as a prerequisite for acting, rethink action as a way to grow confidence. Write out what your main obstacles to taking action are and consider what could support you in that action.
- Surround yourself with supportive and confident people: Negativity is contagious, and confidence is too. Describe the most confident people you know and consider who makes you feel confident.
- Do not compromise self-care: If you are not taking care of your physical body or emotional health, you will not feel confident. Think about your day. Do you sleep enough, move enough, drink enough water and manage your stress? Write down what your body would say to you if it could talk and what stops you from practicing self-care.
- Intentionally practice confident self-talk: Speak to yourself with the same care, concern, curiosity and compassion that you show others. Create a list of positive mantras and affirmations.
To conclude her talk, Fraley opened the floor to questions. One attendee asked about finding the time to engage in intentional self-care while raising children.
Fraley said that there’s an idea that self-care must be something that takes time, like a massage or a trip.
“It doesn’t have to be,” she said. “Perhaps even using intentional positive self-dialogue feels like self-care. Maybe reading one chapter in a book feels like self-care. Maybe taking time to condition your hair and actually leave it on for the recommended two minutes.”
Fraley recommended writing a list of 10 or more things that make you feel good so that when a small moment for self-care arises, you can simply pick one instead of spending half that moment brainstorming.
If you enjoyed reading this story about the cultivating confidence from the 2023 Women’s Leadership Summit (WLS), be sure to join us for this year’s WLS on Nov. 3-4. Visit www.OctoberResearchWLS.com to learn more about the upcoming event and register yourself and/or your team today.