Confidence Matters

This is the third post in October’s Self-Respect theme.Week 1 - You Don’t Have to Love Yourself to Respect YourselfWeek 2 - It Took a While to Realise All the Ways I had Abandoned Myself

“How many Christmas cards have you had?”

That’s a very simple question, so why did it make me feel so uncomfortable?

At the time, it was normal for people to send Christmas cards to family and friends. They also gave them to colleagues at the office.

Maybe Angela asked everyone that question because she saw it as a popularity contest. Lots of cards meaning lots of friends? Who knows? I don’t because I never asked. I kept quiet, stayed small and dreaded going to the branch.

What might seem like an innocent everyday question made me feel inadequate.

Being asked about Christmas cards felt like being asked how many friends I had. I was still gripped by an old belief that I wasn’t interesting, so people didn’t like me. I was still struggling with social anxiety.

The first time, I replied with a number. She told me smugly she had more than that. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but she asked me again the following week.

Looking back, I wish I had known that I didn’t have to prove how popular I was or justify myself by answering that question, no matter how innocent it might have been.

You don’t need to earn respect

The only thing I was ever taught about respect is that you had to earn it. People will only respect you if you earn it. I no longer believe that.

Everyone deserves basic respect. However, we do not have to prove that we are worthy of kindness, consideration or dignity.

When you know that you have nothing to prove to anyone, you realise that you only need to respect yourself. No one ever told me that.

You don’t need to enforce it by being rude or aggressive, either. I have tried that; it doesn’t work. The most powerful self-respect is quiet and natural, because you believe in your self-worth.

As your self-respect grows, you become more comfortable communicating what is and isn’t acceptable to you. You stop feeling the need to explain or justify every decision. You develop a quiet presence that comes from knowing your own worth.

Presence is a quiet power.

The more you respect yourself, the more others will see you as someone worth respecting. They know where they stand with you.

We are conditioned to believe we need people to be comfortable around us. We often let ourselves feel uncomfortable so others feel comfortable.

Building healthy self-respect is part of building a quiet but powerful confidence. It’s not about control, but inner steadiness.

As I talked about in last week’s post, It Took a While to Realise All the Ways I had Abandoned Myself, self-respect begins with the small ways we choose to stop abandoning ourselves.

Then you communicate your limits by setting healthy boundaries.

Interacting with others

When you set a healthy boundary, you are letting people know what you do and don’t allow from them. Boundaries do not have to be rigid; they can change depending on who you are with. You are probably happy to be hugged by a close friend, but maybe not by a complete stranger.

Sometimes a boundary is as simple as telling a friend that you can’t meet for coffee because you need some time to yourself. You don’t have to invent an excuse or feel guilty for needing that time.

It might be politely declining to work late at the office or not taking on someone else’s work to ‘help them catch up.’

You might find it difficult to disagree with someone you care about. But having your own opinion won’t threaten a good relationship.

Setting boundaries also includes knowing what you will do when that limit isn’t respected. We can’t always control another person’s behaviour, but we can choose our response.

After years of being someone’s verbal punching bag, I no longer tolerate attacks on my character. Feedback is fine; rudeness and aggression are not. I walk away from those conversations. I don’t argue; I tell the person that I am not happy with being spoken to that way. I don’t need to explain myself; it’s a quiet refusal to be treated badly.

If I say no to something I don’t want, I only need to explain myself if I feel it’s necessary. If the person is unhappy or disappointed, that is not my fault.

I no longer abandon myself to keep the peace. I speak up, say no, and I handle the hard conversations.

Responding to Angela

How would I handle that question now?

I would probably smile and say, “I have had a few.”

That’s all I would need to say.

Maybe Angela received more than I did. That would be nice, as it clearly meant something to her. Neither of us needs to feel uncomfortable.

Someone might wonder how something as trivial as a question about Christmas cards can be upsetting. For me, at the time, it was a trigger unrelated to the question.

This matters because our feelings are always okay. A trigger is information that tells us something needs addressing.

Self-respect has not made me selfish or aggressive. It has made me a person who can hold her head up and say what needs to be said. Not loud, just quiet and respectful of the other person.

Where to next?

Having healthy self-respect is part of living in alignment with your true self. I have spent years rebuilding my shattered confidence and self-esteem. Now I know who I am. If this interests you, you might like this post The Day You Stop Thinking About Alignment, and It Becomes a Way of Life

Much loveSue xx

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suereid.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suereid.substack.com/subscribe

This is the second post in October’s Self-Respect theme.Week 1 - You Don’t Have to Love Yourself to Respect Yourself

I always treat myself with love and kindness. It is one of my rules.

Years ago, after the final of three abusive relationships ended, I made a commitment not to let anyone treat me badly again.

That commitment had to include me.

One of the difficult questions I needed to ask myself when I started rebuilding my confidence was this:

If someone you loved were living the life you live and treating themselves the way you treat yourself, how would you feel for them?

Would you want something better for them?

I had been moving from one bad relationship to another for years. I felt used and ashamed. I realised this was about more than rebuilding my confidence; it was about rebuilding my life too.

So, I started making small changes to my life, all based on love, kindness and gratitude.

Every small decision came with the question,

‘What would I do if I loved and respected myself?’

Previously, I would check everything I thought and did against the question,

‘Is this good enough?’

One question asked me to prove my worth. The other assumed I already had it.

Gradually, the hard edges I had built around me softened, and my heart opened again. By the time I met the man who would become my husband, I was beginning to understand that a loving relationship shouldn’t require me to abandon myself.

How we abandon ourselves

Are you on the list of people you care about?

Often, when asked, people readily list the people they care about but leave themselves off. We can be reluctant to care for ourselves, fearing others will think we are selfish.

We tend to measure our worth by how much we do for others. Most people are naturally kind and compassionate, and that is great. But sometimes we take it too far, and it chips away at our self-worth.

When we believe acceptance depends on behaving in the ‘right’ way, we start to act in ways we think will make us more likeable. This can lead to people-pleasing, seeking external validation, and forming unhealthy relationships.

We form an unspoken agreement: ‘If you are comfortable with me, then I must be okay.’

* We say yes when we mean no.

* We stay quiet rather than risk a disagreement.

* We change ourselves depending on who we are with.

* We tolerate behaviour we know isn’t right.

* We ignore our needs because someone else’s needs feel more important.

We abandon our true selves and stay small so we will fit in. Then we think people will love and accept us. All that happens is that we lose respect for ourselves.

We send ourselves the message, ‘I don’t matter.’

We do matter

When I didn’t respect myself, I found it much harder to recognise when other people weren’t respecting me.

This was part of how I walked blindly into those abusive relationships. I was seeking love when I didn’t yet know how to protect my own worth.

I was living in a vicious circle where I looked for love, didn’t get it, so I looked for love even harder.

I realised the ways I had been abandoning myself. Staying in toxic relationships, drinking too much, and allowing people to treat me badly. But I also realised it happens in much smaller ways. Every time we silence ourselves, ignore our needs, make ourselves smaller, or become someone else to keep another person comfortable, we leave a little bit of ourselves behind.

Self-respect is choosing to stop doing that.

What I learned is that we don’t have to make people feel comfortable around us. We don’t have to be ‘acceptable’ or ‘fit in’.

When you learn to be yourself, you can show up everywhere as that person. When you do, you notice people respect you. That doesn’t necessarily mean everyone likes you. The difference is that you like yourself. That becomes what matters most.

You don’t need to show up as anyone other than yourself. No part of you needs to be hidden. It’s so refreshing to realise you have nothing to hide and nothing to prove to anyone, because you matter. That’s not selfish; it’s honest.

We go deeper into these themes and how to master confidence and self-belief in our Confidence Circle. These are hour-long sessions held three times every month. It has been my pleasure to watch the members grow together and support each other. If you are interested in joining a warm and supportive group, get in touch. Much loveSue xx

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suereid.substack.com/subscribe

Our theme for October is Self-Respect.

“I don’t know if I love myself.”

I have heard that many times from clients.

There was a time when I already knew my answer.

I didn’t love myself. I didn’t think I was a nice person.

I got into bad relationships, drank too much and didn’t take proper care of myself.

Was that how you treat someone you love?

Today, my answer is very different. I love myself. I know I am a good person. I have good relationships and take care of myself.

But I didn’t reach that place by deciding to love myself. That wasn’t the first step.

When I committed to building my confidence, something else began to change too. I didn’t consciously think, I am worthy of this effort. But perhaps some part of me was beginning to believe it.

I started to believe that I matter, and that’s how I began to treat myself. Treating myself as someone who matters helped me to feel love for myself.

Sometimes we discover our value through how we treat ourselves. Sometimes another person reflects it back to us first.

A small act of kindness

I once heard a story about a man who had experienced homelessness and addiction. I don’t remember all the details now, but one part of his story has stayed with me. I can’t recall his name, so let’s call him Bill.

Bill watched people walk by every day as he sat holding a piece of cardboard with the word ‘Homeless’.

It hurt him that most people walked past as if he were invisible. A few might drop some change into his bowl, but they never spoke. Bill longed for connection and to be seen as a fellow man. Instead, most people turned away, even crossing the street.

One day, a man who had just walked straight past him suddenly turned around and walked back. The man offered to buy him a meal. It was just a simple burger and fries, but after eating out of garbage bins, it must have tasted heavenly.

After the meal, the man gave him some money, enough for the next day’s meal. He wished him luck and walked away. A few days later, the man returned to check on him. No one had ever done that before. Bill felt something shift inside him. This man wasn’t just being kind and then moving on without ever considering him again. He cared enough to come back. It tugged at a thread of hope in Bill.

The stranger didn’t tell Bill to clean himself up, get a job, or even to stop drinking. Instead, as he left, he said four words. You have value, brother.

After that, the story goes, Bill checked into rehab.

He had done so several times before, only to relapse each time. This time, he had a reason to succeed. Someone had given him value, and he held on to it.

What stayed with me wasn’t the meal or the money. It was that someone had stopped to treat a homeless addict as though he mattered, and then, importantly, had come back to see him again.

Someone else saw his value as a man before he could see it himself. The stranger couldn’t give Bill value; only Bill could. The act of kindness, of letting Bill know he had been seen, was the nudge Bill needed.

Believe that you matter

Self-respect doesn’t have to begin with believing you are worthy. It can begin with doing something that shows you might be.

Asking someone to love themselves for who they are when they are struggling to see themselves as worthy can be hard. It may even reinforce their lack of self-worth, making them feel like a failure. Well-meaning people tell them they just need to love themselves, yet they can’t even do that.

Maybe a better question would be, ‘Can you do something to show yourself that you matter?’

Self-respect is a way to learn to love ourselves.

When loving yourself feels too hard, you might manage to do one small thing for yourself.

* Eat something nourishing even when you can’t be bothered.

* Go outside for ten minutes.

* Keep one small promise you made to yourself.

* Rest without making yourself earn it first.

* Say no to something you don’t have the capacity for.

* Notice when you are speaking harshly to yourself, and stop.

* Ask for help when you need it.

* Do one thing today that makes tomorrow a little easier.

* Tell yourself that today has been a good day when it has.

* Yes, sometimes self-care can be as simple as a warm bubble bath!

Do one small thing to show yourself that you do matter. One small act of kindness shown to yourself. That could even be stopping something you are doing.

This is self-respect.

Start where you are and do one small thing that shows you matter. Move forward from there.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate that and your comments. I believe that people don’t necessarily need a dramatic reinvention. They need ways to begin hearing themselves again above the noise. Maybe a good question to ask yourself is, "Does the way I'm living reflect what matters to me.” Much loveSue xx

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suereid.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suereid.substack.com/subscribe

This is the final post in this months theme of building confidence.Week 1 - All I Wanted Was to Be Susan’s Friend and to Own a PonyWeek 2- I Didn’t Only Build My Confidence, I Uncovered Who I WasWeek 3 - If You Wait Until You Are Confident, You Will Never Take the Leap

I started this month wanting Susan to choose me. I end with the realisation that I can choose myself.

Carla was super confident. She was six feet tall too, which made her even more imposing.

When I first met her, I thought she had the kind of confidence I wanted. The kind that lets people know you are in the room.

At that time, my own confidence was low. At first glance, Carla seemed like the kind of person who would make a good role model. Maybe I could be like her. A shorter version, as I am only 5 feet 4.

Carla was brash and bold. She called herself a ‘sex kitten.’

She was the type of woman who was powerful and got what she wanted out of life.

I started acting super confident. I let people know how clever I was, without believing it myself, of course. Don’t they say, ‘fake it till you make it?’

I tried acting more like Carla. My friend told me I was being aggressive. A work colleague told me not to be so arrogant. Even my mother said I was being selfish. Ouch!

Well, this clearly wasn’t working.

After a while, I realised that Carla was bossy, a bully even. She used her height to intimidate her work colleagues.

Looking back, I realise that acting like Carla was a way to protect myself from getting hurt. It wasn’t real confidence; it was a way of making sure people didn’t get too close.

That wasn’t the kind of confidence I was looking for.

A while later, I saw Carla in the supermarket. She was shopping with her mother. When she saw me, Carla introduced me to her mother. Then she said something that stayed with me. She said, ‘Sue, tell my mother how popular I am.’

That one sentence said so much about the real Carla and how confident she really was.

Stop trying to be confident

As I found, pretending to be confident when you are not may work for some people for a time. Eventually, the cracks will begin to show.

The loudest person in the room isn’t necessarily the most confident. What looks like confidence from the outside can sometimes be something quite different underneath.

I stopped trying to be confident and started making small changes to my life instead.

It wasn’t something intentional, but I realised that the more I worked on myself, the more my confidence grew.

Little things like:

* Smiling more and making eye contact.

* Learning to listen in a conversation.

* Being interested in people and letting me get to know them.

* Knowing my values and living from them.

* Bringing an attitude of gratitude into my life.

None of these things made me louder or more impressive. They made me more comfortable with myself.

Doing scary things

When you are shy with low self-confidence, it can be hard to do things that scare you.

I don’t mean like jumping out of a plane, or climbing a mountain. Although they are scary.

Small things like making a complaint when you hate confrontation.

Or saying no to a request when you normally say yes.

These were the things I started to push myself to do.

Going to social events and speaking to people. I learned that most people are quite friendly and easy to talk to.

In these small scary moments, I would ask myself a question: ‘What is it I want to happen?’

That question shifted my attention from what I feared might happen to what I actually wanted. Then I could decide whether taking the uncomfortable step mattered to me.

That doesn’t mean I forced myself to go to every social event. Sometimes confidence can be choosing the cosy night in rather than saying yes to a party you really don’t want to go to.

Knowing I will be okay

Meeting Carla taught me something I couldn’t understand at the time.

I didn’t need to become someone else to be accepted.

When I tried to wear Carla’s confidence, it didn’t fit. I came across as arrogant and aggressive because it wasn’t me.

For years, I thought I wanted confidence. What I really wanted was to feel accepted and to be liked by people.

As I became more aligned with my natural self, I no longer needed everyone to like me.

Of course, I would still prefer to be liked. We all want that. Rejection and criticism can be painful, and difficult conversations can still make me uncomfortable.

Confidence hasn’t made me immune to discomfort.

It has given me something else. I know now that I will be okay whether someone likes me or not.

Whatever happens, I will always be okay.

Thank you so much for reading and for your comments. I am grateful. Much loveSue xx

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suereid.substack.com/subscribe

This is the third post in this months theme of building confidence.Week 1 - All I Wanted Was to Be Susan’s Friend and to Own a PonyWeek 2- I Didn’t Only Build My Confidence, I Uncovered Who I Was

For much of my life, I didn’t feel good enough.

I was a high achiever who felt like an imposter.

So working in a career where league tables rated performance was ideal.

I could see where I stood compared to my peers. It gave me the external validation I needed to prove to myself that I was good enough.

I imagine this was true for many of my peers, although we didn’t realise it at the time.

Then the financial services industry changed, and the league tables were removed. Although we knew our own performance, we no longer knew how we compared. The constant ability to validate by checking the league table was gone.

Luckily, by this time I had something I suspect many of my peers didn’t.

Although external validation had confirmed me as a winner, it was no longer the only thing I needed to sustain my confidence. I already believed I was good at my job.

I had self-trust.

Trust in yourself

Some people who appear extremely confident still rely heavily on external validation.

They may be able to walk into a room and look super confident, but beneath the surface, fear and self-doubt linger.

What did they think of me?

Did I say the right thing there?

Did I get it right?

They rely on external proof that they are good enough. Their financial worth, material possessions, status and other people’s opinions. They also rely on things going well. When they win, they feel great, but when something goes wrong, they stumble, and their confidence drops again.

Without self-trust, we don’t believe in ourselves. We seek validation elsewhere instead of feeling secure in our own bodies. As a result, we often don’t act until we are sure it will work. We let fear take over and procrastinate. We think we need confidence to start. We don’t.

One of the biggest misconceptions about confidence is believing we need to be confident before we start.

That is completely backwards.

To feel truly confident, you need to build self-trust first by taking action. These actions can be small. You only need one step at a time, and trust will build from there.

You already have confidence within you. There are things in your life that you have already achieved. There are things in your life that you are very good at.

When you try something new, you may not feel confident yet. But you already have evidence from other parts of your life that you can learn, adapt, and try again.

Trusting myself

I didn’t wake up one morning thinking, ‘OK, time to work on self-trust.’

It grew in me as I made those small changes in my life.

I remember one of the trainers on a course telling me about her ‘magic lipstick’.

She said that whenever she felt nervous, she would look in a mirror and reapply her lipstick. Then she would smile at her reflection and say, ‘I am ready.’

The lipstick didn’t calm her nerves or magically give her confidence. It was a small ritual that reminded her she could feel nervous and still be ready.

If you have heard me speak, or been in my Confidence Circle, you’ve heard me talk about a ‘greatness list’. I always recommend making a list of all your achievements. The big and the small wins. Everything that you can point to and feel good about. This is your evidence.

We are encouraged to always win and to celebrate only the wins. As my father used to say, second place is the first loser.

These days, I believe in celebrating the effort you put into something, whether you win or lose.

Self-trust grew when I stopped believing everything had to work out. I learned to value showing up and trying, rather than celebrating only when I succeeded.

After retiring from my career, I started writing and coaching. This was completely new to me. I didn’t wait until I felt confident enough to write publicly, coach, facilitate conversations or speak up. I drew on the confidence I had built in other areas to trust myself enough to just start. These new experiences, although scary at first, gave me more evidence that I could trust myself.

Confidence grows from the effort you put into trying each new thing.

This is what I do

I learned coaching, speaking and writing by doing them.

Each time, I gave myself a little more evidence that I could learn something new.

Eventually, something changed.

I moved from wondering whether I could actually do this to believing that this is what I do now.

I trusted myself enough to try.

I used to think confidence meant seeing my name in the top part of a league table. It was how I could prove to myself that I was succeeding.

Now I know confidence means trusting myself enough to act even when I don’t know the outcome beforehand.

Maybe not everyone will like what I write, or a conversation doesn’t go the way I hoped. I still feel nervous and I am okay. I carry on.

Confidence comes from trusting who you are.

If you are standing at the edge, waiting for confidence to arrive.

If you are waiting for someone to tell you it’s going to work out before you can move.

Stop waiting and take the leap.

Confidence is waiting for you on the other side.

Self-trust is an area we talk about a lot in our weekly Confidence Circle sessions. If you are that person standing on the edge of something you want to achieve but haven’t started, come and join us for support and encouragement.

Much loveSue xx

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suereid.substack.com/subscribe

This is the second post in this months theme of building confidence. Week 1 - All I Wanted Was to Be Susan’s Friend and to Own a Pony

I was in a dark place, looking for a light to guide me.

In that moment, I felt I had a choice.

Stay a victim and keep spiralling down.

Or get back on my feet and become my own hero.

I decided to stand up.

That’s when I committed to building my confidence.

One of my favourite books is Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant. He says about love, ‘The truth is to love yourself with the same intensity you would use to pull yourself up if you were hanging off a cliff with your fingers.’

Although the book wasn’t written until fourteen years after I made my commitment, it captures the exact energy I was feeling. I was pulling myself up, and I had no idea what my climb would entail. Making a commitment felt like a way to channel energy into how I wanted my life to be.

Ravikant says that commitment is a vow, more than a wish or even a promise.

When you make a commitment, your brain recognises it as important.

At the time, I only knew that I wanted my life to be different. I believed that there was a strength inside me that would help me rebuild my confidence.

I had an image of the real me in my mind. I saw glimpses of her every day as I worked in the bank. There, I felt confident in some ways. Talking to my clients was much easier than having a conversation in a social setting. That confident version was already a part of me, but all her insecurities were holding her back.

Taking small actions

A commitment needs action. Otherwise, we eventually stop trusting ourselves to follow through. It’s like repeatedly making a promise to someone you love and then letting them down. Trust begins to erode. The same can happen in our relationship with ourselves.

With my commitment, I told myself I was building my confidence. My brain then began working on it. Over time, the small actions I took changed what I believed about myself.

‘I will build my confidence’ gave me direction. I started making choices that aligned with that.

* I read self-help books on confidence.

* I started to try new things, like learning hypnotherapy and NLP.

* I had conversations that felt uncomfortable.

* I took the opportunities that I would have ignored before.

* I started walking like someone who was confident.

I finally found the courage to leave the company I was beginning to hate. I even took a lower-paid role at a new company just so I could leave before I backed down. I hadn’t even started when an opportunity arose at the new company, and they offered me a higher-paid role with a company car.

That was a huge boost to my confidence. More importantly, I proved to myself that I could make a difficult decision and follow through on it.

A year after making my commitment, I met someone new. A good man this time. Probably someone I would have walked past in my previous existence. We have just celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary.

I was gradually building evidence that I could build relationships, handle difficult situations, and try new things. With each small win, my self-trust grew, and my confidence grew alongside it. I started to believe in myself.

One piece at a time

Looking back, I realise that the words ‘I will build my confidence’ started a process.

I could have said, I want to be confident. That might have helped, but it would have been more of a wish than a commitment.

The word build implied a process. I wasn’t expecting to wake up one morning transformed into a confident woman. I was giving myself permission to get there one small step at a time.

For years, I saw confidence as something I lacked and needed to achieve. Perhaps yet another way to prove myself. One thing I have learned over the years is that we do not need to prove ourselves to anyone.

I was completing my own life jigsaw. Every time I spoke up, tried something new, had a difficult conversation or made a decision for myself, another piece slipped into place.

I never needed to create a new version of myself. I only needed to uncover the woman who had always been there beneath the insecurity, the need for approval and the belief that she wasn’t enough.

When I was in that dark place all those years ago, I made a commitment to become more confident.

I will build my confidence.

Those five words, ‘I will build my confidence’, gave me direction, but my actions made the difference. They brought me closer to who I really was. Along with building my confidence, I grew my self-trust and self-belief.

I kept my commitment, and somewhere along the way, I also found who I was under the labels, insecurities and all the other baggage I carried with me.

I still work on my confidence; the commitment is and always will be in place.

The difference now is that a much more aligned and authentic me is taking those small actions.

I am writing a book about how we return to our authentic selves. Self-confidence grows as we remove the insecurities that keep us stuck and, piece by piece, return to who we really are. Your comments help me decide the direction the book takes. I am very grateful.

Much loveSue xx

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suereid.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suereid.substack.com/subscribe

If I met Susan today, fifty-four years after she crushed me, I wonder whether she would even remember me.

I doubt it, but I remember her.

I would ask her why she asked me to share a bunk bed with her on a school trip, only to dump me at the last minute for another girl. Did she know what that did to my confidence and self-esteem? Did she care?

Susan was in my class at school, and she was the kind of girl I wanted to be.

Popular, outgoing, always had an entourage of girls around her. Plus, she had a pony.

The sort of girl that teenage adventure stories are written about.

I wanted to be part of Susan’s life. I wanted a pony. Maybe I even wanted to be Susan.

I nearly made it into her inner circle, which I called ‘the cool gang.’

When Susan asked me if I wanted the bottom bunk under hers on the school trip, I was in my element.

At the last minute, she told me she had chosen someone else. She laughed.

Can you imagine how crushing that was for a teenage girl with low self-esteem? I didn’t enjoy the trip at all after that.

Looking back, the thing I find most interesting is that I can’t recall any of the other girls I thought were part of the ‘cool gang’. I can only remember Susan.

I had my own friends. Marie, Linda, Christine, and Alison. They were lovely, but they didn’t seem to be enough.

Which makes me feel a little guilty. Why did I need more than them?

I have no idea what it was about, Susan. Yes, she was outgoing and clever. I think her parents might have been quite wealthy, and of course there was the pony.

But what Susan really had, in my eyes, was self-confidence.

I wanted to hold a conversation like she did, put my hand up in class like she did, and have my parents love me enough to buy me a pony.

To be honest, they probably couldn’t afford one, and we didn’t have anywhere to keep it. I would have been too scared to ride it anyway.

It wasn’t the pony. It wasn’t even Susan. It was about being accepted.

Why did it matter?

I was a sensitive child, with parents who found it hard to show love. They had their own troubles, which I didn’t understand at the time. Like many people, I grew up believing I wasn’t good enough.

Having a friend like Susan would, in my mind, prove I was accepted. Then I would be good enough. Then I would be confident.

That belief held me hostage for years. I had a pattern of bad relationships; I stayed in a job where I wasn’t happy for too long. I suffered from social anxiety and drank too much.

Then one day I made a decision.

My life would change.

I decided to build my confidence.

Where did the strength come from after years of not feeling good enough?

The answer is in the word ‘confidence’ itself.

What is confidence?

The word confidence means to trust fully.

When you are about to do something unfamiliar, it is natural to feel fear.

To enter a situation with no guarantee of success, you need to trust yourself. You need to believe you can do this.

I trusted that I could change my life. After my divorce, I began reading self-help books on confidence. I read about others who had transformed their lives. I told myself that if they could change, maybe I could too.

Maybe I didn’t need people like Susan to accept me. Maybe I needed to accept myself. That was a huge realisation.

I don’t need anyone to accept me. I can accept myself.

I started to trust myself.

Trust alone is not enough

You can read every book there is about confidence. You can understand why you behave as you do. You can believe that change is possible.

And still do nothing.

Because eventually you have to act.

That’s when fear often shows up disguised as resistance, perfectionism or procrastination.

You decide you need one more book, one more week of research. Or you feel ill and will have to put it off for now. You think you will start next week. You won’t.

Fear is holding you hostage.

You can spend years preparing before you feel confident enough to begin.

I had confidence backwards for a long time.

I thought I needed to become confident enough to start.

What I understand now is that taking action grew my confidence.

I needed enough trust in myself to take one small step without knowing exactly where it would lead. After that, to keep taking those small steps forward.

Each action gave my nervous system a little more evidence. If I could achieve one thing, then I could achieve something else.

Practice brought competence. Competence gave me more evidence that I could trust myself.

My confidence grew because I started living differently.

Learning to walk

We had confidence before we learned to believe we didn’t.

When we first tried to walk, we fell back down. We failed. We didn’t give up. We knew that walking was important. So, even though we might have cried, we got up and tried again. We never gave up. The courage to try again and the trust that we would succeed got us walking.

Something that once seemed impossible became something we did without thinking.

Somewhere along the way, many of us stopped approaching life that way.

We started believing we needed to know we would succeed before we tried.

We began looking outside ourselves for reassurance that we were capable, worthy or good enough.

I learned that I didn’t need to feel confident; my confidence grew from deciding I was enough, then taking small actions to prove it to myself, not to anyone else.

* Smiling at people and making eye contact.

* Speaking up instead of staying quiet.

* Walking into rooms with my head held high.

* Being comfortable having conversations, even the hard ones.

* Writing down my thoughts and letting other people read them.

That’s how I became the confident woman I am today.

I am good enough. Flawed but awesome too. That is me.

We don’t need a Susan

If I could go back in time. I would love to speak to Susan, because I don’t think she was as confident as I thought.

I would tell her that she didn’t need to impress her supposedly cool gang (but probably not) by hurting a young girl’s feelings.

I would tell her something that I hope she figured out for herself later:

Nobody else gets to decide whether you are enough.

And I never needed a pony either.

Thirty years ago, I started a journey of healing and finding my confidence. I realise now that what I was really looking for was me.One by one I removed limiting beliefs and uncovered the hidden parts of myself. I have also helped others, men and women of all ages to do the same. I am proud of my work, and I love sharing my story and experiences here on Substack. Thank you for being here with me.Much loveSue xx

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