How to Find Your Way Back From a Confidence Crisis

Sooner or later, your confidence will be shaken to the ground.

Life will throw something at you—you'll lose your job, your relationship will end, someone will do something that betrays you, or you'll discovery that things haven't been as you thought they were—that makes you question everything.

That's what a crisis of confidence does; stops you in your tracks, pulls the rug of everything you were confident in out from under you, and makes you doubt everything.

Self-trust becomes impossible.

A confidence crisis changes the landscape of meaning and expectation, taking away your ability to trust your own thoughts and feelings. And that makes room for the belief that you're simply not good enough to deal with life.

It's baneful; and it will happen to you if it hasn't already.

So bookmark this post, as I'll give you three ideas that just might help you during a confidence crisis. Keep this in your little toolkit of life, and use it as a life-preserver when the time comes.

1. A Confidence Crisis Is Not Okay

It's pointless me offering you a hug, rubbing your back and telling you that "it's okay". It's not okay.

It fucking sucks.

You don't have to bounce back right away. You don't have to "get over it". You don't have to force it to be okay.

This might fly in the face of what you're expecting to hear or what others might say.

Good.

What I care about is that you allow what's happening in your life to happen in your life. Don't push it away. Don't bury it. Don't hide it.

Allow yourself to be with the fact that it's not pleasant where you are right now, and spend time with how it feels.

Don't judge the shittyness for being shitty

While that's imperative, there's a big difference between acknowledging what's happening, and wallowing in it. Wallowing in it is casting yourself as the victim, pouring over the drama of it all in forensic detail, and building walls of thinking built on top of victimhood that could keep you trapped for a long, long time.

Don't wallow, experience. Making the choice to experience what's happening is simply, honestly and bravely choosing to move with it.

It's like being willing to stand in the rain without a coat or umbrella - you get soaked to the bone, but as you stand there shivering, wishing you could be safe and dry indoors, there's something natural, honest and even graceful about it.

And that's the interesting thing. Simply embracing the suckiness of it can be a comfort.

2. Return to Your Source

Melt down a gold watch, a gold ring or a gold tooth and you get the same thing.

Gold.

Many times in my life I've needed to return to what I call my "liquid state"; a place where I go back to my source. This liquid state is where I can connect with who I am and what I'm made of, regardless of what's happened in my life.

It's here that you reconnect to your source

This might be a place of spirituality or faith, it might be resting in the support of a loved one, it might be gently nourishing yourself or it might be a place where you connect with something that truly matters; your true north.

A confidence crisis gives you the opportunity to reconnect with what's deep inside you, like a quiet space for you to hang out in during the storm.

I think it's essential. Completely, vitally necessary.

Without it you'll be drifting without connection or spinning without centre.

You'll get completely lost.

Instead, recognise that you're always connected. To your source, to others, to the world. It's through feeling and gently exploring these connections once more that you'll find your way back.

3. Don't Give In

Sometimes you sit there in the middle of a crisis and ask yourself,

Just how strong do I need to be?

I get that. I honestly do.

Just when you think you've overcome everything life has thrown at you, it throws something else at you that's bigger, badder and blows what's come before out of the water.

You might think you can't deal with it. You might want to stop trying. You might want to give up.

Don't.

You already have what it takes

I know, I know. That sounds trite and not the least bit helpful, but hear me out.

Even though it might not feel like it, you have to acknowledge that you're here, right now. You've got through some pretty bad scrapes and you're still here.

That counts. It really does.

Letting in regret, bitterness, hate or cynicism can be more damaging than anything life can throw at you, and I've come to believe this is why the universe keeps on testing us.

If you can get through the hard times (and the impossibly hard times) without letting in regret, bitterness, hate or cynicism, you've likely embraced all that's good in yourself and the world.

You've embraced grace

A ghastly as a crisis of confidence can be, the experience they provide is filled with some of life's most important lessons and opportunities. A life without them is a life too small to mean much of anything.

So perhaps, a life woven with tears of crisis as well as tears of joy is the mark of a life well spent.

I'd love to hear from you...

I'd love to hear about how you've found your way back from a confidence crisis, or how you're struggling with one.

Add your comment below, or get in touch with me directly.