What is confidence?
There are 2 types of confidence. Confidence in achieving goals and then self confidence.
Confidence in achieving goals would be for example having confidence to start a business or leave a job, or start a new hobby or project. Self confidence is a state of being, it’s how you present yourself and feel about yourself. It’s how you view yourself.
And in this blog we’re going to be talking about how to build confidence in achieving goals. In another blog post soon I’ll talk about how to BE confident.
Simply put, Confidence is a feeling. It comes from our thoughts, from the way we are thinking.
There’s a famous saying that confidence comes from competence which is also very true.
I want to explain confidence using an example.
I’ll use the example of podcasting.
I first started podcasting around 6 months ago. That was the first time I ever recorded a draft episode. When I first started I had no ‘confidence’ per se around it because I had no competence around it. I had never done it before. This would be the first time. So how did I muster up the confidence to start?
Step One:
Well the first step I took was I borrowed confidence from other areas of life. I asked myself is there anything that I did for the first time that I wasn’t good at but now I’m amazing at? The answer is yes. There’s a long list of things like that starting from when we were babies learning how to walk. We were all terrible at it and struggled in the beginning but now we’re all experts at walking. Same goes for driving. When I first started driving, I was terrified. I legitimately did not know how to change lanes. I preferred to just drive in one lane cause changing lanes was super scary. But now, I drive with maybe too much confidence 🙂 If you want to go the extra mile then make a list of 10 things that you started out terrible at but are now amazing at.
So the first step is to borrow confidence from other areas of life.
Step Two:
Step 2 is to repeat an empowering thought that you have proof behind like I accomplish anything I set my mind to. Think of times you’ve accomplished things you’ve set your mind to. Or another thought could be ‘I trust my self to do this’ and then think of times you’ve trusted yourself to complete a task.
Write the thought down and proof that the thought is true.
Step Three:
So now that you have borrowed confidence from a different area of life and you’ve found a thought that your brain has proof for, step 3 is to accomplish small things in your new goal. So for podcasting, small goals that I achieved were coming up with a name, a list of topics I want to talk about, writing 10 draft episodes and recording 5 of them. I also sent the episodes to a couple family members so they could listen to it and provide feedback to me. Each of these little wins sends a rush of dopamine through your brain. Think of dopamine as your brain’s own little fist bump, saying, ‘You got this!’ This isn’t just a feel-good moment; it’s your brain literally rewarding you for being awesome. And guess what? It’s addictive. Your brain loves this stuff, and it wants more, pushing you to keep going, keep succeeding.
But there’s more to it. When you’re staring down a big, scary goal, it can shake your confidence. But by breaking it down? You’re turning that one giant leap into a bunch of manageable steps. It’s way less intimidating, and each step you conquer is a testament to your abilities. It’s like you’re saying to yourself, ‘Hey, I did that. I can do the next thing too.’ Before you know it, you’re halfway up the mountain of your goal, and your confidence is soaring.
Plus, every mini-goal you achieve is a new skill or a polished ability in your arsenal. With my podcast, every episode recorded was more than just content; it was me getting better at speaking, organizing my thoughts, getting tech-savvy. Each skill mastered is a new reason to be confident.
So, Step 3 isn’t just about ticking boxes. It’s about stacking up those layers of confidence. Each small win is a brick in the fortress of your self-belief. By the time you’ve hit a few of these, you’re not just working towards a goal; you’re building an unshakeable confidence in yourself. Remember, confidence grows in increments, and every small step is a big leap in your confidence journey.
Step Four:
After you’ve borrowed confidence from past successes, reinforced it with empowering thoughts, and begun achieving small goals, it’s time for some introspection. Step 4 is to self reflect, why are you wanting to achieve this goal? Because having a strong why is going to keep you from giving up. You’ll always know why you’re doing this goal. Because even if your brain has enough proof that you got this and you can for sure accomplish this, you may struggle to keep going when things get hard unless you fundamentally know why you are doing this. It’s the foundation, the driving force that keeps you steadfast and resilient when challenges arise.
It’s easy to be motivated when things are smooth, but your ‘why’ is what will sustain you through the inevitable rough patches. Your resilience will be tested. Your ability to push through will be tested. This is what happened with my podcasting. I was about 12 episodes in when I stopped recording and publishing. Although I had done steps 1-3, I didn’t do this step. I didn’t have a clear why as to why I was podcasting.
This time around I have a very clear why. I want this current podcast I’m doing to reach Muslimahs all around the world so they can become the best version of themselves. So they can become resilient and confident.
This time I’m following these 5 steps so insha Allah I am confident that I will reach my goal of publishing 100 episodes.
Step Five:
Now onto the last step. Step 5. Now that you’ve borrowed confidence from past successes, reinforced it with empowering thoughts, begun achieving small goals and self-reflected on your why, it’s time to leverage this for your self confidence. I’m going to be talking about this in another blog but one place that self confidence comes from is your achievements.
So the more you achieve and the more you believe in yourself, the more confidence you will have in yourself naturally. And so as you are accomplishing these goals make sure to keep reinforcing the belief that you are confident and can achieve anything because you’ve achieved so much.
Continuous Step:
The hidden yet most important step through all of this is dua. Making dua at every single stage of this journey of gaining confidence to accomplish your goals. Making dua to Allah for His help. Making dua to Allah for confidence. There is nothing that we can do in this dunya without the help of Allah SWT. A lot of a Muslimah’s confidence actually comes from this. From trusting in Allah SWT. From trusting that if we have a pure intention and we are doing something for His sake, then we can have confidence in the fact that He will help us through it.
We put in the work by doing the 5 steps we’ve talked about. And with Allah’s help there is no goal that you will not be able to achieve. Prophet Musa AS made dua for confidence and ease when he was tasked with conveying the message of Islam to Pharoah.
The dua is in the Qur’an in Surah Taha Ayahs 25-28.
قَالَ رَبِّ ٱشْرَحْ لِى صَدْرِى (٢٥) وَيَسِّرْ لِىٓ أَمْرِى (٢٦) وَٱحْلُلْ عُقْدَةًۭ مِّن لِّسَانِى (٢٧) يَفْقَهُوا۟ قَوْلِى (٢٨)
Musa (AS) prayed, “My Lord! Expand for me my chest, and make my task easy, and remove the impediment from my tongue so people may understand my speech.”
There is so much to learn from this dua but for the sake of this blog, let’s look into the first part of the dua where Musa AS is asking Allah SWT to expand his chest. This has many meanings to it from what I’ve learned. It is a way to ask Allah SWT to make you strong and confident. And so this dua is a beautiful way to ask Allah to help us with any goal that we’re trying to achieve.
The more you accomplish goals, the more confident you will be in your ability to continue achieving goals.
So to end let’s recap the 5 steps.
Step 1 borrow confidence from past successes, Step 2, reinforce it with empowering thoughts, Step 3 set and achieve small goals towards the bigger goal, Step 4, Self reflect on why you are achieving this goal and step 5, leverage this for your self confidence. And the most important step through all of this is making constant dua to Allah SWT for His help and guidance.
Remember You are amazing and can accomplish anything. Confidence is a skill that you can definitely learn.
Until next time my friend,
Remember you got this because you have Allah
Your sister,
Mariam
