Confidence is a skill that can be gained and lost

everyone wants to be confident but very few work at it, confidence is just a skill you can develop over time, unfortunately many of us lack confidence due to life experiences and other peoples actions.

bullying is a massive cause of many peoples lack of confidence, I know it was the root cause of my lack of confidence, but I didn't lose my confidence over night it took years of name calling, people putting me down and on occasions being hit to really hit rock bottom. that caused me for many years to believe that was who I was destined to be an unconfident, scared person, I had no idea how to become confident so I hid my feelings and hurt by smoking (a means to fit in with popular people), gambling (to give me a sense of excitement I could achieve win or lose) drinking (so I could go out with others and be part of a group).

All of these things I did for reasons that seemed right for me at the time but looking back on it they were all just a means to cover up my lack of confidence in myself.

then one day I watched UFC and saw a fighter talking about how he lacked confidence as a result to bullying, He was saying how martial arts had changed his life and made him way more confident. a week later I was in my first martial arts class, I loved it from the start, over the next few years I quit gambling, stopped smoking and became t total all thanks to martial arts. Martial arts gave me a place to go where I felt I belonged, it gave me a purpose, it gave me goals to achieve , it gave me confidence in myself and an understanding that its all on me, if I put in the work I can achieve what ever I want.

now I'm not going to sit here and tell you martial arts is for everyone or its the only way to build confidence because its not. there are lots of great clubs and hobbies out there that will help you improve your confidence.

football clubs

rugby clubs

tennis clubs

hockey clubs

chess clubs

darts teams

netball teams

martial arts clubs

gyms

knitting clubs

reading clubs

dancing studios

that's just naming a few, all these activities can help you become more confident by getting you in a group where you feel safe and feel like you belong, try out different clubs and activities, if you don't feel like you belong or you don't enjoy it move on and find something you do enjoy.

The first thing to do to build confidence is to give yourself a purpose and something to work towards.

in martial arts we have belt systems, each belt gets slightly harder meaning you have to be that little bit better than you were before, helping you achieve confidence in yourself knowing you have improved. In fighting there are different levels, as you get better you rise through the ranks this also helps improve your confidence.

I will talk about the importance of goal setting as a tool to improve confidence in another blog

For now if your feeling low in confidence understand you can work on it and become confident again.

task 1 go and find something you love to do give yourself a reason to build your confidence.