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At its core, confidence is believing in yourself and your abilities. It is also the foundation of success and happiness in our life.

Confidence helps us to overcome fear, take action, and achieve our goals.

Contrary to popular belief, confidence is not something we are born with nor do we have an innate knowledge of what it is and how to use it.

The good news: everyone can be confident and it is something we can build and improve with practice and experience.

In this blog post, I’m sharing some ways I’ve learned to build unshakable confidence before turning 40.

Know your strengths and weaknesses.

Self awareness is a superpower when it comes to building confidence. Knowing yourself, knowing what you are good at and what you need to work on helps us to be honest, humble and open to opportunities for self development. 

You can build self awareness by asking yourself and others for feedback and reflecting on what you are doing well and paying attention to the things you need to improve.

I’m always talking about journaling and this is one of the ways it can be useful. 

If you want to be more self-aware and confident, journal about your strengths and weaknesses and use them to guide your actions and decisions. 

My joy journal is the perfect tool for your self-awareness journey, you can also use it to keep track of your wins and answered prayers.

Celebrate your achievements

Confidence comes from recognizing your achievements and learning from your failures. 

Like koffee says “Gratitude issa mus”.  We all need to have a list of wins that helps us to remember we have been through tough things and we are very capable of winning.  Write down your achievements and failures and use them to motivate yourself and inspire others. 

I’ve come to find it helpful thinking that failures are opportunities to learn instead of obstacles that hold you back.  Those ‘lessons’ are often a memorable way to grow and improve.

Step out of your comfort zone

Confidence comes from competence and competence comes from doing things. So when it comes to building confidence, you have to challenge yourself to step out of your comfort zone and get stuff done.

The first time I recorded and published a podcast I was scared and confused, I had zero editing skills and it took hours to assemble a 15 minute episode… because I really didn’t know what I was doing.

However, I knew what I wanted the outcome to be. So I kept at it and now I edit videos and audio pretty decently.

Step out of your comfort zone by becoming curious and courageous. As you try new things, take risks, and face your fears, you will notice how much easier it becomes to embrace change and uncertainty as part of life.

Use affirmations

Our fears can often keep us back from showing up confidently. These fears show up as discouraging, negative thoughts and can keep us from taking steps to create a fascinating life we love.

One ways of dealing with fearful, negative thoughts is by writing them down and creating affirmations to challenge them.

Let’s say you have been given the lead on an important project. Your negative thoughts might start saying – you’re going to fail, you never finish what you start, nobody likes working with you, these people will not show up, you are going to have to do all the work by yourself.

Dont’ panic.

Here’s an affirmation hack that works for me when this happens. Create two columns in your journal. In the first column, write those fearful thoughts down, and in the second, write down powerful affirmations to counter them.

These are just some of the ways to build unshakable confidence before turning 40. If you want to learn more about how to boost your confidence and self-esteem in your 30s and 40s, check out my podcast Five Years to Forty.  I interview experts and share tips on how to live with confidence and purpose before you hit the big 4-0.

You can also visit my YouTube channel or listen on your favorite podcast platform for content on topics such as health, fitness, career, relationships, and personal growth.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and YouTube channel or your to get the latest updates and insights.

And if you enjoyed this blog post, please share it with your friends and family. Remember, confidence is a choice.

Start today and choose confidence.

See you soon.