how to build confidence when you are introvert

” Confidence is like a leap of faith you take in yourself , either you get sucess or failure you are still moving forward .”

                                                                                                   – unknown

As an introvert, it is always a challenge to believe in everything but yourself. No matter how talented you may be. But that inner voice keeps pointing out our faults.

I have experienced this self-doubt and negative comments from my own mind and feeling of anxiousness and low confidence.

It was stretched to a level where I stopped going out of the house and tried everything to keep away from friends and people. Talking with strangers was a nightmare for me.

living in an Indian family where psychological issues are ignored like warnings on cigarette packets. Even friends start seeing me as a negative person so I stopped talking to them about the issue.

That really worsened the situation now I had nobody to talk to about my situation.

My nights were sleepless and it started affecting my health. Then one day I hear news of my neighbor’s death due to a heart attack which was a great shock to me because I had met him one day before his death.

This was a wake-up call for me that I am also going to end one day but this realization was not negative at all.

I said the exact same line to myself ” enough is enough I can’t stand to live with myself like this “.

That was a life-changing decision for me. I have researched deeply about the issue and applied methods in my life with sincerity. And by working on the central issue I got my confidence.

What is Confidence actually ?

One of the myths is that confident people never feel fear, anxiety, and low confidence.

Is that really true or maybe we need to rethink our beliefs?

I have met too many confident people and found that it is not that they don’t feel this emotion. But what do they do in response to that emotion?

The intensity of emotion may vary but they have to face it also on some levels.

And there is something called the amygdala in our brain that controls how much we are influenced by emotion.

We will understand about amygdala later in detail.

So confidence is not always feeling the best version of yourself but having faith in yourself that you can face any situation regardless of what you are feeling or your current confidence level.

 

And that faith will come as you face challenges and win them.

Understanding our mind and body – crucial step

Our education system is such that we know everything about the universe but ourselves.

We may know how many planets are in the solar system but we don’t know anything about how our mind works and its connection with the body.

Our whole system has three main parts .

1 ) Body 

This is the physical part of our system which comprises our internal organs, sense organs, and physiology.

Each cell has a mind of its own, scientists have also proved this now.

2) Mind

This is the invisible and strongest part of our system. Just like software in a hardware device.

Scientific research on this topic is increasing today. People were not even considering that there is such thing as a mind.

Their object of concern was the physical thing called the brain that’s why medications for mental disorders are doing more harm than good.

They still think the mind is part of the brain. If that is so why can’t we see the mind?

Nobody knows where the mind is and where it comes from.

But you can imagine the mind as a space where all your thoughts , emotions and images arises.

3) Consciousness

This is the most advanced research topic of psychology today after the mind and the most untapped part of our being.

But this word is made quite complicated to understand and volumes have been written and at last, you got nothing but a bunch of information.

Let me explain consciousness with an example –

Think of numbers from 1-10 in your mind. Can you see it? Here comes the curve ball – Who is watching that number?

You will say “I am watching “. So let’s try to find what you call “I”. The logical answer would be your face. You do remember someone by face, don’t you?

Did you remember someone by their hand or feet?. So we associate ourselves with our face not other body parts and also our face is changing throughout our life from a zygote to when we become adults.

So which face are you? your body comes out from a single cell how can it be you?

But in our daily experiences, there is someone in use who experience pain, happiness, and sadness.

That knowing quality is you and you are that consciousness, not some physical zygote, emotion, or thoughts that changes in seconds.

So basically consciousness is that knowing quality that lets you experience emotion, sensation, thoughts, and images.

Consciousness never changes although the experiences are changing.

Consciousness can not be understood by words because it is not physical. We listen to this word and think consciousness must be something mystical but it’s the simplest thing on this planet because it is you.

When you say I am angry next time try to remember this and say I am experiencing anger but put this carefully knowing that “I” here does not mean your physical body or phase it is that knowing quality which is you.

What is the amygdala and why it is so important factor in confidence?

As you know your fear is inversely proportional to your confidence where the amygdala plays a very important part.

The Amygdala is actually the region of the brain responsible for emotional processing.

When the amygdala is hyperactive, it shut down the thinking part of the brain and you respond to emotions such as anger or fear. For example – road rage or impulsive buying.

The solution for this is to acknowledge the sensation in your body and let the thinking part slowly increase which was cut off due to amygdala hijack.

Facing hard situations one step at a time.

Facing situations is an important part of building self-confidence. The more challenges you face, the lesser will be the fear, and the greater will be the confidence.

So fear and confidence are inversely proportional to each other.

That does not mean you have to start with giving speeches on the stage. Of course, you can but be ready to fail cause stage fear can shake even confident people.

Take one step at a time start with one stranger for 5 min increase it as you get comfortable and you will find everybody is a human being like you and you will be more comfortable around people.

Facing your fears?

During my research, I have found people writing books on how to end fear and yet everybody is feeling some fear on daily basis. Either the books are true or the peoples are.

I bet on people rather than a book. The truth is fear is inbuilt inside our system by mother nature. Our body wants to protect itself against potential threats and we don’t want it to.

So what we need to do is teach our mind and body what is an actual threat and what is not.

Right now it gets scared of stressors such as a boss and wife like when we were hunters in the jungle facing scary creatures.

Fear is built for only one purpose to stop you from doing harm to yourself. But fear is not intelligent it can not make a difference between a boss and a lion.

It gives same reaction to every stressor but we have intellect and we can use it to choose to do an action that is important for our career and life. 

Just keep taking action regardless of how you feel is only way to get over it.

No magic apart from your perseverance and decision to change your life.

I know this must be little hard to listen but the truth is no books or knowledge is going to help you in getting your confidence.

The only remedy to this problem is to take action and withstand the fear and belief that the mind will put on you.

As in my case, I collected all the knowledge required to increase my confidence. But the last nail in the coffin was action.

Each action that I take toward my goal despite what I feel or think makes me more confident in myself.

Takeaway

Confidence comes from facing difficult situations. Try to Understand what your fear is saying to you and what fear is protecting.

Perseverance and Will power are the human’s superpowers that separate him from all other species and help him counter any challenges he faces.