Confidence is a Contract. How Does it Work?

Are you aware that you’re being watched?

Every minute of the day. Every day of the week. Every week of the month. Every month of the year.

By whom, you ask?

By YOU, of course!!

Your subconscious mind is the greatest witness to your life. It observes everything you do. It knows when you’re silently tolerating the disrespect and mistreatment.

It’s there when you tell yourself “The next time someone says this to me, I’m gonna give them a piece of mind!”. But it’s also there when you cower away at the first sign of conflict.

You see, your subconscious mind is responsible for your confidence (or lack thereof).

Why?

Because, as well as being a perfect witness to your life, it is also a recorder. It keeps a tally of what you promise to yourself versus what you actually end up doing.

This tally-keeping is how it determines the level of trust you can have with yourself (aka self-confidence).

If what you promise yourself is usually what you end up doing, then your level of self-trust grows.

On the other hand, if you’ve left yourself with a trail of broken promises, then subconsciously your self-trust and subsequent confidence – will diminish.

Think of it this way: self-confidence is a contract. You have an unspoken, contractual agreement to protect your mind, body, heart and soul at all costs.

Each time you fail to protect yourself, you break that contract and lose confidence in your ability to advocate for and protect yourself.

You may not realise it, but in the process, you’re actually losing respect for yourself.

This is what happens when we avoid setting boundaries out of discomfort or are unaware about what boundaries we need to set in the first place.

You can’t enforce clear boundaries when you aren’t clear about them yourself. This lack of clarity gives other people free reign to dictate how you will be treated according to their perception of you. And once you’ve allowed them to do so, it becomes incredibly difficult to back track and take hold of the reigns again.

Also, when you don’t communicate the boundaries you ARE clear about, it robs other people of the opportunity to accommodate you and leads to a build up of resentment towards them (and ultimately yourself).

In order to save ourselves from this path, we must increase our self-knowledge.

We must get to know exactly what we don’t like and what makes us uncomfortable, because this will determine what boundaries need to be set and with who.

Even more than that, we should also try to understand the WHY behind our discomfort as well, not because you need to explain your boundaries, but because you will feel a lot more justified in asserting your boundaries when you understand the reasons behind them.

NB: Sometimes your mere discomfort should be enough to draw a line with someone.

There won’t always necessarily be a deeper reason for something making you uncomfortable, but it’s always important to explore and improve your understanding of self.

By self-reflecting and figuring out where you stand on certain things, this allows you to mentally rehearse how you might enforce your boundaries the next time around.

Sometimes simply not knowing what to say or how to say stops us from communicating our boundaries. Practising in your mind (or even out loud) can help prepare you and make you more assertive when the time comes.

Additionally, this mental rehearsal is where you can decide on the most comfortable way for you to assert yourself that fits with your personality.

By taking the time to understand these important aspects of yourself, you are reclaiming your position of authority over how you are treated.

The more you practise and get comfortable pushing through the temporary discomfort of setting a boundary, the more repair you will do to your self-confidence and the more you will trust yourself again!

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