Authentic confidence is seeing yourself the way God sees you, relying on His presence and power combined with an appreciation and development of your gifts and abilities.
Our flaws and faults keep us humble, but they also help build our confidence because we know God is with us and gives us grace and favor. Where we are weak, He can make us strong.
In the monthly campus pastor development huddle I lead we were talking about the subject of confidence and Steve Walton, one of our Campus Pastors, shared his thoughts with us.
- Self-awareness is knowing yourself, self-belief is betting on yourself.
- Self-belief without self-awareness is delusion.
- Arrogant confidence = I can.
- Self-awareness without self-belief is disillusion.
- Lack of confidence = I can’t
- Self-awareness with self-belief is wise discernment.
- Humble confidence = I can’t, but God can
So good – Thanks Steve!
NOTE: My book Confident Leader, should be helpful to you as a practical look at developing confidence.
4. Develop Self-Control To Prevent Being out of Control.
Self-control is essential for self-leadership and when exercised over your desires, emotions, ambition, and temptations, perhaps ironically results in the greatest soul level freedom in your daily leadership.
Pressure is the crucible that tests our self-control. It’s not difficult to behave appropriately when all is calm, but when the heat is on and pressure rises, it’s easy to cross lines that we never intended to cross.
One great principle to develop self-control is to choose between two competing desires. For example, I desire good health and I desire chocolate chip cookies. The questions I must ask are, which one do I want more and am I willing to make the trade?
One great practice to develop self-control is to pre-decide. Making one big preemptive decision helps spare you from many small in-the-moment decisions. For example, if there are chocolate chip cookies in front of me, there is a strong likelihood I’m going to eat them. Therefore, I pre-decide when entering a grocery store not to buy any.
When you find yourself “in-the-moment,” here are two ways to help activate self-control on a consistent basis:
- Quickly and quietly remind yourself of the consequences.
- Quickly and quietly remind yourself of the benefits.
5. Chase Personal Growth Over Personal Gain.
It’s surprisingly easy to blur the fine line between personal growth and personal gain and the nuance is found in which one motivates you more.
The fundamental question is are you willing to keep growing as a leader even if it doesn’t seem to produce the desires you hope for?
