Building Unshakable Confidence: A How-To Guide, Not Just the Hype
Building Unshakable Confidence: A How-To Guide, Not Just the Hype
You know what really grinds my gears? When people drop empty, surface-level advice like:
"You just need to love yourself more."
"You need more confidence."
Okay… and how exactly do you expect me to do that?
That’s the part nobody ever seems to explain. Instead, they hit you with their judgment, plant a few more insecurities in your mind, and then walk away like they just blessed you with some life-changing wisdom.
But confidence isn’t something you wake up with one random Tuesday just because someone told you to have it. Confidence is built. It’s shaped. It’s strengthened.
And today, we’re not just going to talk about needing more of it—we’re going to talk about how to get it.
📌 Check out last week’s blog post — Soft & Hard: The Power of Holding Both – Discover how balanSoft & Hard: The Power of Holding Bothcing softness and strength plays a role in confidence.
Stepping Stones
Step 1: Owning Where You Feel Shaky.
This is where most people get stuck—because it’s uncomfortable. It requires you to sit with your truth and ask yourself:
🔥 Where do I not feel solid?
🔥 Where do I hesitate?
🔥 What situations make me shrink?
You can’t fix what you refuse to face.
Confidence isn’t just about “believing in yourself”—it’s about competence, experience, and self-awareness.
Psychologist Albert Bandura’s research on self-efficacy proves it: confidence isn’t pulled from thin air. It’s built through action, experience, and learning from both wins and failures. Here’s how:
🔥 Mastery experiences – Doing something, seeing progress, and proving to yourself that you can.
🔥 Vicarious experiences – Watching someone like you succeed and realizing you can too.
🔥 Social persuasion – Receiving encouragement and constructive feedback from people who believe in you.
🔥 Emotional states – Managing doubt, fear, and stress so they don’t hold you back.
So no, the first step to confidence isn’t “faking it”—it’s figuring out where you need to grow and what’s standing in your way.
Ask yourself:
🔥 Do I feel unconfident in how I look?
🔥 Do I doubt myself when I speak up in rooms full of people?
🔥 Do I question my worth in relationships, in business, in my abilities?
Wherever you feel shaky, that’s your starting point. Confidence isn’t about pretending—it’s about becoming.
Let’s get to work. And again, instead of faking it until you make it, consider a new perspective: making it until you make it.
📌 Source Article: Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory Of Motivation In Psychology
Writing her life as she goes
Step 2: Own the Narrative—Then Rewrite It
Confidence isn’t just about what you do. It’s about what you believe about yourself. And for many of us, the confidence struggles we have today? They started with a story someone else told us.
Maybe a teacher made you feel like you weren’t smart enough.
Maybe a parent was too critical.
Maybe you were teased for something that made you different.
Whatever it was, that old narrative still plays in the back of your mind like a scratched-up record.
But here’s the thing: you are the author now.
So rewrite the damn story.
If the old story says, “I’m not smart enough to go after that dream,”—challenge it.
If the old story says, “Nobody will take me seriously,”—flip it.
If the old story says, “I’m not as talented as other people,”—burn that nonsense to the ground.
You get to decide what’s true for you. Not your past. Not your fears. Not other people’s projections.
When values and actions align
Step 3: Align Your Actions with Your Values
Nothing builds confidence faster than living in alignment with who you say you are.
A lot of people feel shaky in their confidence because there’s a gap between their values and their actions. They say they want to be healthier but don’t honor their bodies. They say they want to be respected but let people walk all over them. They say they want success but keep playing small.
Confidence doesn’t come from what you say you believe. It comes from what you do.
So ask yourself:
🔥 Am I living in a way that reflects what I say I value?
🔥 Do my choices align with the kind of person I want to be?
🔥 Am I practicing what I preach?
Because when your actions and values are aligned, you don’t have to fake confidence. You become someone you trust—and that trust in yourself is the foundation of unshakable confidence.
Setting Goals
Step 4: Set Hard Goals—But Make Them Work for You
If you really want to build confidence, you need to prove to yourself that you can do hard things.
Research on How Hard Goals Build Resilience & Performance shows that difficult, high-stretch goals push people to higher levels of confidence and achievement than easy goals ever could.
But there’s a balance—because if a goal is too overwhelming, it can have the opposite effect. That’s why the key is setting goals that:
✔ Challenge you just enough to stretch you
✔ Are specific and measurable (no vague “I want to be better” goals)
✔ Are aligned with your values, so they actually mean something to you
When you set and achieve goals that matter, confidence becomes the natural byproduct.
A woman holding a cracked bowl repaired with gold, symbolizing resilience, self-worth, and transformation. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, highlighting the cracks instead of hiding them. It symbolizes resilience, transformation, and the beauty in imperfection—proving that what is broken can be made even stronger and more valuable
Step 5: Realize That Nothing in Your Life Has Been Wasted
One of the biggest confidence killers? Thinking you’ve wasted time, wasted opportunities, wasted years.
Let me tell you something: Nothing is wasted unless you choose for it to be.
Everything you’ve been through—the wins, the failures, the lessons, the setbacks—has given you something.
So instead of looking at your past as a series of “should-haves” and regrets, start seeing it as the training ground for your future.
💡 That relationship that broke you? It taught you what you deserve.
💡 That job that didn’t work out? It showed you what you don’t want.
💡 That risk that flopped? It taught you resilience.
Confidence isn’t about having a perfect past. It’s about deciding that your past—flaws and all—still qualifies you for everything you want.
Fighting for Confidence
Final Thought: Confidence is a Practice, Not a Personality Trait
You weren’t born unconfident. It was something you were taught.
And just like it was taught, it can be unlearned.
Confidence isn’t magic. It’s consistent action. It’s daily decisions to believe in yourself just one step more than you did yesterday.
So today, start where you are. Be honest. Own the story. Align your actions. Trust that nothing is wasted.
And above all else? Move like you belong in every single room you walk into.
Because you do.
ABOUT THE BLOGGER
Dr. Sagashus Levingston is an author, entrepreneur and PhD holder. She has two fur babies, Maya and Gracie, six children (three boys and three girls), and they all (including her partner) live in Madison, WI. She loves all things business, is committed to reminding moms of their power, and is dedicated to playing her part in closing the wealth gap for people of color and women. She believes that mothering is a practice, like yoga, and she fights daily to manage her chocolate intake. The struggle is real, y’all…and sometimes it’s beautiful.
Follow her on Instagram: @infamous.mothers