How to Behave with Confidence | WHAT I'VE LEARNED AFTER 40

All right, you beautiful, bravehearts, It is wonderful to be with you again!

Today, I want to talk to you about this thing called Confidence. I'm going to share with you why doing confident behaviors, aka taking courageous steps of action, is really more important than feeling confident. If we all waited till we felt confident to do something, many of us would probably be sitting on the sidelines. Instead, what I'm going to give you today are some behaviors, some actions that you can take right now that actually will build and foster confidence. So are you ready?

Let's look at confidence in a bravehearted woman. The first thing I want you to think about is changing the word “confidence” to “courage” instead. What if we said, I don't need confidence as much as I need courage.

Confidence is the feeling of doing the good things that you need to do at the right time, but courage sometimes we still have the feeling of being afraid. We still have the feelings of maybe not necessarily, being completely self-assured. And yet, because we're courageous, we do the thing anyway. So many people are out there and we think, Oh, man, look at their confidence. Maybe not. Maybe they're just being courageous.

So I want you to give yourself permission braveheart, to start doing courageous things. Give yourself even 30 seconds of bravery and ask yourself, what do I need to do right now? And then try this. Count yourself down. Think of the things that you have to do. You've given yourself permission to be courageous. And now you go, 5-4-3-2-1, go. You're telling yourself to do the thing, just do it.

Here's the deal. When you count yourself down and just dive in or jump in, what you're doing is you're bypassing all the rationalization that your brain wants to give you. You're moving beyond the what-if, scary scenarios. You're also coming out of hesitation the minute you hesitate, self-doubt is right there to whisper to you, but when you count down, 5-4-3-2-1, go, you're giving yourself a target. You're giving yourself the courage to go ahead and just jump in, walk in the room, greet the person, say hello to that stranger, hit send, or upload that Facebook video. In this way, when you do those things, you challenge yourself to take a step that leads to victory, the victory of taking action. Yay, you did it.

You took courageous action that bolsters your self-esteem in ways you can imagine, and eventually, you're going to start seeking out small victories. What can I do today to challenge my courageous muscles? What step can I take? What little thing incrementally can I move forward today? Because, when you challenge yourself to move, even when your efforts might yield small victories, you still get the reward, the dopamine blast, and you get the value of saying, I moved forward in my progress. So, think of courage over confidence.

The second thing I just want to remind you, this is a behavior. It is okay to be vulnerable. Show up with vulnerability. That vulnerability reveals your courage. It reveals your confidence. It says you are self-assured. Vulnerability is rooted in self-acceptance. I don't have to project some image of flawless greatness because I'm confident or courageous enough just to be vulnerable. I can try new things. I can go out there. You know, as we age, we do experience new things that maybe at first undermine our confidence we don't have the same agility, perhaps, or our bodies don't work the way they used to, or the fat doesn't just meld off like it used to. Because I go to the gym one time, I can't eat anything I want to, although I believe that we need to continue to tell ourselves powerful things like my body is a fat, burning machine, I digress, but we do start to feel that transition in midlife can make us feel a little bit unsure of ourselves.

Yeah, we have wrinkles, we have gray hair. We've transitioned from our careers, and perhaps we wonder about the level of our contribution. We stay vulnerable, stay confident amidst vulnerability, and say, I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be all that, because my value and my worth are not predicated on my looks or my career or how much money I make, and when you practice, show up, being satisfied just as you are, your self-esteem, your confidence and your self-love and compassion really actually begins to grow.

So here's what that looks like. Don't make one excuse for the way you show up and that actually is point number three. Confident people don't make excuses or become defensive. Don't do it. Confident people have the courage to embrace accountability. They don't try to dodge responsibility. They don't point the finger and blame shift or say someone else was responsible, not me. We don't even try to give reasons, although it's tempting. Own your mistakes without excuse, and you will command respect. You will respect yourself for taking ownership and everyone else around you. They don't look at you and say, Oh, you made a mistake. No, they say, Good job. You showed up. You took the Dart you owned that. You said that was me. I'm responsible.

And again, explaining is okay if it's necessary. You know the difference between explaining and excusing. But even still, some of our long explanations just prove that we are insecure and feel a lack of confidence about who we are. Don't excuse anything, and you don't need to make yourself look good, also, because you are good, by the way, all by yourself own that step into who you are, and remember that you want to be teachable.

Defensiveness is just another form of excuse-making. Even a finger pointing, when people become defensive, we teach them that they cannot speak to us, that they cannot tell us the truth, and who suffers when people can't tell us the truth? We do. We lose out on that valuable and important feedback that would really actually help us to grow. We also lose out on the intimacy of a relationship. Because think about it, if you have a friend and you really can't be honest with them, because they're going to be defensive, part of you pulls back and walls off and says, Well, yeah, I can only go so far with you. So we suffer. We don't want people to feel like they can't tell us the truth, or that they're going to be punished for offering us some suggestions to be confident midlife women, learn to accept your failures and shortcomings, without making excuses, without defending and without excusing and without explaining Okay, and your reputation will actually be bolstered, not lessened when you do this.

The next thing that a confident woman does this behavior is cheer others on. Cheer others on. We could call it a coup. Have a coup. Coo. Cheer others on. There's something really special about a woman who will just go to bat for another woman. Cheer her on. You don't pull up the ladder when you make it to the top. You help someone else out, and celebrate the successes of other women without feeling jealous, threatened, or diminished. That is a scarcity mindset. When we think of someone else as being celebrated and honored, there's no room for us to still be honored, loved, or celebrated. The success of someone else does not diminish you. What diminishes you is you being threatened by that or being jealous of that.

Instead, we want a coup to cheer others on confidence or courage to let another woman shine and maybe eclipse you for a moment, and you don't have to say, Yeah, me too. I did that too. And toot your own horn confidence says I don't need to compete, I don't need to compare, because I know that I am on my own unique journey, and I know that I'm a valuable and worthy person and worthy of the goals, and someday, just as I'm cheering you on, you'll be in the winner's circle with me, cheering me on. That is the behavior of a confident midlife woman.

You can draw inspiration from other's success because if they can do it, you can do it too. If someone has done it, that means that someone can be you someday, and you can use it as a motivation to hit your own goals.

People are turned off by those who are desperate for attention, so you don't need to feel that your one moment of invisibility is going to threaten your success. Instead, stand off to the sideline and allow someone else to shine just for a moment, and know that being yourself is much more efficient for meeting your goals and achieving your goals than bragging or proving that you're important.

I met a woman the other day, and within just about 13 minutes of meeting her, she literally had given me her resume of everything she had done, this complete song and dance. And I knew at that moment she was feeling insecure. I knew at that moment that rather than her really giving me a resume and a reputation, I could be like, Wow, you're amazing, instead, she was oversharing to the point where I knew she was feeling insecure about me not knowing of all of the great things that she had done, and what do you think happened? I still think she's a great person and a wonderful girl, but I knew that she was an insecure woman who lacked confidence.

People catch on quickly, y'all, and they would be more attracted to you with an attitude of, I'm okay in my skin. I don't have to prove anything. Really, I'm so self-assured. It's okay if you don't know my complete list of accolades. In fact, there were many things that she did, that I've done, and then some, and maybe for a hot second I was tempted to share and rattle off my list of things, but honestly, actually, no, I just said, Ooh, note to self that right there, that behavior is not what I want to do. That's not how I want to show up. I want to be a confident midlife woman that says, I can cheer you on. I can be a good listener. I'm not threatened by the success of someone else.

Confident people are masters of attention diffusion. I don't mind it sitting on me for a second, but I'm quick to turn it right back, so tell me about yourself. Oh, say more about that? Wow, that's amazing. And being free to go ahead and give someone else the approval that maybe even I would crave, but I'm going to find it in other ways. You know what? I am, a bold, bravehearted woman. I know how to build myself. I know how to walk in my own self-worth.

So those are some behaviors that we can take on as confident women. We can be okay with vulnerability. We can stop apologizing and making excuses, and we can diffuse the attention off of ourselves onto someone else as we cheer someone else on, and we can think of confidence as courage and take steps of action, even if we're feeling afraid, probably will be feeling afraid.

That's what I want to remind you today, confidence is not just something you feel. Confidence is something you do. Confidence is something that grows. And I want to just tell you this, whatever it is, you do not have to believe in yourself to take that action.

I'm an author, and yes, there might be times when I'm tempted to shrink, like I just mentioned, but here's the thing, I don't have to believe in myself to write a book. I don't have to believe in my talent to write a book. All I need to do is have the courage to write the book, sit down, and do the thing, and that's what I'm trying to share with you today. Once you start doing things, confidence will come later.

Right now, you need the courage to go ahead and do it. I don't need to believe in myself to sit down and write a book outline or to write a chapter. I need to just set a timer and say you will write for the next 30 minutes. Right then, I can go back and wordsmith and polish. I don't have to sit there and say, I'm a good writer, I'm a good writer. I'm a good writer. I do make those affirmations. I don't need confidence or belief in myself to do the thing. I need courage, and that's what I want to leave with you today.

Hey everybody, if this has been helpful for you, please like it. Love it. Share it. Follow me. Hit the bell so you get notifications. If you're listening to me on the podcast, make sure that you follow me and subscribe. If you're listening to me on YouTube, I would love your review, and again, subscribe and follow me on all the things. But most importantly, I want you to believe in yourself. What's your story? Where's the confidence that you need? Where do you need to take courageous steps of action? I hope that you'll do it today.

This is Dawn Damon, I am the best-selling author of The Making of a BraveHearted Woman: Courage, Confidence, and Vision in Midlife and you can get your copy today on Amazon, leaving you like I always do, today's your day to find your brave and live your dreams!