What do you imagine when you think of the word “confidence”?

You may be thinking of an extroverted person who’s very outgoing, comfortable speaking to others, and carries themselves with great pride.

The truth is that confidence has absolutely nothing to do with the description above, and, in reality, is the opposite quality of pride. Confidence isn’t about a certain look or about carrying ourselves a certain way. Confidence is about the way we perceive ourselves.

True confidence is about accepting who we are and loving ourselves regardless of our appearance, our social status or the way others perceive us. It is an extension of self-love.

It is necessary to understand that although pride may seem like confidence and can even sound more appealing, it does not feel as such. Pride feels the need for external validation, confidence is content because it knows it is complete. Pride is a persona we create to mask our true Being. Confidence is vulnerable, it has nothing to hide, and it is free.

When we say we want to be more confident, it is important to comprehend these differences; otherwise, we’ll likely focus on building our pride which will leave us feeling empty and insecure. Yes, the media is skilled at making it seem like pride masked as confidence is great- you’ll attract more people around you and you’ll definitely stand out of the crowd. But this is only an ego, and an ego is nothing more than a facade. We want to feel true confidence because we want to feel good with our Selves every single moment. We want to stop desiring to live a life that isn’t ours.

So how do we focus on building our confidence?

It all starts with getting to know ourselves.

Self-knowledge is the key to self-love and self-confidence. Most of us think we know who we are, but if we analyze our personalities and our likes, we can see how we usually copy whatever our society is telling us to do.

Are you following your heart or are you just following the crowd?

When we follow the crowd, we cannot possibly acquire self-confidence because we aren’t being ourselves. How can we love someone we don’t know?

Building a relationship with our Being is necessary. The more we understand ourselves, the more comfortable we become in our skin. It’s like if you had to do a presentation in front of a hundred people. Would you feel confident if you didn’t study or knew the details of what you were going to say? Probably not. This is the same with our Being. How can we feel confident being someone we don’t even know or understand? We simply cannot.

In Latin, the word confidence means to have full trust. Do you fully trust yourself? Can you truly say that you are a man/woman of your word? Are you a person of integrity? Do you act and think according to your own moral compass?

These are the questions that you need to ask yourself and that matter. If you don’t trust yourself, it is impossible for you to ever feel confident. Pride may make you feel as if you’re on top of the world, but the moment you’re alone with yourself, self-doubt will start creeping in because our Higher Self knows when we aren’t achieving our potential.

We will always advocate for self-development because this is the only way we can truly be happy. The more we tune into ourselves, the more we will be able to cultivate all the virtuous qualities that give us peace.

Meditate. Journal. Become curious about your likes, dislikes, and about the “whys” behind your thoughts and actions. Pretend you’re on a first date with yourself. You may want to skip over these steps, but confidence cannot be attained without them. Give yourself the opportunity to expand. You have unlimited powers within you. All you need to do is get to know who you are and all else will fall in place.