14 Keys To Building Confidence And Self Belief (Without Faking It!)

Why Confidence Matters (and Why Willpower Alone Doesn’t Work)

Real Self-Belief Happens When The Subconscious Decides It’s Safe To Shine

If you’ve ever wished you could stop second guessing yourself and finally feel confident instead of just trying to act that way...you’re not alone.

This article is dedicated to entrepreneurs, creatives & anyone ready to stop playing small.

Most people who look calm and self-assured on the outside have felt those inner wobbles too. The thumping heartbeat before a big conversation, the quiet dread of being seen, the endless replay of what they should've said.

Confidence is one of those qualities everyone wants, but few truly understand. We often think confidence means being fearless, extroverted, or “naturally” bold.

But that’s not true confidence, it’s performance confidence. That's your game face.

Real self-belief comes from within: from the subconscious' knowing: it’s...safe to be seen, safe to be heard, safe to take up space (and time). Safe to step up, step away, speak up, stay silent, say yes, and say no.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re stuck in your head, overthinking, procrastinating, playing small. That's not laziness or lack of ambition.

It’s your subconscious mind trying to protect you from old emotional pain. At some point, your brain learned that being visible, making mistakes, or standing out came with a risk: rejection, shame, punishment, disappointment.

So now, even when you want to lean in, part of you sabotages that.

Born This Way?

The good news? Self-belief isn’t something you’re born with.

You can build it and rewire your mind for confidence. Once your subconscious understands that it’s safe to be seen, your nervous system naturally relaxes, your self-talk softens, and courage grows.

This Guide Is Designed For Entrepreneurs, Creatives, Coaches, And Anyone Ready To Stop Hiding

You’ll learn the real psychology of confidence and why traditional fake it till you make it advice doesn’t last. You'll find practical, grounded ways to reprogram your mind so confidence becomes your default.

Let’s start by redefining what confidence actually means.

What Confidence Really Is (and Isn’t)

Most people think confidence is something you either have or don’t have. A lucky genetic trait like curly hair or long eyelashes.

But confidence isn’t an inbuilt personality feature. It’s a learned emotional state that your mind and body can access when they feel safe.

Let’s Strip Away The Myths Around Confidence

Confidence isn’t about being loud, extroverted, or even ON all the time.
 It's not about dominating a room or having the answer.
 And it certainly isn’t about pretending you never feel fear.

True confidence is the quiet, steady belief that you can handle what comes next.


It’s not “I’ll never fail.” 


It’s “Even if I stumble, I know I’ll figure it out.”

An enormous difference.

Confidence grows from self-trust, not from perfection. When you know you can rely on yourself (to speak honestly, to keep commitments, to recover from setbacks) you naturally radiate ease. You don’t need to prove or perform. You can just BE.

And underneath self-trust lies something even deeper: self-belief.

Self-belief means that you trust you can do this. You BELIEVE.

And you feel worthy of success, love, and belonging.
 It’s your inner YES. 
Your quiet voice that says: “I got this and I deserve it.”

For many of us, that voice gets drowned out early.


Maybe you were told to tone it down.


Maybe your confidence was mistaken for arrogance.


Maybe you learned that being seen led to judgment, jealousy, or rejection.

Maybe you were conditioned that staying under the radar kept you physically safe.

Over time, your subconscious started equating visibility with danger.

The nervous system (always loyal, always protective) learned to protect you by activating survival responses.

That’s why your heart races before speaking up (your fight-or-flight system kicks in), why you freeze when you're asked an opinion (a shutdown or freeze response), or why you procrastinate even on things you care about (your system associates action with threat or overwhelm).

Listen, those are not personality flaws. They’re protection patterns.
 They’re your subconscious saying Let’s not go there. Last time it hurt.

Here's the thing. The truth is that these patterns can change. Once your nervous system learns that it’s safe to be confident, safe to be seen, safe to succeed, confidence stops being something you're struggling to get and it starts being something you embody.

Let’s now uncover what can block that embodiment. The deeper roots of low confidence that live in the subconscious mind.

The Hidden Roots of Low Confidence

Low confidence rarely starts in adulthood.


It’s usually rooted in earlier experiences. We can call this childhood conditioning. Moments when we felt unseen, compared, punished, or not enough. Over time, those experiences form subconscious beliefs like it's not safe to stand out or I’ll fail if I try or I'm not worthy.

These beliefs still shape how we show up: in business, relationships, and everyday lif. Yes, even decades later.

I explore this in depth in Understanding 15 Root Causes for Stubbornly Low Confidence, a deep dive into how childhood dynamics and life experiences can erode self-belief.

For now, it’s enough to know that confidence isn’t built by pushing harder or by “faking it.” It’s restored by healing the root cause and teaching your mind and body that it’s safe to feel strong again.

Once you understand where those old protection patterns came from, you can start teaching your body NEW ones. That's where where getting to the real confidence rebuilding!

14 Keys to Building Confidence & Self-Belief

Let’s dive into the real, lived ways you can grow unshakable confidence now. The kind that doesn’t depend on compliments, likes, or wins, but flows from knowing who you are and what you stand for.

1. Reconnect With Your Body

Building confidence starts in the body, not the mind. You can’t think your way into self-belief if your nervous system is in fight-or-flight.


Start by noticing your physical state in moments of stress: the tight chest, the shallow breath, the clenched jaw. Now, ground yourself. Breathe out longer than you breathe in. Feel your feet on the floor.


Your body sends constant signals of safety or threat to your brain and when it feels safe, confidence becomes accessible.

2. Build Evidence, Not Ego

Confidence grows from evidence, not affirmations alone.


Look for small, daily wins (yes they can be small) sending the email you’ve been avoiding, looking the other person in the eye, posting the video, having the conversation.
 Each act becomes proof that you can trust yourself. The more evidence you collect, the less you’ll need external validation.

Keep a confidence log: a running list of moments when you showed up, handled something well, or simply followed through. Yes, really do this. The difference whether this sticks or not is in you doing this, not just reading this!

Over time, this becomes a personal library of proof. It's your antidote to imposter syndrome.

3. Reframe Mistakes As Data

The most confident people aren’t mistake-free... they’re mistake-resilient.
 Here's how to do it.

Detach self-worth from outcome. If you do this, then every experience becomes feedback instead of personal failure.


Ask: What did this teach me about my approach, (not about my value)?
 This shift rewires your subconscious from I failed to I learned, and that single reframe builds long-term self-trust faster than any pep talk.

4. Speak To Yourself Like You’d Speak To Someone You Love

Most people talk to themselves in ways they’d never (ever) speak to a friend.
 The tone of this inner critic is often impatient, even harsh. “You’re so behind,” “You blew it again” this can erode confidence little by little.

If this is you, then you could start practising mental tone awareness: when you notice that voice, soften it. Replace it with something supportive, realistic, and kind.

You’re not deluding yourself. You’re re-parenting your subconscious. Every kind internal word adds to a feeling of safety and self-respect: two cornerstones for genuine confidence.

5. Anchor Your Confidence In Purpose, Not Performance

If your confidence spikes when you win and crashes when you don’t, it’s anchored in outcome.
 Instead, tie your confidence to why you’re doing what you do.
 When your focus is on service, contribution, or creativity, the fear of judgment loses power.

Before big moments, a launch, a talk, a pitch, pause and remind yourself: this isn’t about me proving my worth; it’s about sharing something that helps someone else.
 Purpose brings perspective, and perspective calms any jitters.

6. Release Perfectionism

Perfectionism masquerades as high standards, but it’s really fear of rejection in disguise.
When you believe you must do things perfectly to be accepted, you’ll hesitate, polish endlessly, or avoid starting altogether.

True confidence doesn’t come from flawlessness. It comes from loving yourself despite the shortcomings.
 Let good enough for now be your new mantra.
 Confidence grows if you muck in and have a go at things and it lessens if you overprep and hesitate.

7. Create Safe Exposure to Visibility

For many entrepreneurs and creatives, visibility is the ultimate trigger. The spotlight can bring up old fears of judgment or humiliation.
 So, instead of forcing yourself into extreme exposure (30-day daily live challenge) build yourself up slowly and acknowledge and celeberate each step you take.

Start by practising in low-stakes environments: record a private video, share a story with a supportive friend, join a small group. 
Each time your body learns 'I was different and safe' or 'I was visible and safe' your subconscious rewires. Let visibility become neutral, even enjoyable.

8. Regulate Your Nervous System

Your nervous system is always working in the background, managing how safe or exposed you feel.

When it’s a little dysregulated, even small moments of attention like being asked to speak up, share an opinion, or step into the spotlight can feel like a threat. But that surge of energy you feel isn’t weakness. It’s your body trying to protect you.

When tension rises, we generally have two choices.

We can interpret those jitters as fear, or as energy. Research shows that reframing nervousness as excitement can increase performance by around 20%.

So in order to feel confidence we don't want to get rid of the sensations in our body. Instead, we want to learn how to stay regulated while feeling them.

Confidence will always feel out of reach when your system is swinging between hyperarousal (panic) and shutdown (numbness).

But once we have more awareness of these physiological states we can regulate them. Recognise: Are you in fight, flight, or freeze?

Then apply a nervous system reset:


• Breathe out longer than you breathe in.


• Splash cold water on your face.

• 
Stretch, shake, or move your body.


• Ground yourself through touch: focus on the surface you sit on, the ground under your feet, your breath.

Regulation is the foundation of confidence. You can’t lead when your system is in alarm.

9. Reprogram Your Subconscious Beliefs

Every confident behaviour is powered by a belief: 'I can.'
 But if your subconscious still believes 'I can’t', 'I’ll fail', or 'I don’t deserve success', no amount of strategy will stick.

Subconscious reprogramming (through hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy, or guided imagery) helps rewrite those outdated scripts.
 Once the inner narrative shifts from threat to safety, action follows naturally. Confidence stops being something you try to get and becomes something you ARE.

10. Surround Yourself With Regulated, Empowered People

Confidence is contagious.
 Spending time around people who take healthy risks, express themselves authentically, and celebrate others conditions your subconscious to do the same.

Your nervous system mirrors those around you. If your environment is cynical or competitive, it'll feed self-doubt. Choose communities that feel expansive, collaborative, and calm and your confidence will rise to meet them.

11. Honour Your Commitments to Yourself

Every time you keep a promise to yourself (for example waking up when you said you would, finishing that email, showing up to your appointment) you strengthen your internal trust muscle.

Every time you break one, you quietly teach your subconscious, 'I don’t follow through'. Confidence is eroded.

So start small and go consistent. Keep micro-promises: meditate for two minutes, stretch before bed, send only one follow-up email. The more you do this, the more motivated you'll be to continue your committment.

12. Take Up Space

If you’ve ever been told to 'tone it down', you might have learned to contract. In your voice, your posture, your opinions.
 Confidence is the opposite: it’s expansion.

Stand taller. Speak clearly. Take pauses. Own your expertise out loud.


These aren’t superficial tricks. When you do these your nervous system receives cues of safety and belonging.
 Your body leads your brain. When you physically expand, your subconscious registers: It’s safe to be here.

13. Celebrate Micro-Wins (Without Waiting for the Big One)

The brain releases dopamine when we acknowledge progress. 
So don’t wait for the perfect milestone to celebrate. Mark every step. Really.

Posted that video? Celebrate.
 Sent that pitch? Celebrate. 
Spoke up in that meeting? Celebrate.

Each moment of recognition signals your subconscious: I act confident = I am confident. And confidence is rewarded here. 


Over time, those micro-celebrations train your brain to associate growth with pleasure, not pain.

14. Let Confidence Be a Practice, Not a Personality

Confidence isn’t static, it’s cyclical, like energy or mood.
 Even the most grounded people wobble sometimes. The difference is, they don’t make the wobble mean anything about their worth.

Instead of asking, 'Why am I not confident?' ask, 'How can I return to confidence faster?'

The practice is the point. Confidence is not who you are. It’s what you repeatedly create through intention, awareness, and compassion.

How to Reprogram Your Subconscious for Confidence

If you’ve ever told yourself, 'I know I should feel confident... but I just don’t', you’ve experienced the gap between your conscious mind and your subconscious programming.

Your conscious mind sets intentions: I’ll stop doubting myself. I’ll speak up. I’ll show up online.
 But your subconscious, the deeper part of your mind that stores every emotional memory, decides how safe those actions feel.

If the subconscious still links visibility, success, or assertiveness with danger, it will override logic every time.
 You’ll freeze, procrastinate, or “forget” what you meant to do. Not because you’re lazy or unmotivated, but because your mind is protecting you.

To reprogram confidence at the root, you need to work with your subconscious, not against it. Here’s how.

1. Create Safety First

The subconscious won’t integrate new beliefs until it feels safe.
 Start with deep, slow breathing, in for four, out for eight. Feel your shoulders drop. Soften your jaw. Let your body know there’s no threat right now.

This state of physiological calm opens the gateway to your subconscious, allowing it to receive new information.
 No transformation happens from a tense body.

2. Use Hypnotherapy Or Guided Imagery

In hypnotherapy, we bypass the critical, analytical mind and speak directly to the subconscious through imagery, emotion, and suggestion.
 This is where real rewiring happens.

For example, you might visualise walking onto a stage, hearing the applause, and feeling grounded and calm. The subconscious can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality, so it starts to store that sense of confidence as real experience.

That’s why hypnosis for confidence is so powerful: it replaces anxiety memories with safety memories.

3. Repeat Affirmations In A Regulated State

Affirmations don’t work if your body is screaming, “No, that’s not true.”
Instead of reciting them through clenched teeth, use them after regulating your nervous system. Once your body is calm, say your affirmation slowly:
 'It’s safe for me to be seen'. 'I can handle success',
'I am proud of how I show up'.

When you repeat them in safety, your subconscious listens.

4. Pair Inner Work with Real-World Action

Every time you act in alignment with a new belief, you anchor it deeper.
 Confidence is not only reprogrammed in trance, it’s reinforced in motion. This boils down to this simple manifesting formula: inspiration + action = results.

So if you’ve been doing subconscious work to feel more visible, post that video. If you’ve been affirming your worth, raise your rates. 
Each action tells your subconscious: This is who I am now.

That’s how change sticks: from thought, to feeling, to embodiment.

Living It Daily: Staying Out of Old Patterns

Even with the best tools in the world, confidence can still wobble when old subconscious patterns sneak back in. The good news is that once you can see them, you can choose differently. Confidence doesn't mean you don't slip. What it DOES mean is that you return to self-trust more quickly each time.

Overcompensation

One common pattern we revert to is overcompensation. When you don’t feel confident, it’s easy to try to look confident by talking faster, pushing harder, or doing more. It can feel powerful for a moment, but it’s built on adrenaline rather than authenticity.

Overcompensation drains the nervous system and creates an invisible gap between how you act and how you feel. True confidence has nothing to do with proving your worth ...it grows from trusting your worth.

Before you rush in to perform, pause and ask yourself. What am I trying to prove? Then breathe, slow down, and return to your natural pace. Confidence flows best when your body feels safe.

Comparison

Another pattern is comparison. Scrolling through other people’s highlight reels can puncture your confidence in seconds. The brain’s threat system reads someone else’s success as proof that you’re behind, even when your LOGIC tells you otherwise.

Instead of seeing others as competition, let them be proof of what’s possible. Let their success expand your imagination instead of shrinking your self-worth.

Confidence grows when you are aligned with yourself, not when you’re ahead of anyone else.

When You Tie Self Worth To Achievement

Some people hide their self-doubt behind productivity.

That's when constant busyness becomes a shield: if you’re always doing, no one will notice you’re doubting. But this kind of striving reinforces the belief that your worth is tied to achievement.

So. Give yourself permission to rest. Take a slow walk, breathe, stare into space. Teach your nervous system that you are valuable even when you’re still.

Toxic Positivity

This needs mentioning. There’s often the temptation to spiritually bypass the darkness, repeating affirmations or good vibes only mantras while ignoring the parts of you that still feel small or scared.

Confidence built on denial is fragile. Big emotions need to be seen and acknowledged so they can pass through our system. Real growth asks for tenderness toward those parts. Meet them with compassion instead of criticism. When you make space for the pieces that doubt, your self-belief expands to include them.

Black & White Thinking

Another trap is all or nothing thinking, the belief that confidence must be total. And permanent.

But confidence doesn’t arrive in one enlightened moment. It’s built through many small acts of courage. You don’t have to never feel anxious again, you just have to keep moving even when you can’t see the whole path yet.

Lasting confidence grows in daily life, not in rare breakthroughs. It’s built in the in-between moments: making coffee, answering messages, looking in the mirror.

It begins first thing in the morning when you connect inward (or UPWARD, to your purpose) instead of scrolling outward.

Before you reach for your phone, take a breath and ask how you want to feel today. Place a hand on your heart and remind yourself that it’s safe to be seen and safe to succeed. Those small moments of self-awareness set the tone for the day.

Devil's In The Detail

As you move through your day, make micro-confidence choices. Say No to what drains you, ask for help without apology, speak up even if your voice shakes. Every. small. decision. like this tells your subconscious, 'I trust myself'.

Over time, confidence stops being something you force and becomes something you naturally choose.

Embody Confidence

Let confidence become a felt sense, not just a thought. Notice what it feels like in your body: maybe a warmth in your chest, a steady breath, or relaxed shoulders. Practise returning to that feeling before moments that matter. When you can locate confidence in your body, you can recall it anytime.

Keep A Record

Surround yourself with reminders of your progress. Keep a thank-you note from a client, a screenshot of a brave moment, or a journal entry from a day you showed up even when you doubted yourself.

These small evidences of growth remind your subconscious that change is real and ongoing. You might even create a proof board filled with what you’ve already overcome rather than what you still want to achieve.

Lean Into Gratitude

End your day with appreciation. Ask yourself where you showed up bravely today, even in small ways. That single reflection rewires your brain toward self-trust and lets confidence settle into your system as you sleep.

Confidence isn’t a single skill to master. It’s a way of living in integrity with yourself, breath by breath, choice by choice.

Bringing It All Together — The Confident Self

True confidence isn’t loud. It doesn’t shout, compete, or demand attention.
 It’s a steadiness that lives in your body when you finally trust that who you are is enough.

When you’ve done the healing work (when your subconscious finally feels safe to be seen, to succeed, to shine) confidence stops being a performance and becomes your natural state.

You begin to act from self-belief instead of self-doubt.
 You say yes with your full body and no without apology.
 You feel less need to chase validation because you’ve built it from within.

That’s what subconscious reprogramming creates: not fake bravado, but deep, embodied ease.

You still have moments of fear, of course you do. We all do.
 But they no longer stop you.

They just become information, data. A whisper from your body saying, 'I’m stretching'. 
And that’s what confident living truly is: a willingness to stretch, to expand, to let your self-belief grow as big as your potential.

Where To Go From Here

If you’re ready to dissolve the blocks that keep you from showing up as your most confident, radiant self... this is where our work begins.

In my Free 20-Minute Clarity Call, we’ll explore:

• What’s been holding you back from showing up fully and authentically.

• How low confidence may be showing up in subtle, everyday ways.

• Whether this deeper work feels like the right support for you right now.

There’s no pressure. Just a calm, supportive space to see what’s possible when you stop fighting your inner world and start working with it.

👉 Book your free clarity call here.

Let’s make your confidence something you feel, not chase.

Remember This

Confidence doesn't mean that there's never fear.
 It means that there's presence of self-trust. 
And self-trust is built one honest, heart-led choice at a time.

Every small act of courage rewires your subconscious to believe what’s already true:


You are capable.


You are powerful.


You are safe to be seen.

It’s time to believe it from the bottom of your (heart) subconscious and live it.

Gwen