I’ve come up with some powerful tips to help you do the work. So that you feel confident in almost any relationship, but before I start I will say that I’ve been there before.

I’ve experienced relationships where I really feel like myself. I feel excited about life, full of love, good to be me. Things feel natural with the people I’m with.

I’ve also experienced friendships where I really don’t feel like myself.

What I’m going to tell you is that it truly is a combination of two things. When it comes to being your most confident self in any relationship:

1. Your confidence level and how you truly feel about yourself.
2. The influence of the people you are choosing to spend time with.

Before I talk about the influence people have on you, let’s focus on the confidence-building items that you want to have checked off first and foremost.

1. Confidence is an inside job, you’ve done the work at home on your own time ( alone).

There is a little voice inside of each of our heads that likes to tell us all to do things. We all have a different voice that tells us different things. Some of the things that our inner voice says may feel good but some of the other stuff definitely doesn’t feel good.

The dialogue we have with this little voice. Represents the relationship we have with ourselves. What our mind tell’s us about who we feel we are. Inside of that conversation is a series of stuff that doesn’t serve you. That is where you do the work first and foremost when it comes to being more confident in your relationships.

Here are a few things to ask yourself:

1. Does that little voice in my head mostly just like to have a monologue with me? Does it tell me things and I kind of just go with it?
2. If my inner voice says something and it doesn’t make me feel good, do I disagree with it?
3. When I feel down do I take charge of the inner voice and plant good seeds or do I just let it do what it want’s in my head?

A lack of confidence comes from having absolutely no control and choosing no direction for that little inner voice of yours.

You can be in charge and those that are in charge of their inner voice are more powerful and more confident. Changing your language and the phrases you say on a daily basis is important when it comes to your inner dialogue.

Here are a few of the things that you can start doing the inner work on:

1. Dealing with past trauma
2. Redefining the stories that you tell yourself, about yourself.
3. Doing some belief work and removing beliefs that don’t serve you.
4. Building new beliefs that do support you.
5. Gaining self-awareness about who you’re being in your life and how you behave.
6. Building a deeper connection with who you are through discovery and self-love.
7. Get specific about what you do in your life. Get in the driver’s seat of your life.

It’s been my experience that when clients define what success is to them and see how it’s attainable. They almost instantly feel a confidence boost. Having a clear picture of the direction you’re going into, is so important for your confidence level.

If you find that you need to do the work in 3 or more areas from the list I’ve shared above and you’re open to getting support and accountability.

And you’re tired of not feeling good enough. You want to stop questioning and doubting yourself in your relationships. Stop losing hours on end not feeling good about yourself and questioning your every move in your relationships. You would like to start reducing your insecurity & building back your confidence to feel powerful and free to be yourself in your relationships.

Check out our coaching platform where we help women/men struggling with low self-confidence around the world. Create Confident You Now.

2. You approach the relationship feeling already full: full of love, full of giving yourself attention. (What happens inside of the relationship is a bonus.)

Those who do the inner work can approach their relationships with a lot less expectation. When you step into a relationship needing something. Through essence, people can feel that you’re there to take something. Also perhaps sometimes have nothing in return or to give at that time.

Becoming a drain on all of your relationships due to all of your expectations makes relationships no fun and usually, you’ll find that the people in those relationships start backing away from you.

Expectations:

Expectations brew disappointment they don’t build confidence. Almost 99% of the time your expectation is never fulfilled.

This leaves you feeling empty and blah.

When you consciously decide that you’re going to fill yourself up with love, knowledge, healing, and goodness on your own time. You get the opportunity to show up in your relationships not needing anything from other people.

Showing up fully and not needing anything from someone in your life gives you and the other person space to create something new, fun, and fulfilling together.

On top of everything else. You’re most clear when you are in a place of love and peace. So it’s just easier to pick up on red fags in relationships and also stay accountable to your own actions through self-awareness.

Reducing your expectations will absolutely help you in being more confident in your relationships. This is true because there is less strain on the relationship coming from you, which allows you to step into the relationship powerfully.

3. You walk into relationships having a series of standards & boundaries you’ll uphold.

Most of us don’t learn boundaries from a young age. So when starting to practice this for yourself in your relationships it can be a bit of a challenge. The effect of doing the work in step #1 that I’ve mentioned in this post is that you become better at choosing your standards over anything else.

The best way to explain to you what a relationship without boundaries and standards looks like… is really like anything without boundaries, laws, or standards.

Imagine going to university and not needing to pass to get your degree. Or driving and having no laws to respect the rules of the road. What about going out to eat and not needing to pay for your dinner?

Everything in society would be a complete mess without the rules, boundaries, and standards that businesses, Governments, Universities have set up for you and me to follow as a functioning citizen of society.

Now, this is obviously an extreme example but that is what many relationships are like, is just that, they have no rules, boundaries, and standards for their success. 

Without proper guidelines for success, anything can turn out to be a disaster, especially your relationships.

So what do you do?

You have to be the one to create new boundaries. Start to share your boundaries and standards with people in your life.

Now, remember that boundaries are a two-way street. You have to be willing to honor other people’s boundaries as well.

4. You know how to communicate what’s important to you when it’s needed.

Communication is everything. Let me tell you there is no perfect time to say anything. Just like there is no perfect time to do anything.

As long as you’re making a conscious effort to communicate where you are at and you’re doing a good job of expressing what’s going on for you then you’re on the right track.

Setting boundaries also means you need to communicate what you will cross and what you will not cross in your relationships. The dos & don’t of what you feel comfortable with doing in your relationship.

Here are a few ground rules for communication that will make you feel more confident:

1. Stop to think about what you’re actually feeling before you speak. As a rule of thumb, don’t speak out of emotion or when you’re emotional… that generally doesn’t turn out well.
2. Get clear on where you are at and what you need to communicate.
3. Listen. Healthy communication is an exchange back and forth where you give the other person time to share as well.
4. Always pointing and saying “you did” can come across as blaming. Avoid pointing fingers at the other person and look within to get clear about what boundaries you’re communicating. (HOT TIP: Talk about yourself and your experience before you take the opportunity to show the other person what they did wrong.)
5. As a standard, communicate when there is peace and presence. If the argument gets heated back off and approach, the conversation at a later date. When people are hot-headed, whether you mean well or not. 99% of the time the person can no longer register what you’re saying once they’ve lost their cool.
6. Always be learning!! Learn about being a better communicator. There is nothing that can improve your skills more than having the desire to grow in one of your skillsets.

Want to be more confident in communication? Start practicing and learning more about this skill.

5. Do not get sucked into people-pleasing, you need to accept yourself more than they need to accept you.

Needing to be accepted to feel good about yourself in a relationship will create the opposite of confidence. Asking to be more confident while needing to do things for other people in order to gain their approval will create a cycle that I promise you… will never bring you to feeling more confident.

When you’ve positioned yourself as the pleaser in a relationship you cannot set boundaries or hold the other person to a standard. This is because when you need to get significance from the other person approving of you, you are immediately beneath them. This doesn’t put you in a position at level with the other person. Unfortunately, your time is then consumed with being accepted and taking action to feel more excepted by this individual. The control of your happiness, in this case, sit’s in someone else’s opinion of you.

It’s one thing to want to please someone from the place of loving relationships where you have chosen to accept and act on a standard or boundary that’s been created vs. completely just doing things to impress and feel accepted by them.

If you struggle with this here are a few questions to ask yourself:

1. Who’s approval and acceptance do I want more in this situation… Mine or theirs? (YOU WANT YOUR OWN)
2. Can I accept not being liked by this individual if I don’t get on their good side?
3. Would I rather be on my good side and feel confident in my relationships or keep doing everything for everyone else?

As long as you are stuck in people-pleasing you will lose yourself in what other people want and essentially not really live your own life.

When you are with Joe… you do life for Joe in hopes to get his approval.

Or Perhaps… when you’re with your friend Sally… you’re busy talking about Sally’s dreams and her problems helping her with her life.

When you’re with your husband Jordan… It’s all about his career and what makes him happy. You’re depleted, empty, and feeling lost without direction in your life.

People-pleasing is fearing that the people you are around won’t accept you for who you are and what you have to offer therefore you’re always doing things to be accepted by them that may be completely out of character for yourself.

It’s exhausting living this way & I can assure you it’s not worth it. It’s so much better being loved for who you are naturally and authentically by people.

Showing up in a relationship more confident is all about:

Accepting who you are and truthfully showing people who that person is, even if they might not like who you are, you still feel good about yourself!

6. You don’t feel the need to make excuses…

7. The people you spend time with, inside of your relationships are in alignment with your goals & dreams.

Like I said at the very beginning of this post. Who is influencing you matters and who you choose as an influence matters!

If the individual that you are choosing a relationship with does not jive with your life goals.  Perhaps they haven’t done the work or are unwilling to do the work. You find that the relationship always clashes and that things don’t always flow naturally in conversation. (Sometimes the person may be posing as someone they are authentically not as well.)

The subjects you talk about are choppy or the person is incapable of talking to you about certain things. You don’t feel that sense of connection with them like there is something wrong but you can’t figure out what’s wrong.

It is usually a difference between values, goals, and dreams. There is a lack of alignment somewhere.

You perhaps are just more open to having different conversations. Your interests differ from one another and though it may seem intriguing to hang out with this individual. They do not have clear goals, values, and dreams mapped out for themselves and this may create a huge gap that’s not filled in your relationship.

Where these relationships usually cost you, is when it comes to priorities. You may have a goal but it’s easy to get distracted and guided away from it. Choosing what’s good for you in the wrong relationships is more difficult to do.

Here are a few red flags:

1. They are always talking about their problems with no goal to heal or solve the issue.
2. Want to do destructive things in their spare time… eat unhealthily, stay up way too late.
3. Turn down the opportunity to do healthy & positive things “It’s not for them”
4. You feel taken further away from your goals and dreams being around this person.
5. You become a bit more of a slacker around this person, care less about things you’d normally care about on your own terms.
6. Find yourself judging others around them as a result of the culture they like to follow.
7. Perhaps find yourself trying to please the person being someone that you’re not naturally.
8. Find yourself dropping the ball being later to important things you’d normally prioritize.

You’re environment matters…

You see being in the wrong environment can be bad for your goals, dreams and it will not make you more confident. Sometimes it’s better to see things as they are with certain relationships and pull back.

I don’t believe in burning bridges and cutting ties with every single relationship that doesn’t work out. Being hot on the “Block” button. Some relationships do require that you completely extract yourself from them because they’re abusive, narcissistic, and unhealthy. But most of the time all you need to do is back off from the individual and no longer be available to them. Let the person move forward on their own path so that you can get back to progressing on your own path.