3 Ways to Build Inner Confidence & Learn to Trust Yourself Instead of Comparing Yourself to Others

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one mental health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every One of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow, whether you're walking your dog, whether you're cooking, whether you're driving. Thank you so much for showing up again for yourself, investing in yourself, building yourself. I deeply, deeply appreciate you being a listener supporter, well wisher of, on purpose, and know that we are constantly working to make this a better and better experience for you. Thank you for all your reviews that share so much feedback with us. So, so grateful. Now, a couple of days ago, it was Valentine's Day, and I've done so many episodes at this point on love and relationships. Of course, I wrote Eight Rules of Love, which, if you haven't read it already, will help you find, keep, and even let go of love. And one thing I was thinking about was just how so many of us are disenfranchised with these big holiday. Kind of feels right? Like this idea of this is the day where you get to show love. This is the day where you honor this person. And we realize, well, it's a lifetime job, it's an everyday job. It's an everyday honor and privilege to be able to be in love and have someone we love. And at the same time, some of us have gone through a breakup just before Valentine's Day. Some of us are single right now and not even sure whether we're going to find the right person or someone who gives us that feeling. And what's really interesting to me is so often how much we get lost in comparison because we're looking at, what are the people doing for Valentine's Day? You know, what's everyone got going on? And what that can often do is it can make us feel insecure, it can make us feel inferior, it can make us feel like we've got something wrong with us, right? I think there's so many ways to meet people these days, but we all feel disenfranchised, disillusioned, struggling to find that one person that we really want. And no matter the amount of options that we have, I think a lot of us sit there and go, what's wrong with me? Right? Think about this for a second. When you've gone through a breakup, how many times did the thought cross your mind, maybe something's wrong with me, maybe I need to fix something. Maybe if I did this, they would have stayed. Maybe if I didn't do this, they would have stayed. And we get lost in that spiral. Now let's think about it. If you're single and you see everyone around you in happy relationships, they've found their person, they've found their one. And you're thinking again, well, what am I doing wrong? Is there something I could do better? Maybe if I looked better, maybe if I achieved more, maybe if I did better at work, maybe if my body looked this way, my face looked this way. Maybe then, maybe then, maybe then. And I'm not saying that all these things don't make us feel better or don't lead to attracting certain people at least, or whatever it may be. We recognize that even when people end up in relationships, sometimes we sabotage a great relationship because we're thinking, I don't deserve this person. Right? You get someone who, quote unquote is out of your league. What does that even mean? Right? All of these terms that have been built around comparing the way people look, how much money people make. And so even people in relationships can often end up feeling like they don't deserve that person, that they're out the person's league, that the person's out of their league, that the person's not doing well enough career wise. That they're not doing well enough career wise. And what I've realized from all of this pressure, all of this conversation that goes on inside our mind is that we haven't learned how to build inner confidence. We focus so much on external and outer confidence that we don't really know the pathway to inner confidence. And I think when we think about the word confidence, we think about people with swag, people who walk into a room and they have that energy, people who walk into that room and they own the space, people who walk into a room and they're able to command the space, command their words. And I want to share with you probably one of my favorite definitions in the dictionary, and it's of confidence. One of the definitions of confidence is a feeling of self assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities. Let me say that again. Confidence is a feeling of self assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities. Confidence is a feeling of self assurance. It's something you give yourself by appreciating your own abilities and qualities. I want you to make a list right now, as awkward as it is. Get a pen and paper out, open up your notes app and genuinely make a list of. In one list your abilities and in one list your qualities. Your ability. Could be something like, I'm really great at cooking. I'm really great at math. I'm really great at solving problems. I'm really great at analytics, at Data presentations at social media, at podcasting, whatever it may be. And then make a list of your qualities. Kindness, compassionate, loving, hard working, ethical, authenticity.

Make a list.

Make a list. As awkward as it is, and this is the challenge, right? We find it awkward not only let alone to appreciate our abilities, we find it awkward just to lay them out, just to be honest about them, just to be conscious about them. And so first I want you to write a list of your abilities. Write a list of your qualities. And then I want you to practice some self appreciation. I want you to say, I appreciate that I have X ability. I appreciate my ability to X. I appreciate that I am X. Right? What is it? I want you to practice that for each line. I appreciate that I'm kind, I appreciate that I am compassionate. I appreciate that I. Because what's really interesting is what we appreciate appreciates, right? What we appreciate in our life will elevate our life, will continue to grow in our life. Yet what we don't recognize will start to wither, will start to wash away, will start to become less and less and less, right? If you notice there's something in your life, it grows. If you don't notice something in your life, it dies. And I want us to focus on what we want to grow in our lives. Confidence is the belief that I matter. My work matters and my relationships matter. What's really interesting is that we don't recognize that we matter inherently. The Vedas talk about how there's 8,400,000 species of life. We're rare. The human form of life is rare. It's unique, it's powerful. You matter from the moment you're conceived. You matter from before the moment you're born. But it's so interesting how society has made us believe that we don't matter and we lose the understanding that we have the ability to influence and impact our own life. I'm not saying circumstances don't matter. I'm not saying environment doesn't matter, of course it does. But at the same time, choice matters. The same times decisions matter. The same times pivots matter. The same time making shifts matter. And I think the way we get lost in this world of developing confidence is we forget that confidence is about how you feel about yourself. Outer confidence is how you appear to the world. And inner confidence is what you go to sleep with and wake up with. What is that thought that you go to sleep with about yourself? What is that thought you wake up with about yourself? That is what inner confidence is. And we all know that that's the most intimate, most personal experience of a thought that we have. And it doesn't matter how many people told you you looked amazing, that you did amazing, we all know at whatever level that is, it doesn't fill our cup. It makes us feel great. Don't get me wrong, I love it when someone compliments an outfit. I love it when someone says to me that they appreciated something in my external confidence, in my outer confidence. But I know that it means so much more when they notice my inner confidence and when I notice my inner confidence. I was talking to a friend about this recently. I was saying just how important it is for me to value myself. And I'll explain what I mean by this. The truth is that you have done hard things. You, right now, you who's listening, have done uncomfortable, difficult things. And no matter how much you tell your friends, no matter how much you tell your family, no matter how much you tell anyone, and you should tell them, the only person who can really understand what you've been through is you. You are the only person who can truly comprehend and the source, you and the source, the divine, the universe, those are the only aspects of you that can truly comprehend and understand what you've been through. To empathize, to be compassionate towards. So when we even want it for someone else, it will actually always be incomplete. It will always be limited. It will always be imperfect. And today, so much of our confidence is based on what others see as important. And so you could have done the most difficult thing, but because other people don't see it as important or difficult, you lose value for it. We lose value for. For things people don't value. But that might be the most valuable part of us, right? We lose value for things people don't value. Not realizing that could be the most valuable part of us. Like, I'll give you an example. You may value honesty, but if someone doesn't value honesty, we start to disconnect with our own values. When we were at school, it was the shoes the cool kids wore. The new lunchbox. Today, it's social media. So I want to share with you some mindsets of someone who's focused on inner confidence versus outer confidence to help give you a checklist of how to make that switch. So whenever you're experiencing the external outer confidence mindset, I want you to bring it back to inner confidence. So listen to this. This is the first one. Inner confidence means being okay with liking things that others don't. And external outer confidence is liking things that other people like. Right? Only for the sake of what they said. So right now, we're talking about Oscars movies. Are you someone who likes Oscars movies? Are you not? Some of you may love Oscars movies. Some of you don't like them at all, but you're scared to say it. I remember going to an event, and it was with a bunch of indie filmmakers who really understand film way better than I do. And they were like, what was your.

Favorite movie of the year?

And I was like, ragnarok was amazing. And, you know, for them, it was like they were naming movies that I'd never even heard of before. And I remember the first time I did that, I felt kind of silly because I was like, oh, yeah, I'm a Marvel junkie. I love Marvel, and I love the messages in Marvel and everything else. And they had a different taste, But I've realized that that is who I am. I've got that movie taste, and that's okay. And actually, I appreciate that because it is something that I enjoy. And at the same time, I don't want to become opposed to trying out new forms and new movies and TV shows that I don't know about. Right. I think what happens is we find what we like, then we put our walls up and barriers up, and now we think that's how we protect what we like. And actually, we're devaluing what we like by not opening up our visual library, our audio library. Right. I talk about this a lot. Like, I feel like growing up, I didn't have access to a wide audio library or a wide audio history or an audio geography. And that's been something I've really been trying to do as I've been growing older, is listening to music from different genres, different places. I bought a record the other day, which was Brazilian jazz, which I've been loving, right. And just allowing myself to be open to music genres and types that I didn't grow up with. I couldn't be more excited to share something truly special with all you tea lovers out there. And even if you don't love tea, if you love refreshing, rejuvenating, refueling sodas.

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Got to be okay with liking things that others don't, as opposed to trying to like things that they do. One of the biggest ones for most guys, and I'll call this out, is the amount of people that agree to be in love with the Godfather. I'm going to put it out there right now. I don't think I've ever watched any of them in full. And I know there's going to be a lot of hate and people are going to be like, jay, how have you not watched it? But I know a lot of people who just say they've watched it in order to fit in, right? We say so many things to fit in. And it's weird because we're trying to stand out in our careers. We're trying to stand out in our world. And the people who built things that we love, they built them because they lived authentically to themselves. Now what's really going on, the reason why we want to fit in is not abnormal. It's because it gives us a sense of belonging, it gives us a sense of community. But when we try and find belonging on such superficial levels, it actually doesn't give us a strong sense of belonging. Belonging is on a value level, on a deep level, not on a likes and personality level. Now, the second part of building inner confidence is noticing your own strengths versus outer confidence, which is waiting for others to notice your strengths. We started with this. I want you to start noticing your own strengths and demonstrating them. I remember when I came back from the monastery, I was rejected by 40 companies and before an interview, and that was hard on my ego because I was a straight A student. I got a first class honors degree and it just wasn't working out. And I remember at that time I was just like, why can't someone see that I can do this? And I realized instead of trying to get people to see my talent, I had to find ways to show my talent. I had to find ways to demonstrate my talent. I had to find ways of expressing who I was creatively without expecting someone to see it first. And I think a lot of us can wish and wait and hope for someone to notice us, but we have to notice our strengths first and showcase them. The third step, this is probably the biggest one, because it's the hardest one, is giving self validation versus needing external validation. How many of us do things because we want someone else to say something to us? And how many of us do things because we're trying to say something to ourselves? Self validation has been one of the greatest skills and mindsets that I've built up. It is a muscle that you can build. And the reason why it's so hard is because we're so wired to think. A lot of it comes from parenting. We did something good, and our parents said, that was great, well done. And we're like, trying to chase that, or we did something good and our parents didn't notice it, and now we want someone to notice it. So there's that need for external validation. We've been taught to believe that if someone says something good about us, then that almost makes us more valuable, because we've seen that be rewarded in society. If more people notice you're great, then you generally do better. But what I've realized is that the people who follow that path, it doesn't lead to satisfaction, because when you're looking in that way, often people will never do that. It doesn't come back that way. And then you feel discouraged from actually doing the act in the process, or you do it, you get the praise, and then after that, you're chasing the praise rather than chasing the creativity or the progress. I remember a long time ago when a group of people who ridiculed me were then celebrating me. And in that moment, I was around 20 when it happened. And I realized how fickle it was, how quick someone who could criticize me could celebrate me. And I said to myself, I don't want to do this to be celebrated or be hurt by the criticism, right? I don't want to do this so that I can experience the celebration. I want to do this because I experience and love the process. And that's why validation also leads to this point of celebrating your own success versus waiting for others to celebrate you. We may want our partners to throw us A party. We may be sad that our work colleagues didn't throw us one, but are we celebrating ourselves in the way that we value? Are we throwing the party of our dreams because we are the only ones who know how to do that? I've really learned to develop this ability when I feel like I've achieved something, to close my eyes and really take it in. I found that the more I achieved, the more people around me became immune to my achievement. And so in the beginning there was doubt and confusion as to whether I'd ever achieve anything. Then after some time there was a little bit of celebration. And then after the celebration, it became so normal and the achievement was normalized, whereby people went back to being disinterested. And so what's really interesting about that is either way, you end up in a position in your life where people don't have the ability to celebrate you continuously because you either have made certain successes, a habit or they forget or they get busy. And a lot of the times we think, oh, people don't recognize me and people don't celebrate me and they don't recognize my value. And the truth is it's coming from a deep seated feeling of we don't recognize our own, we don't celebrate our own. We didn't take that moment. So one of my favorite things to do now, when I have an achievement, even if I celebrate it with my amazing team and my wife, is to take a moment alone. I'll sit alone in stillness and silence. I'll close my eyes and I'll just take a moment to honor myself. To honour myself for the challenges that I broke through. To honour myself for the skills that I developed, to honour myself for the risks that I took. Just taking a moment to truly honor. Honor yourself. I promise you, just try do that this week. Do it for small things. I think we often also. Inner confidence is I value and I'm making progress. Outer confidence is I'm waiting for perfection. Right. Inner confidence is I'm trying to make progress. Outer confidence is I'm waiting for perfection. Inner confidence is choose your thoughts wisely, whereas outer confidence is listen to everyone else. I was talking to a friend who felt the pressure to change his career because he told his friends he was about to change it. So he told his friends he was going to change his career. He didn't end up changing his career. So his friends were making fun of him and then he was like, well, maybe I have to change my career just so that they don't make fun of me. And I was just like, the only person we're letting down in that situation is ourselves. And often what happens is if we spend too much time with certain people, their noise becomes our voice. So inner confidence says, let me really decide what matters to me, because guess what? I'm the one who has delivered the consequences. If you choose a job based on what other people think, they're not the ones who have to wake up and go to that job. You are. If you choose a partner based on what other people think, they're not the person who has to wake up next to that partner. You are. If you choose a lifestyle because of what other people think, they're not the ones who have to live up to the consequences. You are. You're the one who is living the challenges, the consequences and the reality of your choices, not the people around you. And so if you're not going to be happy with the consequences, don't take that risk. Don't make that decision. Inner confidence is about comparing yourself to who you want to be versus comparing yourself to others. There's a great speech, if you haven't heard it, by Matthew McConaughey when he won the Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club, where he says that his hero is him 10 years from now. Someone he's chasing, someone he's aspiring to be. And I love that idea because he's comparing himself to who he wants to be. He knows what he can be in 10 years. Tell me if it's true or not. The person you are today is miles ahead of the person you were five years ago. The person you are today is miles ahead of the person you were 10 years ago, which means the person you're going to be in five years is incredible. Make that person your idol. Make that person you're chasing. Because, as Matthew McConaughey says, you'll never reach them and you'll never be mad.

At them because they're you.

Whereas if we're comparing ourselves to others, we'll always feel late, we'll always feel behind, we'll always feel slow. Right? We have to move at our pace. We have to find our pace. We don't want to feel like we're moving slow, we're behind. Whatever else it may be, there's a challenge with trust here. Inner confidence is about trusting yourself. Outer confidence is about trusting everyone else. A lot of us crowdsource our biggest decisions in life. Is he right for me? Do you think I should wear this? Do you think I should do this job again? It's always good to ask for help. Always important to ask for help and I'll talk about that in a second. But the challenge we have is we often don't trust our intuition. Radhi's been talking about this a lot to me recently. This idea that our body and mind and our heart and our spirit can, can really connect with us if we check in with them. Right? Your body does certain things to tell you that it's not. Well, like if you have a stomachache, you know it's because of something you ate. If your foot's hurting, it's because you sprained your ankle, right? There's your body's actually communicating with you. And we don't see it as that. We see it as like, oh God, I ate the wrong thing, I'm in pain. But actually your body's talking to you. And often we don't trust that we actually have the ability to listen to our mind, our heart, our intuition, our body in order to be guided. Yet we listen to people outside of ourselves to make very personal, deep decisions. Inner confidence is about wanting to be better versus wanting to be seen as better, which is outer confidence, right? Outer confidence is I want to be seen as better. Inner confidence is I want to be better. How much are we trying to improve ourselves? How much are we trying to grow ourselves? And let's shift into that rather than will everyone notice that I've grown? Even if they don't notice, I'm noticing, I'm experiencing. I'm the one living with this body and mind. Inner confidence means I ask for help versus outer confidence means I appear to never need support. This is a huge one. Giving yourself permission to reach out and ask for help. I remember when I first started coaching and teaching and guiding, I used to be scared of asking for help because I thought I had to be perfect. Not realizing that actually I would grow more, learn more, be better if I would ask for help, if I was able to serve and support. And so I've realized that outer confidence blocks you from actually seeking out help. And the other thing is true too. Inner confidence is you want to help others grow. Outer confidence is you keep others down to make yourself look bigger. So notice. The goal is to notice when you have these, we all have them, these mindsets. We want to become aware, we want to amend and we want to take action on the new mindset. We want to slow down our action on the old mindset, increase it on the new mindset. Thank you so much for listening to today's workshop. I hope it's helped you. I hope you take away one thing from this session and thank you so much for listening to on purpose. I'll see you soon. And let's keep becoming happier, healthier and more healed together. If you love this episode, you will also love my interview with Kendall Jenner.

On setting boundaries to increase happiness and healing your inner child.

You could be reading something that someone is saying about you and being like that is so unfair because that's not who I am. And that really gets to me sometimes. But then looking at myself in the mirror and being like, but I know who I am. Why does anything else matter?

Hey, it's Joel and Matt from how to Money if your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right, yeah. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward.

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