How To Grow Self Confidence After Life Altering Events

Can you relate to this question? It’s one that I’m asked almost daily.

Initially, understanding the complexity of a life altering event can be like watching a tsunami wave hit the shoreline. A community that took generations to set up is destroyed in a just few short minutes. Then when you step back from the shore you see the bigger picture and get insight into the full range of devastation and the clean up required.

The struggle through life altering forced change is an interesting one as it spans so many levels and influences so many areas of your life. Let’s take a deeper look into the first wave, the emotional struggle, and more specifically the loss of your self confidence, it can leave in its wake.

The Impact of Life Altering Forced Change

The impact of forced change can start like a trickle slowly infiltrating your life. Then like a set of waves that breaks on the shore, it gains strength with each new breaker. Each new wave carries with it a new impact in a different area of your life and you can feel powerless to stop the momentum.

For anyone who has experienced an impact to their health, it rarely stays confined as you watch as it devastates relationships, career, finances. Divorce isn’t simply a stamp on a piece of paper, it has multi level impact on your life, relationships, finances, families. As do changes at work which leave you lost and without the job that once defined your value.

Low Self Confidence Symptoms

The struggle starts on an emotional level, which erodes your self confidence. You ponder how your relationship got to the divorce court. How you ended up in the doctor’s surgery in a haze of disbelief, as you’re given the news you were dreading. Everything before that point seems like a distant memory as you regroup.

When change is forced your self confidence can feel the wave has knocked the wind out of you. It brings with it fear, stress, anxiety, pressure, depression, strain, tension, self-doubt, low self-esteem, uncertainty, indecisions and a tsunami of other emotions that flood your life.

What Does Low Self Confidence Impact

Low self confidence has many less subtle impacts, which need to be resolved effectively to give your self confidence room to recover:

It shows up in your body language – hunched shoulders, not making eye contact, head down are all subtle indicators of low self confidence. These are easily recognised by the people you interact with each day even if you’re putting on a brave face, they know.
It impacts your energy levels – low energy (non medical) can indicate higher levels of stress and anxiety. A common low energy stress response can be spending the weekend on the couch binge watching TV episodes, or reaching for that extra glass of wine.
It makes sleepless night a regular event – tossing and turning sleeplessly not only ruins your night but has been linked to short term memory loss, slower reaction time and lower productivity at work and home.
It contracts your view of the world – as you work your way through the impacts of low self-confidence you can block out so much, that your life revolves around the problem as you worry about the “what if?” and “what now?” questions.
It challenges decision making – some people can get paralysed in indecision when trying to work their way through a problem and don’t understand why. They go around in circles until they give up frustrated, with simple decisions being some of the hardest to make.

No doubt you’ve pondered why the emotional stage can be so challenging to get past. The daily emails I receive indicate that some people are impacted by “confidence eroders” for years. They’ve turned to their supports for help who have been unable to offer any concrete advice to shift the roadblocks they’ve faced.

Fortunately over the past few years there has been groundbreaking research into the effects that these type of life changes can have on the mind and body of people experiencing them. Overcoming them is possible with a process and understanding of the art and science that sits behind them.

Join the FREE Art Of Self Confidence Challenge where we go into the “Top 5 Most Important Skills To Grow Your Self Confidence Quickly”.