I was on the train from London Kings Cross to visit my parents last week.
A Chinese woman was sitting next to me.
She told me that she’d just graduated from university in Leeds. She LOVED the UK.
She said she’d become more confident since moving there to study.
I was intrigued.
When people ask me how to build confidence, I always tell them this:
Confidence comes from competence.
And confidence comes from practice.
So to build confidence, it’s important to practice the thing that you want to have confidence in.
It’s quite simple when you think about it. And anyone can do it 🙂
But it seemed to be different in her case.
So I asked her what made her more confident.
Her answer was something I hadn’t considered.
She said, “I became more confident because people accepted me.”
In China, she said that she’d always been worried that she wasn’t good enough.
But in the UK, people didn’t seem to judge her in the same way.
So she felt more confident.
Then I realized that this is a fast track to build confidence: surround yourself with supportive people. You’ll immediately feel better about yourself.