From Doubt to Dominance: Building Unshakeable Self-Confidence and Mental Toughness

Boukman Byrd
6 min readApr 25, 2024

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Transforming Your Mindset for Success and Resilience

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The reality is life is tough for most men. If you are one of the few men who live on easy street, congrats, but this blog isn’t for you.

This blog is for men who have it tough and need to be confident enough to make it through the marathon called life.

When life gets tough, men must be tougher mentally. Confidence is the part of mental toughness that allows you to look at yourself in the mirror when your world is falling apart and say, “I got this,” “I can do this,” and “I’m going to make it through this,” and actually believe it.

A man without confidence is beat in the fight of life before he even steps in the ring.

A man without confidence is like a man without legs. He will be unable to stand on his own and walk the walk needed to live a successful life, fulfilling life.

So let’s get to it.

In this blog we’ll discuss:

  • What is self-confidence and mental toughness
  • How our confidence falls out of alignment
  • How to make sure. your confidence levels are aligned with your actual abilities.
  • 5 Strategies to Build true, unflappable Self-Confidence
  • The importance of confidence in relation to mental toughness.

And

  • The Conclusion
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What is Self-Confidence?

Self-confidence is the unwavering belief in oneself to overcome life’s challenges. It is the ability to look in the mirror and declare, “I’ve got this.” Without confidence, a man is defeated before he begins. It requires aligning our confidence levels with our actual abilities and periodically evaluating ourselves to ensure our confidence is grounded in reality. Self-confidence is rooted in self-perception based on genuine experiences, strengths, skills, and opportunities, rather than imagined shortcomings or external validation.

What is Mental Toughness?

Mental toughness, on the other hand, is the resilience and fortitude to persevere through difficult times. It is impossible to develop mental toughness without possessing self-confidence. A mentally tough person believes they are capable of overcoming adversity. They view themselves realistically and recognize their personal value, character, power and potential. Mental toughness and self-confidence are intertwined, as the growth of one strengthens the other. By building up your self-confidence and mental toughness, you can not only running around or climb over obstacles, you can bust through them Luke Cage style, with unwavering determination and resilience.

How our confidence falls out of alignment

Sometimes, for various reasons, our confidence levels fall out of alignment with our actual abilities, knowledge, and readiness to adapt to changing conditions. When this happens, it’s important that we are self-aware enough to evaluate ourselves and realign our confidence levels with reality.

Too much confidence can get in you a situation you aren’t ready for. Too little confidence will prevent you from engaging in activities you are ready for.

How to make sure your confidence levels are aligned with your actual abilities

Understanding the limits and dangers presented by harboring realistic confidence levels, it’s important to perform self-assessment (check yourself before you wreck self) time to time.

Ask yourself: “Are my confidence levels reasonable and realistic given the circumstances?” “How do I respond to criticism?” “Do I immediately back down when challenged?” “Am I eager or reluctant to share my thoughts, ideas and aspirations with others?” “When I encounter setbacks, do I instinctively feel fearful, nervous or self-doubt ? Or do I feel self-assured? Why do I feel this way?”

This self-check process will help you to identify whether your confidence levels need to be realigned or if there are accurate. It can also shine light on areas in your life that need attention and work- i.g., whether you react to others’ criticism in a sensible manner or are overly sensitive.

5 Strategies to Build true, unflappable Self-Confidence

#1 — Embrace the belief that you can achieve whatever you put your mind to and work diligently towards. A willing mind and strategic work ethic can overcome most obstacles. But in order to overcome and achieve, your belief in self must be greater than the obstacle you’re facing.

#2 — Abandon your need for too much external validation. Yes our inner-belief in self needs to be verified externally time to time, however, we cannot rely on external validation as the foundation for our self-confidence. Only we know what we are capable of and still there’s room to surpass our own perceived limits. Self- confidence must be rooted in self more than anything.

#3 — Be willing to venture outside your comfort zone. Growth and improvement can usually be found in those places you don’t want to go. The bridge to success is found in the things you are avoiding. Go to where growth, development and opportunities are, no matter how uncomfortable it is.

#4 — Be open to sitting in emotional discomfort. Get use to sitting in the suck. It’s common practice today to avoid things that cause us emotional discomfort however the secret is, in order to learn how to manage negative emotions, you need to sit with them so you can learn how to process them. When you’re feeling down, sit with that feeling, uncover what it’s trying to tell you and work on processing the emotion without letting it ruin your day.

#5 — Practice routine self-assessment. Check your confidence levels on a regular basis, no matter if you’re feeling over-confident, confident, or unconfident. Make sure you juxtapose your confidence levels with reality, past experiences and accomplishments so they are properly aligned.

The importance of confidence in relation to mental toughness

Self-confidence is absolutely necessary for mental toughness. It’s damn near impossible to develop the latter without possessing the former. A mentally tough person must believe they’re capable of making it through hard shit. The good news: changing how you view yourself is simple because it’s relies on seeing your real-life character, value, strengths, skills and opportunities. Readjusting your self-perception is rooted in actuality rather than imagined shortcomings or manufactured overcompensations that result from your inner critic.

Understanding self-confidence and mental toughness is critical to developing both. They are linked and when one grows so does the other.

Conclusion

Life can be tough for many men, and it’s important for those facing challenges to cultivate confidence to navigate through the ups and downs. Confidence is the key that allows men to face themselves in the mirror and declare their ability to overcome any obstacle. Without confidence, a man is defeated before even stepping into the ring of life. It is crucial to align our confidence levels with our actual abilities and periodically assess ourselves to ensure a realistic and reasonable level of confidence. By venturing outside our comfort zones, embracing emotional discomfort, practicing self-assessment, believing in our potential, and relying less on external validation, we can build true, unflappable self-confidence. This self-confidence is essential for developing mental toughness, as it enables us to believe in our ability to overcome challenges. Understanding the relationship between self-confidence and mental toughness is crucial for personal growth and success. As we continue to cultivate our self-confidence, we will also strengthen our mental toughness, allowing us to thrive in the face of adversity.

I hope this helps you on your journey.

Thanks for reading! Clap as much as you like if you found it helpful. Please drop a response and share your thoughts and ideas. I’d appreciate hearing from you.

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Boukman Byrd

Father, martial artist, life coach, and aspiring writer, living a wild life and sharing my experiences and lessons along the way.