What does having confidence mean to you?

Do you ever sit and wonder if you are on a path to living your best life? Are you itching for more? More money, more freedom, more time with your family, more confidence to put yourself out there and go after the life you want? If you want to hear my suggestions on building confidence and learning the art of Self Portraits, stick around and keep reading 🙂

My Top 5 tips for growing confidence (what works for me…)

Learn something new. There is SO much reward and confidence building blocks in learning a new skill or taking an existing skill to the next level. And the best part is…it requires ZERO external praise or recognition from anyone else. Just you! You know where you started and how far you have come.
Reward yourself as you complete goals (big and small). As you are building up all the confidence you can muster, there is a lot of satisfaction and you guessed it, confidence, in completing tasks on your journey to the “big goal” being complete. Reward yourself. Maybe its a new book, a coffee from your favourite coffee shop, a new sweater, a bath with no interruptions. Whatever it is, when you complete a milestone, you are creating building blocks to confidence success. So reward yourself.
Reflection. When you actually take time to sit in your thoughts and think about where you started and where you are now, it can really put your successes into perspective. You may not recognize the daily progress, but weekly, monthly and annually you will start to recognize that you are getting somewhere and that is a confidence building block!
This next one is one of my favourite things to do. Make a daily task list and scratch that shit off as you complete it. There is nothing (well close to nothing), more satisfying than a checkmark or a line through a task completed. Shit, you can even put on your daily task list, to create a daily task list. First checkmark done!
Do something creative. This may not be for everyone. I have found over the last two years when things were sideways that I struggled with inspiration and motivation every now and then. A big thing that helped me overcome those low times was learning how to capture Self Portraits. It checked off the first box when it comes to learning something new, but it also taught me how to level up my editing, improve my workflow, nail down posing and expression, and the end product were images that made me feel good. And yes…helped me feel a little more confident. I became more confident in my photography abilities. I developed confidence to share what I have learned with others. I became more confident to put myself out there and show my face and speak my voice.

Long story…well longer. Confidence is a funny thing. It can come and go and has ups and downs like any other emotion. I can’t remember where this quote comes from, but paraphrased….what we focus on, grows. If you are looking to build your confidence, there are a shit tonne of books out there to help you, but it all starts with knowing what you want to overcome and committing to yourself to do the work.

My Top Book Recommendations for building confidence (in no particular order)

Atomic Habits by James Clear
You are a Badass by Jen Sincero
Get Rich, Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas

My top recommendations for Photography Educators (also in no particular order)

Self Portrait Workbook and whats coming soon…

I knew a couple years ago, I didn’t want to let all my photography education fall flat with no one to photograph, so I turned the camera on myself and built a niche of photographs that am proud of, and that have helped me realize that I want to help others with this creative path to confidence.

I have already created a 12 page Introduction Guide to taking Scroll Stopping Self Portraits. It can be yours…just click HERE to grab it.

Coming soon, I hope…I am working on a more comprehensive workbook that will go into more details as well as touch on getting into manual mode on your dSLR for shooting with more intention.

Trust me, getting onto manual mode from automatic is a HUGE win and should definitely give you a nice confidence boost! Click the hyper link to jump back to a previous post on the high level tips to manual mode.

I remember the first time I truly committed to getting off automatic mode, switching to manual mode and learning how all the settings in my camera work together. I never looked back. It was the best foundation building block I could have paid for, when I decided I wanted to be better. To be intentional and to be one step closer to becoming a “Photographer”. That was my first BIG confidence booster. Thanks to Chantri Keele on IG. She had a mini course years ago that changed my photography trajectory.