If you’ve ever thought, “I wish I had more confidence,” you’ve probably tried a few things to fix it.
Maybe you’ve read the books, listened to podcasts, repeated affirmations, written down all the things you’re grateful for, or stood in front of the mirror telling yourself you’re confident.
And maybe a little voice in your head replied, “Yeah, right.”
That’s the problem I often see with confidence advice. You can consciously tell yourself you’re good enough until the cows come home, but if a deeper part of you doesn’t believe it, those words don’t always land.
As a hypnotherapist, I see confidence and self-esteem very differently.
For many of the women I work with, low confidence has developed over years. Somewhere along the way, they formed beliefs about themselves that made sense at the time. Those beliefs may have helped them cope, fit in, stay safe, avoid rejection or get through difficult experiences.
Years later, they’re still living by those old rules without even realising it.
Where does Low Confidence Come From?
We start making sense of ourselves and the world from a very young age.
A child doesn’t have the life experience of an adult. She hears something, experiences something or sees how the people around her behave, and her unconscious mind gives it meaning.
That meaning might become:
- I’m not good enough.
- I’m not clever enough.
- I shouldn’t speak up.
- Other people know better than me.
- I have to keep everyone happy.
- I can’t trust myself.
- If I get it wrong, people will judge me.
Nobody necessarily sat her down and taught her these things.
She worked them out from what was happening around her.
Then life moves on, she grows up, gets a job, has relationships, raises a family, runs a business or does all sorts of amazing things, but those old beliefs can still sit quietly underneath it all.
That’s why I sometimes describe low confidence as a protective layer.
The protection may no longer be needed, but the old rule is still running.
Why Doesn’t Positive Thinking Always Fix it?
I have nothing against positive thinking. I quite like a good affirmation.
But there’s a problem when what you’re saying consciously clashes with what you believe unconsciously.
You can say, “I’m confident and capable.”
Meanwhile, something deeper inside you is thinking, “Bullshit.”
Guess which one usually wins?
Our conscious mind is wonderful at thinking, planning and reasoning, but many of our automatic beliefs, habits and emotional responses happen without us consciously choosing them.
This is one of the reasons I use hypnotherapy.
Hypnosis allows us to work with the unconscious mind and help it gain a different perspective on beliefs that may have been created years ago.
When the perspective changes, the old belief can begin to change with it.
The person isn’t pretending to believe something new. The new perspective starts to feel true for her.
What Does Hypnotherapy for Confidence Actually Do?
There’s still a lot of mystery around hypnosis, thanks in part to stage hypnosis and those bloody swinging watches.
Clinical hypnotherapy is very different.
When I’m working with someone around confidence or self-esteem, I’m interested in the beliefs sitting underneath what she’s experiencing now.
A woman might tell me she doesn’t believe in her own strength or abilities.
We can explore what her unconscious mind has learned and the beliefs it created as a way of protecting her from pain.
Through hypnosis, we can help the unconscious gain a new perspective.
That matters because the events of our past don’t change, but the meaning we’ve attached to them can.
And when that meaning changes, the way we see ourselves can change too.
Confidence Is Really About Self-Trust
One of the biggest misunderstandings about confidence is what it actually looks like.
We often notice the loud person walking into a room, talking to everyone and looking completely at ease, and assume that’s confidence.
It might be.
It also might not be.
Someone can be brilliant at performing confidence while privately questioning everything they do.
For me, confidence comes down to self-trust.
It’s being comfortable enough with yourself to know that you can handle things.
You can still get nervous.
You can still wonder what someone thinks of you.
You can still make a mistake and think, “Well, that wasn’t my finest bloody moment.”
The difference is what happens next.
Instead of turning one mistake into proof that you’re useless, you can see it for what it was, learn from it and move on.
You don’t have to tear yourself apart over it.
What Does Better Confidence Look Like in Real Life?
I think this part is important because people sometimes expect a huge personality change.
They imagine they’ll wake up one morning ready to stride into a room like Beyoncé.
Usually, the changes I see are much quieter.
Women start trusting their decisions more. Their inner critic becomes less powerful. They recover from mistakes more easily. Other people’s moods and behaviour don’t knock them around as much.
They feel more grounded in themselves.
One woman I worked with described feeling “more confident, more steadfast in who I am, more grounded.”
She also noticed something interesting. As her self-esteem improved, she became less affected by other people’s behaviour and less worried about deadlines, money, workload and other pressures in her life.
Another client told me that within two months, our work had transformed the way she saw herself and helped clear the path towards her goals.
And another described feeling calmer, more confident and “more like myself than I have in years.”
I love that last part.
Because that’s what I want for the women I work with.
I don’t want to turn you into somebody else.
I want you to feel comfortable being you.
Will Hypnotherapy Magically Give You Confidence?
One client once described the tools and techniques I use as being “like magic.”
I loved hearing that, but there’s no magic wand hiding in my office. Unfortunately, I’d have a bloody field day with one of those. 😂
Hypnotherapy is a collaborative process.
You’re involved.
You’re aware.
And your participation matters.
I believe four things really help when you’re considering hypnotherapy:
- Desire: You actually want something to change.
- Curiosity: You’re willing to explore what’s happening beneath the surface.
- Trust: You feel safe enough with the practitioner and the process to engage.
- Active participation: You’re willing to be part of your own change.
Hypnosis can’t erase your past, and I wouldn’t want it to.
It doesn’t take away your free will.
And no hypnotherapist can force you to change something you don’t want to change.
You are part of the process.
What if I’ve Always Had Low Self-Esteem?
This is where I think people can lose hope.
If you’ve felt a certain way about yourself for 20, 30 or 40 years, it’s very easy to assume it’s simply your personality.
“I’m just an anxious person.”
“I’ve never been confident.”
“I’ve always worried what people think.”
“I’ve never believed in myself.”
But how long you’ve believed something doesn’t tell us whether it’s true.
It only tells us you’ve believed it for a long time.
Sometimes we confuse a long-term survival habit with our actual identity.
Think about that for a moment.
Some of the things you’ve spent years criticising yourself for may have developed because, at some point in your life, they helped you cope.
And if they were learned, there’s room for something different to be learned now.
Can Hypnotherapy Help With Confidence and Self Esteem?
Yes, I believe it can, and I’ve seen what can happen when women begin changing the beliefs that have shaped the way they see themselves.
But my goal isn’t to create some fearless version of you who never doubts herself again.
I want you to trust yourself.
Please decide without spending the next three days wondering whether you made the wrong one.
Please make a mistake without using it as evidence that you’re hopeless.
I want someone else’s shitty mood to belong to them instead of immediately wondering what you’ve done wrong.
And I want you to be able to look at yourself and recognise the woman who’s been there all along.
Because confidence doesn’t have to mean becoming someone new.
Sometimes it’s finally trusting the person you already are.
Want to Feel More Confident in Who You Are?
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