It’s hard to argue with the fact that the more confident you feel going into an interview the higher your chance of success.

Practicing self-discipline is a form of action that builds self-confidence.

You may be self-disciplined in some areas but not so much in others. You know how that feels.

You set the alarm for 5:30 am and hit snooze 5 times before getting out of bed.

You tell yourself you will go work out after work and then head home at day’s end because you’re just not feeling it.

You make a commitment to eat more veggies and then convince yourself that french fries and ketchup count.

And something inside of you breaks just a little. You’ve broken a promise to yourself.

Build Your Confidence and Trust Yourself Through Self-discipline

Making and keeping a commitment to yourself builds self-trust. Trusting yourself is the path to self-confidence. Start trusting yourself by practicing micro-acts of self-discipline and watch your self-confidence grow.

Try this: 

Have you been beating yourself up because you hit the snooze alarm 5 times before finally getting out of bed?

Let’s create a change through a micro-act of self-discipline.

1) Ask yourself: in the ideal world, what would you like to happen when your alarm goes off in the morning? Is the answer that you hop right out of bed? Great. Go to Step 2.

2) Make the commitment: I will get out of bed as soon as my alarm goes off.

3) Check your Commitment: This is key to building trust with yourself. We’ve all made commitments to ourselves that sound good. Or we make them because we think that is what we should do. That is not the way to approach building your confidence through micro-acts of self-discipline. When you make your commitment make sure you feel good about it. Check-in with yourself and make sure that hopping right out of bed when your alarm goes off feels doable and maybe even a little bit fun. If it does then great. Go to Step 4. But if it doesn’t then try out a new commitment. Instead of jumping right out of bed maybe you commit to one hit of the snooze alarm. How does that feel? Better? That is your new commitment and go to Step 4.

4) Renegotiate if things did not go as planned- If you wake up in the morning and do not feel like getting right out of bed that’s OK! Renegotiate with yourself. Give yourself 3 snoozes and keep that new commitment. It is better to acknowledge that you are not going to make your commitment and renegotiate then to feel bad about yourself. This does not mean you do not have self-discipline. It means you are still figuring out how to make a commitment that you feel good about and then following up that commitment with the self-discipline it takes to complete it.

5) Celebrate that you made a commitment and used your self-discipline to keep it. In the morning when your alarm goes off, hop right out of bed (or hit the snooze 3 times) and say:
 “Now that’s self-discipline!”.