Understanding The Wheel Of Confidence
- Nat Harrison
- Aug 1, 2023
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 23
Can you imagine creating the life you want, where confidence and the lack of it don’t hold you back? Whether it’s at work, at home or in your relationships.
In July, I gave a talk to the Royal Borough of Greenwich Women’s Network about self-confidence. We spoke about my experience growing up, how I found my confidence, and how I continue to build on it in my career as a career coach.
Today, I’m showing you how to build yours too, using the Wheel of Confidence to guide you.
What is the Wheel of Confidence?
It’s ultimately a tool to help you identify the areas of your life where you are confident. It’s divided into eight attributes:
Self-esteem is how you perceive your physical self, personality, capabilities and success. Essentially, it’s your opinions and beliefs about yourself.
Self-worth is what you feel you deserve. For example, do you believe you deserve to feel valued, respected, happy, and successful?
Self-trust is the belief in your judgment and the decisions you make. It is how reliable you feel and whether you trust in your ideas and yourself.
Social Confidence is your belief in your ability to interact and communicate comfortably with others in social situations.
Relationship Confidence is your belief in your ability to establish and maintain positive professional relationships with coworkers, peers and managers.
Capabilities and Unique Abilities are the belief in your competence and capacity to perform your role and responsibilities effectively.
Presenting and Public Speaking are about how confident you feel standing up in front of others and delivering information, ideas, or a message to an audience.
Mental Resilience is your ability to cope with challenges, setbacks and stress.
Each of these attributes is centred on your belief in yourself because confidence doesn’t come from outside you; it comes from how you see yourself, no matter which area of your life it applies to.
The Wheel of Confidence is a tool to support you as you take the steps necessary to build your self-confidence overall. So how do you do it? Keep reading!
Your step-by-step guide to the wheel of confidence
1. Create your wheel: Draw a circle on plain paper (it doesn’t have to be perfect) and divide it into eight sections. In the first section, write the numbers 1 to 10 (like the picture above) against the left side.
2. Add your attributes: Now label each section with one of the eight attributes listed above.
3. Ask yourself, “Where am I out of 10” with each section: one being the lowest level of confidence and ten being the highest.
4. Rate your level of confidence: Starting from the first section, draw an arc from one side to the next for each section level with the number you feel describes your level of confidence best.
5. Take a look at what you see: What shape have you made? How many areas have 10s? Which areas can you work on?
With a clear understanding of your responses, you can see where your confidence shines and where it needs a little TLC. Now, you can craft a plan of action that utilises your strengths and builds on them in the areas that need nurturing. Below are some tips for each attribute to help you get started.
Increase Your Confidence With These Practical Tips
Self-Esteem: Spend some time with yourself and pay attention to how your inner dialogue speaks to you. Are you encouraging positive self-talk? If not, you can challenge your negative self-talk by incorporating affirmations and mantras into your daily routine and by being your own cheerleader. It doesn’t have to be the complete opposite, but an affirmation that feels good to you and makes you feel confident, even if it’s just a quote from Pinterest.
Self-Worth: Start by looking at your habits. Are you compassionate with yourself? Do you often critique yourself and compare yourself to others? Do you minimise your needs for the comfort of others? Once you have identified how you treat yourself, you can begin to challenge your thoughts and behaviours and treat yourself as you would treat others. You can also practice being assertive when asking for what you want, setting boundaries with others, and taking care of yourself.
Self Trust: Do you make decisions with yourself at the centre - do you listen to yourself and meet your own needs? If you answered no, you can begin by saying NO to the small things that don’t sit well with you because every time you say YES to them, you’re undermining the trust you have in yourself. So start by making decisions that feel good for you.
Social Confidence: The key to growing your social confidence is gradually pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. This could be anything from going somewhere with a large group of people, doing something you’ve never done or making a decision for yourself in a social setting, especially if that’s not something you’re used to.
Relationship Confidence: Connection is one of the most important things we as humans can create in our lives, so try to welcome them with open arms. Purposely build rapport with colleagues and peers by finding a common ground you can build upon. It also helps to stay in the knowing that these relationships will be a success.
Capabilities and Unique Abilities: Marcus Buckingham, an expert in the field of strengths, suggests that you dedicate a week or two to monitoring your work and life so you can identify the areas you get something from, and those you don’t. He also recommends focusing more on your strengths by honing and developing them so you can become an expert. Make a list of five things you’re good at and five you don’t feel so confident in, and test Marcus’ theory by focusing on your strengths and see how confident you become.
Presenting and Public Speaking: This one is all about practice, practice, practice. Each time you walk into the room, ready to give your audience a presentation or a talk, command the space by standing tall and making eye contact (or look at the space between your audience members to give the impression that you are). You can also use the 4-7-8 method beforehand to calm your nerves and keep you grounded, which will boost your confidence in the moment. Try it out here.
Mental Resilience: To increase your mental resilience, start by developing a growth mindset. See criticism as useful information to help you grow, don’t set your expectations too high and always ask for help if you need it. Your talents can always be developed through hard work and strategy, so it's important to remind yourself that it's okay not to know something. We're not trying to be perfect, nor are we trying to know it all. Learning and growth have no end. That is a growth mindset.
I have even more info about these tips over on my socials, so head over to Instagram or Facebook to take a look using the buttons at the bottom of this blog post.
Conclusion
By using the Wheel of Confidence and the tips provided, you will be on your way to increased confidence in all areas of your life and trust me when I say, it will truly set you up for success.
My biggest piece of advice throughout all of this would be not to overthink it. Allow yourself to be guided by your intuition and trust yourself and the outcome. Give it a go and let me know what you find!
If you are struggling with your self-confidence, why not take the first step now and reach out => Book a complimentary consultation with me, and together we can work through your challenges and get you on the right path.
About Nat Harrison, Specialist ADHD Career Coach, Ayama
Hi, I am Nathalina (everyone calls me Nat). I help people become more fulfilled and happy in their working lives by aligning their careers or businesses with their skills, values, and interests, and by helping them overcome barriers to success at work.
I am a Certified Specialist ADHD coach, and I work with neurodivergent people who want to harness their brains for the better, improve their relationships with themselves and manage their symptoms.
Book a consultation below if you would benefit from some coaching on your ADHD and working life.
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