35 DAYS OF CONFIDENCE
Find Your Voice, Fulfill Your Dreams and Focus Your Inner Power
Alyssa A. Austin
Copyright © 2019 Alyssa A. Austin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial
uses permitted by copyright law.
DOWNLOAD THE 35 DAYS OF CONFIDENCE WORKBOOK FREE!
READ THIS FIRST
Just to say thanks for buying my book, I would like to give you the accompanying workbook 100% FREE!
As you’ll see, this book is FULL of action exercises. If you purchased the physical version, you can certainly write your answers in the margins, but if you’d prefer to keep them clean (or if you purchased the Kindle version), download the free 35 Days of Confidence Workbook, which contains each day’s Challenge activity. You can download it as many times as you’d like!
TO DOWNLOAD GO TO:
poisedandprofessional.com/free-workbook
Dedication
I would like to dedicate this book to:
My Parents
My mom and dad – I will never be able to say thank you enough for raising me to be confident, strong, and ready to take on the world. Mom - not everyone is fortunate to grow up with a mother who is encouraging and supportive. Even fewer people are fortunate enough to grow up with a mother who truly believes in them and thinks their child can do anything – literally anything. Thank you, mom and dad, for fostering that belief. “Because you believed in me, I believed in me.”
My Brothers
Nick, Hunter, and Noah – you inspire and motivate me more than you know. Thank you for being supportive and willing to offer advice throughout this process.
My Husband
Mike – without you, none of this would have been possible, and I am so, so grateful for your love and support. Thank you for believing in me, and always pushing me to be the best version of myself. I love you.
My Colleagues
To my mentor, Brian Tracy, who helped to inspire my fascination with personal development, and kickstart the belief in myself that I was meant for something bigger.
To my coworkers and colleagues, specifically those at Brandetize, for helping me learn and grow in this space, and equipping me with the tools to pursue this dream.
To everyone I’ve ever shared the stage with – for allowing me to do what I love and grow exponentially in the process. So much of what I teach is because of what I learned from you.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Introduction
Week 1: Self-Discovery
Day 1: Believe in Yourself
Day 2: Identity
Day 3: Realization
Day 4: Goal-Setting
Day 5: Responsibility
Day 6: Motivation
Day 7: Mindset
Week 2: Positive Mental Attitude
Day 8: Happiness
Day 9: Gratitude
Day 10: Mindfulness
Day 11: Comparison
Day 12: Attraction
Day 13: Negativity
Day 14: Selflessness
Week 3: Self-Improvement
Day 15: Growth
Day 16: Values
Day 17: Character
Day 18: Relationships
Day 19: Passion
Day 20: Authority
Day 21: Learning
Week 4: The Physical Body
Day 22: Health
Day 23: Overcoming Limitations
Day 24: Posture
Day 25: Gestures
Day 26: Smiling
Day 27: Breathing
Day 28: Language
Week 5: Taking Action
Day 29: Planning
Day 30: Achievement
Day 31: Urgency
Day 32: Control
Day 33: Failure
Day 34: Proactivity
Day 35: Courage
Conclusion
About the Author
Introduction
There are few things in this world that you can NEVER have enough of.
Love, friendship, good wine, laughter...
And confidence.
I’m going to reveal something to you right now: Confidence is the key to ALL success in life.
Regardless of what you want to do, who you want to become, and what your hopes and dreams are, confidence WILL help you achieve it. Because true confidence comes from knowing exactly who you are, and what you want in life, and then fiercely pursuing it.
You’re probably heard the phrase, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right”. The key word here is “think”.
Everything we do, everything we feel, everything we think starts in the same place: our mind. And this is where confidence is created and nurtured as well: within our minds. The mind is the origin point of confidence.
And here’s another secret:
You have every reason in the world to be completely, 100% confident in who you are at this very moment.
If you believe that already – great! This book will serve as an excellent exercise in affirmation for you.
And if you don’t – don’t worry. We will get you there. It’s all a matter of learning. Like riding a bike or teaching yourself a new language, confidence is a learned skill.
You see, I have been fascinated by the science of human communication and connection for years. I’ve put in hundreds of hours of study on the topics of communication, performance, productivity, leadership, ambition, and more. I am a voracious consumer of information, and pride myself on being pretty darn good at sharing that information with others in an easily understood and memorable way. My specialty, as a friend of mine once beautifully articulated, is “creating clarity from chaos”.
But I’m NO EXPERT. I can’t state that enough. I’m a person, just like you, who’s doing their best to live a happy, fulfilled, confident life.
However, I do have a secret skill that I have come to realize it is my duty to share… I have killer confidence. And I can attribute my confidence to three key aspects of my life: my upbringing, my life as a performer, and my work as a communications professional.
I was fortunate enough to grow up with incredible love and support from my family, specifically my mom. From the day I was born, she has been my number one fan and life advocate. And I am convinced that is 100% because of her and the way she raised me that I have even an iota of the confidence I have as an adult. My mom raised me with the undying, unwavering belief and affirmation that I could do anything I could put my mind to. She told me enough times in my child and young adult life that it became very easy to believe: I can do anything. If I put my mind to it, and I really try (that’s the key – there has to be effort), I can do anything.
It was in a large part due to my mom that I achieved my second confidence aspect: performing. I started dancing at a very young age, which forced me to become very comfortable in the spotlight (and even learn to love it!) Years later, as a performer, I’ve sang, danced, and acted on stage, gone on hundreds of auditions, completed thousands of performances for audiences small and large (up to 106,000 people, actually!)
And finally, as a communications professional, I’ve given hundreds of business presentations and had to speak to groups of colleagues much more “senior” than myself. I’ve even participated in public speaking competitions. I’ve also worked one-on-one with coworkers and direct reports to help them craft their ideal professional path, and im
prove their confidence along the way.
I began this book not as a book at all, but as a personal exercise to help me document the practices that help me feel my most confident self. Similar to reading a self-help book, I had found that writing out my own “self-help” was cathartic and action-driving on its own. So, I kept writing, and writing and well… here we are.
My goal for you in reading this book is to become truly confident and happy in who you are right NOW, and arm you with the tools you need to obtain everything you want out of life (and then some).
Over the course of this book, we’re going to go through the five core pillars that provide the foundations for a confident life. I’ve created and lead hundreds of action exercises around the topic of confidence, and these five pillars are the foundational elements that I keep coming back to again and again.
They are:
1. Self-Discovery
2. Positive Mental Attitude
3. Self-Improvement
4. The Physical Body
5. Taking Action
These pillars are ordered in such a way that we will build on them, day-by-day, week-by-week, from the inside out—all with the goal of helping you not only increase your self-confidence, but make it a habit in your daily life.
By the end of these 35 days, confidence will just be “something that you do”. You will be armed with daily rituals and practices to keep it at the forefront of your personality and every day actions. Some of the chapters are short, and some of the chapters are long, but the end goal is the same: to help you find your voice, fulfill your dreams and focus your inner power, so that you can create your most confident, authentic, ideal life.
And the great thing about these lessons and exercises is that they are timeless. Sure, you’ll start your #35DaysofConfidence journey today, but in three months, six months, a year… if you’re feeling as though you need a confidence boost? You can start the challenge all over again.
I hope you stick around until Day 35—because I promise, there is something here for you. There is something potentially world-shaking for you to discover about yourself and the life you’ve always imagined and dreamed up for yourself between now and the end of this book.
Best case scenario? Your life changes completely and positively as a result of reading this book and going through the accompanying exercises. Worst case scenario? You learn a couple new things. Either way, isn’t it worth a shot?
I encourage you to invest in a journal that you can use alongside your journey for the next 35 days—I’m going to be asking you to really dig deep inside yourself and dream, and there’s no better (and more action-inspiring) way to do that than on paper.
Starting now, I’m going to show you just how confidence can change your life… if you’re willing to change yourself.
Let’s get started.
Week 1: Self-Discovery
The first step of the journey to supreme self-confidence has to do with developing an in-depth understanding of who you are.
Think of it this way: if your friend asked you for a dinner recommendation, you wouldn’t vouch for a restaurant you’d never been to before, would you? No—you’d give her the name of a spot you know and love. Where the menu is expansive, the ambiance is comforting, and the prices are decent. A place you’d feel confident would meet and exceed her expectations.
In order to be truly confident, you must do the same thing for yourself. You must understand who you are, what you want, and what makes you unique. There are many definitions of self-confidence, but the one that I keep coming back to again and again, and the one that has rang true through all my hours of study is this: true confidence comes from knowing exactly who you are and what you want.
We’ll explore these concepts through seven days of self-discovery, starting… now!
1.
Believe in Yourself
“She believed she could, so she did.”
* * *
We start our #35DaysofConfidence with the core lesson of this book.
Above all else: believe in yourself. You are your own biggest cheerleader. You have to be!
Because your confidence levels and the way you feel about yourself is entirely up to you. It’s not up to your mom, your dad, your spouse, your significant other, your best friends, your worst enemies, your coworkers, your castmates, your boss, your director, or ANYONE else!
Remember: It’s nice, but not necessary to receive external validation.
Which means that you (and no one else) are responsible for becoming your biggest cheerleader. It’s helpful to have others in your corner, but nothing will skyrocket your confidence or self-worth more than believing that you, yourself, are truly awesome.
Believing in yourself is one of the best things, if not THE best thing, you can do for yourself.
This is the core goal of this challenge, and we will build on it for the next 34 days.
Here is your Day 1 Challenge:
Think back to one time when you believed in yourself fully and completely in your ability to achieve a goal, complete a task, or answer a call. What did it feel like? Why were you so confident? How can you create more of that feeling in the future?
2.
Identity
“This above all: to thine own self be true.”
-William Shakespeare
* * *
One of the best places to start on your journey to supreme self-confidence is by getting to know yourself, inside-and-out. Sure, we all to some extent know ourselves. We know what we look like (whether we’re okay with it or not), we know what we like and dislike, we know where we live, what we do for work and so on and so forth. But that’s all just really surface-level stuff, isn’t it?
An essential step on the journey to becoming 100% confident in yourself is 100% understanding who you are.
The more you know about yourself, the more you can work on strengthening your strengths, understanding and improving your weaknesses, and developing what it is about you that makes you truly unique!
Because you ARE unique. No one in the world is quite like you. Dr. Seuss expressed it best in his quintessential Dr. Seuss way:
“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.”
And your differences are what make you special.
I can say this first-hand from working in the performance industry, where standing out is a GOOD thing. You must embrace the things that make you unique, whether it’s your hair color, your singing voice, your fashion sense, your “quirks,” or ANYTHING else. These are the things that make you special. That make you memorable.
And I realize this can be hard to do. Especially when we go through the formative stages of our lives—middle school, high school, college… maybe even entering a new place of work. In those stages, all we want to do is fit in. All we want to do is be like everyone else.
But being just like everyone else will never earn you recognition for YOUR awesomeness.
Don’t waste your time trying to be just like someone else. Because that person already exists. Create your own legacy!
So, take a moment and think—What are YOU good at? Better than everyone else at, actually! What do you like about yourself? What makes you unique?
Knowing who you are, being able to identify your strengths, your weaknesses, what make YOU you… and then being okay with all of that, is a milestone on the road to self-confidence. It’s in our imperfections, and our uniqueness, where we find out who we truly are!
Here is your Day 2 Challenge:
Take 2 minutes and write down 10 things that make YOU unique. They can be big or small, self-defining or trivial. The only important thing is that you write 10 things that make you YOU.
3.
Realization
“The first step to getting what you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.”
* * *
Perhaps one of the most powerful things we can do on our journey to supreme self-confidence, and
living our ideal life is realizing and NAMING exactly what it is that we want.
Think of it this way: if you can’t say what it is that you want, how can you expect to achieve it?
You could have the most finely tuned, expensive, state-of-the-art compass in all the land, but unless you have a destination, your journey will be unsuccessful.
So, start now. What do you want? Really. Not what you think you should want, not what your family thinks you should want, not what the generic standards of “society” say you should want. YOU. If you could wave a magic wand, and have your ideal life materialize in front of your very eyes, what would it look like? Here are some questions to get you started:
How do you want to make a living? Would you be an entrepreneur who works from the comfort of her own computer and travels the world? Would you have an upper-management role at your current place of employment? Maybe work at a totally different place of employment from where you are now? Would you be working at ALL? Would you spend your days making people’s lives better? Teaching people? Healing people? Performing? Selling products that make a difference? What is your DREAM job?
Where would you live? Would you live in your current city, or somewhere across the country, or even across the world? Would you live in a posh New York City apartment? A cottage on the beach in Florida? A mansion on the cliffs of Newport, Rhode Island? Maybe you are a total nomad who travels from place to place letting the universe create your path? Where is your ideal place of residence?
Who would you live with? Would you live with a significant other whom you currently have? A significant other whom you have yet to meet? Your family? Your children? If you don’t have children, do you want children? Do you want to live totally and 100% alone? That’s cool too. Who do you want to spend time with?
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