3 Bold, Unusual Ways to Explode Your Confidence Fast

“Explode your confidence!

It’s really the single greatest key to your success in life and in business!”

Why did I say that? How do I know? Well…read on.

I recently conducted a survey hoping to find out what my coaching clients and training participants like most when they  they work with me.

Of course I knew the answers –  after all I have non-stop knowledge, incredible experience and I am forever developing new skills. And we have not even touch my fabulous content! So I was only looking for validation.

What!! I could NOT be more wrong!

Here’s a sample of what my survey revealed:

90% “loved the ease and speed with which I connect with everyone”

80% was fascinated by my “boundless energy”

90% loved the way I rock jeans for training (really!)

87% thought my sense of humor was “unforgettable” but

98%..a whopping 98% admire my confidence and command of situations 

Did they mention my content and skill at all? Of course. But it was not #1 on anybody’s ranking.

So I asked myself:

When did this happen?

When did I explode my confidence to such a point that high self-confidence is now a part of who I am and what I do?

And what’s more…can you too explode your confidence so that you reach a place where it is second nature to you?

I say yes! I did it and so can you.

But before I help you to explode your confidence, let’s define and discuss it.

What is confidence?

First, confidence or self-confidence is NOT the ability to step on the heads of others to get what you want.

Or, as my grandmother used to say, you don’t have to put out somebody’s candle to make yours burn brighter.

It is also NOT feeling, and then behaving, like you’re better than others.

Self-confidence IS having a feeling of certainty about who you are and what you have to offer the world.

In addition, I think healthy self-confidence comes from a few places. For example:

1. Recognizing and embracing your actual competence and accomplishments (not downplaying them)
2. Surrounding yourself with people who genuinely support you.
3. Practicing self-compassion when you stumble.
4. Taking action even when you feel uncertain.
5. Understanding that taking action actually builds confidence instead of waiting until you have confidence to take action. 

The most important thing about confidence is that it doesn’t mean never feeling doubts or fears.

It’s more about not letting those feelings stop you from doing what matters to you.

Benefits of having confidence

Having confidence can positively impact many areas of your life. Here are a few:

As a leader/influencer – When you have confidence in yourself, you attract people to you for any number of reasons – to learn from you, to have fun with you, to work with you and to invest in your business.

In relationships and social situations – confidence helps you communicate more openly, set healthy boundaries, and connect authentically with others. You’re more likely to express your needs and opinions, which leads to more genuine relationships.

At work or school – with self-confidence, you take on challenges, speak up with ideas, advocate for yourself, and recover from setbacks more easily. You’re more willing to try new things even when success isn’t guaranteed.

For your mental health – confidence tends to reduce anxiety about judgment and failure. You’re better able to handle criticism constructively and don’t dwell as much on mistakes. It also helps break cycles of negative self-talk.

In decision-making – confidence helps you trust your judgment and act decisively rather than being paralyzed by self-doubt. You’re more likely to pursue opportunities that align with your goals.

For resilience – confident people generally bounce back faster from disappointments because they see failures as temporary setbacks rather than reflections of their worth.

At the personal level – It’s about trusting yourself while staying open to learning and growth. You are willing to take risks knowing you may reap great rewards or experience some losses. 

When it comes to business – self-confidence is the building block of your success. It is what will sustain and grow you and your business over the long-term. It’s what keeps you believing in yourself each and every time. Failure is not a traumatic event in your business but rather a great learning and turning point. 

What prevents you from having self-confidence

By now you’re wondering…if self-confidence is this wonderful and desirable thing, why don’t many more people have it? And why aren’t more people rushing to get it?

Good questions!

There are several common factors that can prevent you from having confidence:

Your upbringing and socialisation – let’s start there.  Most of us were raised by the limiting beliefs of our family and persons of influence in our wider community. We were forever told to be “seen and not heard,” that we would “never amount to much” but seldom that we could be “anything we want to be”.

Comparing yourself with others – this is especially damaging to self confidence in this social media age. When you’re constantly measuring yourself against others’ highlight reels, it’s easy to feel like you don’t measure up. This creates a sense that everyone else has it figured out except you.

Perfectionism – gets in the way of you exploding your self-confidence even when you would have worked had to build it. If you set impossibly high standards, you’ll constantly feel like you’re falling short. This often stems from a belief that your worth depends on flawless performance. (I used to be guilty of this!)

Negative self-talk – becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That inner critic telling you “I’m not good enough” or “I’ll probably mess this up” reinforces doubt and undermines your confidence big time. 

Lack of experience or skills in an area – naturally creates overall uncertainty. Sometimes what feels like a confidence problem is actually just inexperience – you haven’t had enough practice yet to feel competent.

Fear of failure or judgment – keeps many people playing small. The desire to avoid embarrassment or disappointment can be stronger than the desire to try.

3 bold, unusual ways to explode your confidence:

So the big question is: What can you do,  right now, to really explode your confidence?

There are many things you can do. But the 3 I’m about to share with you are those that helped me the most.

Even now, every time I need to grow, I rinse and repeat them in some form.

1. Step outside your comfort zone

To me, your comfort zone is that safe, psychological space where things feel familiar, predictable, and low-risk.

It’s where you’re operating on autopilot with routines and situations you already know how to handle.

Don’t get me wrong, comfort zones are not inherently bad.

After all, they provide a measure of stability and you do need that foundation of comfort to function.

The problem is, they become limiting when you really want to explode your confidence and reach your true potential.

You see, growth tends to happen in that space just outside the comfort zone—not so far out that you’re overwhelmed, but far enough that you’re genuinely challenged.

The thing is, people usually need the practical “how” to step into what I call their “growth zone” i.e that space just outside their comfort zone. 

Here are some tips to help you step outside your comfort zone 

1. Start with a comfort zone audit – You know me, I’m the pen and paper girl. So get yours out and honestly write down what you avoid—situations, conversations, activities. Then categorize them by fear level (mildly uncomfortable vs. terrifying). This helps you see to see patterns in what holds you back and exposes your limiting beliefs.
2. Take the “micro-dare” approach – This is where you pick the smallest possible version of something that makes you uncomfortable and do it this week. It’s important to keep your effort small. Don’t attempt to give a presentation, but “speak up” once in a meeting or start a small conversation with a stranger in a supermarket line. The goal is to start small, go a little bigger, all the while recording and reviewing your efforts. 
3. Schedule discomfort deliberately – Oh Dear! Even thinking about this activates my fear all over again! Take something you have been avoiding. Don’t wait to feel ready. Put it on your calendar like any other commitment. E.G: “Tuesday at 3pm: make that phone call I’ve been avoiding.” Treat it as non-negotiable. For me it’s “I will not go sleep until…” But you don’t have to be so drastic. 
4. Take action in the now – When you recognise the need to do something outside your comfort zone, take action before your brain talks you out of it. Raise your hand in the training session, send the message, approach the person who can help you with something. Remember: hesitation is where courage goes to die.
5. Resist unhelpful post-action analysis – What I mean is,  after you do the uncomfortable thing, don’t ask “did I do it perfectly?” Instead, declare “I survive!” and ask “what did I learn?” What’s good about this is that you realise that even awkward attempts are wins which can explode your confidence. 
6. Use an accountability partner – This is a trusted and no-nonsense person with whom you share your goals so they can hold you accountable for achieving them. Be sure to choose carefully.
7. Celebrate your wins. To do this, you have to track your growth. Keeping a log of comfort zone stretches, for example, “three months ago I couldn’t do X, now it’s easy,” creates powerful evidence that the process is working.  Now you have to celebrate those wins. BUT…be sure to match the size of the celebrations to the size of the wins. Don’t throw a dinner party because you spoke to a stranger you were alone with in the elevator.

2. Lean into your experiences

Experiences are absolutely fundamental to building confidence.

Between you and me, they’re really undervalued as confidence builders.

That’s because far too often, we think of then as just “life happening.”

This prevents us from seeing how our own unique experiences are quietly building our confidence all the time. 

Let me share my most undervalued experience that really built and later exploded my confidence with you.

As a single mother, living on my own, I often had to take fear in one hand and action in the next. 

I had to confront the neighbourhood bully, understand and navigate many of our social systems and navigate the unexpected that constantly came my way.

I didn’t think that I was building my confidence muscle while I was doing these things. As far as I was concerned, I was just doing what I had to do.

Similarly, I never had any of the gender-based boardroom issues in my work-life. Why?

As a tomboy, I was well, “one of the boys.”

In my later life I was extremely comfortable around men, wherever they were located – on the dock in one of my Caribbean Islands or in an air-conditioned office in a boardroom in Europe.

It was only with my gender and development training that I truly recognise the contribution of my tomboy experiences to my high degree of confidence that everyone admires.

But at the meta level, here’s how your experiences help to explode your confidence:

1. They provide proof through doing – Yeah, they provide the proof you can handle something, and that evidence comes from actually doing it. In other words, you’re building a library of proof that you’re capable and each experience becomes part of your personal evidence file. 
2. You learn what “good enough” looks like – Experiences teach you that most decisions don’t need to be perfect. You learn through repetition that a decent choice made quickly often beats a perfect choice made too late, and that most mistakes are fixable. 
3. They reduce your fear of unknown – Fear often comes from uncertainty about what will happen. Once you’ve been through something similar before, the stakes feel lower because you know the territory. Even negative experiences help—knowing you’ve survived failure makes future risks less terrifying.
4. You develop recovery skills – Maybe most importantly, experiences teach you that you can handle things going wrong. Confidence isn’t believing you’ll never fail—it’s knowing you can cope with and recover from failure. That resilience only comes from actually recovering from setbacks.

So consciously lean into your experiences. 

Doing this helps you to realise that you can build confidence before you act. 

Whatever emotions they make you feel when they are happening, just know the time will come when you will be able to rely on the confidence they help you to build.

3. Develop a “Personal Code of Honour” and live it

One of the things that I find really helps to skyrocket your confidence and your self-esteem as well, is having a Personal Code of Honour.

As a client in my coaching programmes described it: “it is the most valuable exercise in the entire programme!”

Simply put, your Code of Honour is a set of personal rules and agreements that you make for yourself, in specific areas of your life, that you work hard not to break or compromise.

Why does this matter?

When you are clear what you stand for, when you are unshakable in the face of adversity, you will not be easily distracted by issues which do not lift you up.

Selecting key areas in your life also ensures that you don’t just focus on areas where they’re already strong while neglecting where you need growth.

For example, you might be impeccable in your primary relationship but chaotic with money. Or you may be disciplined with health but unreliable with friends.

Therefore, the code becomes a tool for navigating trade-offs consciously rather than reactively.

I cannot stress how powerful a Code of Honour is as a tool to explode your confidence.

You see, the confidence that comes from living in alignment with a consciously chosen code is fundamentally different from that built on achievement or approval.

Tips on developing your Code of Honour:

1. Select some (3 – 5) important areas of your life (mine includes – primary relationships, financial freedom, health)
2. Write some rules for each area, beginning with ” I am” or “I will” ( I am 100% committed to living a healthy lifestyle)
3. Make only 3 – 5 rules for each area
4. Keep the following guiding principles in mind:
   • Keep your rules concrete and action-oriented – For example “I keep my word” as opposed to “I should keep my word”.
   • Start small and build from there – Begin with 3-5 core commitments you can actually keep. This builds confidence and reduces frustration.
   • Make it personal – Your code should reflect your genuine values, not what sounds sexy. It should feel like coming home to yourself.
   • Include repair mechanisms – Nobody is perfect so build into your code how you’ll recover when you inevitably stumble.
   • Connect each principle to why it matters to you – “I keep my commitments because my word is the currency of my character” 
   • Make it visible – A code written once and forgotten doesn’t build confidence. Regular reviews create the feedback loop that strengthens both the code and your self-trust
   • Accept that your code will evolve – You’re not carving commandments in stone. As you live more, experience more, and understand more, your confidence will grow and so will your code. 

Your next “confidence exploding” steps…

So there you have them…just 3 bold, unusual ways you can apply to explode your confidence.

I deliberately only chose 3 and went fairly deep into them because I want you to have some tangible information that you can start working with.

Furthermore, I know from experience that these will form a firm foundation on which to place your confidence and self-esteem.

Remember that your confidence is a critical building block of your success.

You will find that by taking the time to explode your confidence, life will begin to change for the better in almost every way possible.

High self-confidence determines which contracts you go after and which of those you win. It determines whom you attract, how you interact with them and what outcomes you get.

So just pick any one of the strategies from above and begin applying it now.

Then work through the others, tracking your progress all the way…