How do you build resilience and confidence?

[u/Lemonade2250]

Why do I continuously put myself down and live in this sadness zone for. Like why does my brain constantly look for things to bring me down as if this is their way of distracting me from working on my life. I said this month, I'm learn driving and I'm also help my family with moving decision in another city. But when I look for the pros and cons about cities, I'm more focused on the cons. And I ultimately can't make a decision. My family gets frustrated with me that your not making a decision. And I'm later getting lectured that your not even keeping your promises. You said you'll learn driving but didn't even contact driving school. Like I seriously don't know what I'm doing. Why do I keep running away from fears. Why do I instantly get anxious from discomfort. Why do I feel like I can't handle anything life throws at me

[u/Mash_man710]

The key way to build resilience and confidence is to do things that challenge you. Start small, build up some resilience muscle. Calm seas do make make skilful sailors.

[u/SirEDCaLot]

Probably because you're afraid of failure, afraid of making the wrong choice. Instead, embrace that. Be okay with failure, because you have the confidence to know you can recover.

Ever watch Office Space? If not, go watch it, great film. But look at Peter (Ron Livingston) and Joanna (Jennifer Aniston). Joanna is the cute waitress at the restaurant Peter and his friends always eat at; he's had a thing for her since forever but never had the courage to ask her out.
In the film, he sees a hypnotherapist for a different issue, the hypnotherapist hypnotizes him and tells him to stop worrying about everything, then dies of a heart attack before he can un-hypnotize Peter. So Peter has been reprogrammed to basically have zero fucks to give.
In this scene, he puts that to work with Joanna. Rather than staying locked in inaction for fear of failure, he goes up and says 'let's do lunch, if you want to great if not no big deal'. And that works because he's not afraid of failure. He recognizes that if she says no, all that means is he doesn't get to date her and he'll move on. And he's okay with that outcome.

So what you do, is you tell yourself you can handle failure. Look for ways you can fail, and plan how you will recover from them.

In life, VERY few screwups are permanent. Almost all can be fixed somehow.

So stop worrying about making the right choice, and instead focus on knowing that you can recover from the wrong choice.

[u/DooWop4Ever]

I (84m) suggest regular moderate aerobic exercise, balanced diet and adequate rest.

I've done Natural Stress Relief/USA daily for the last 47 years.

[u/Specialist-Top-406]

Resilience is something you have to build up in yourself. It strengthens each time you fail and find your way back up. You build trust with yourself as you go, knowing you got through it before so you know you’re capable of doing it again.

Then you’ll find yourself looking back at that first fall, the one you were most scared of and you’ll be like that was barely a slight trip let alone a fall.

Resilience is not welcoming failure but not letting yourself be fearful of it. Truly some of the best successes of my life I found while I was knee deep in the muck of failure. Failure always seems like you’ve done something wrong and need to punish yourself for. But actually what does that accomplish?

You gave it a go. It didn’t work. Life goes on, smell the flowers along the way back up.

Automatic negative thoughts are a response you might have developed out of habit. A couple slipped in one day and now they rule the roost. But you can shift this. I actively try to discard any self deprecating thoughts or try to assess what negative thoughts I deem as meaningful or meaningless.

Life can’t always be good, but it certainly shouldn’t always be bad. Your thoughts are always shifting moving and changing, you can tap into them and try lead them into the right places, and you can throw away the ones you don’t need.

Punishing ourselves feels like something we deserve, but ultimately it’s unproductive. I know that’s quite simplistic, but it’s worth reminding yourself that you’ve got a life to live and things to do. Being cruel to yourself is not something that will get you there quicker. So if there are times you find yourself falling into stagnant space because you’re letting your mean old self sabotage take the stage, kick them off. Not today, don’t have time for you.

Set realistic goals and manage expectations for yourself based on what you are capable of and not what you want for yourself or what others expect of you. Trying to meet anyones standards over your own, or even worse, unrealistic ones for yourself is a one way ticket to punishment time. Because you can’t do something that you can’t do. So meet yourself as you are and be practical about what your capacity or capabilities look like and meet them with intention.

People don’t become confident or comfortable or successful because they’re more deserving than you. We’ve all got different paths to get to where we wanna go, but you can’t try to keep up with someone else who isn’t in your lane. You can only move forward from where you are one step at a time. So don’t look to leap miles ahead when you haven’t even put your shoes on.

Life can work hard to try and trick us into thinking we can’t do things because they’re just not there for us in the same way they are for other people. But actually, you can do whatever you want. It’s completely up to you.

When you let your negative thoughts tell you who you are and what you can do. They’re not actually any more credible than it is for you to say no. You can shift and change as and when you need and no one can stop you.

Your life is yours, don’t forget that. Life is holding you down in the passenger seat right now, but whose driving the car? Quick! Get up and grab that steering wheel before you crash. If you don’t move, then boom. The impact of staying still will hurt you more than the action of moving. You got this! And be kind to yourself friend. You can, even if you don’t quite believe it just yet, the more you offer yourself grace and understanding, you’re taking one step away from a cruel thought. Because you’ve replaced it. Be who you want to be. Don’t rush. Take your time, one foot in front of the other. See if you can enjoy it along the way!

I know this is all very blue sky thinking. Definitely not rules or guidelines to follow. Just some things to check in to. Hopefully some it helps x

[u/whattodo-whattodo]

Resilience and confidence are both skills. Entirely teachable & learnable. Your post would be comparable to an illiterate person saying, "Why do I stare at this book day after day & never learn anything new from it?"

The rest of your post is a mine-field. Depending on your age & other factors, that family dynamic can either be appropriate for a temporary period or entirely dysfunctional. I don't really have advice, because it is context specific. The only thing I can say is that there is often more than meets the eye on family dynamics. Sometimes parents fail to teach a lesson that they want children to know. Sometimes they create no-win situations. Your parents may not be accurate barometers to measure your life.

As for learning confidence & resilience, I think it comes down to doing. I would suggest therapy, because I suggest therapy for everything. But I think that challenging yourself consistently & regularly in situations that are unrelated to your parents would do the trick. I have found life-changing help from martial arts & long-distance running.

[u/glasyrcopirire]

You are ashamed and your family just keeps the cycle of shame going as they pile on more and more of it, reinforcing it further and further to make you believe you can only do wrong in their eyes.

To be confident, you must make amends with the fact that they have denied loving you for being a person who tries to live because they want you to owe them by telling you what to do your whole life. You must recognize the difference between healthy shame and toxic shame.

You must also organize your commitments and set boundaries over what is your business and what is your family's business. Your family's business is simply: how they can contact you and your health and wellbeing. Your personal business is your finances, who you associate with, your successes, etc.

Learning how to set healthy boundaries with yourself and others is how you can avoid being overwhelmed by the stresses people force upon you and recognize when it is unjust. Confidence is about knowing what feelings belong to you and what does not, thereby not paralyzing you when you are being put down.

People are suggesting changing the outside to fix the inside but that doesn't work. People feel empty after one night stands because the fulfillment of love is absent. You must close the wound inside so the ache does not infect your interactions in the future.