The Introvert Leader

How to Rebuild Confidence (The Confidence Blueprint: Part 2)

• Austin Hopkins

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In Part 1 of The Confidence Blueprint, we talked about how to build confidence: what it looks like, why it matters, and what actually works.

But what happens when your confidence takes a hit? When failure, rejection, or self-doubt throws you off?

Part 2 is about how to rebuild your confidence when it's been shaken. I’ll walk you through the exact strategies that helped me bounce back, plus how to shift your mindset when things get tough.


Timestamp

:36 — Storytime: A personal story of failing two audits, self-doubt creeping in, and the turning point that helped rebuild belief.

5:16 — What It Feels Like To Lose Confidence: Isolation, shame, overthinking, and that “sliding down the hill” feeling — this is what it really feels like to lose your edge, and why it’s more common than we think.

10:10  — Reframing Failure: Failure isn’t the end — it’s feedback. Learn how to reframe losses so they sharpen your skills and fuel your next step.

15:22 — Strategies To Rebuild Your Confidence: 4 practical tools to build yourself back up: highlight reels, small wins, positive self-talk, and more.

22:20 — Signs You Are On The Right Path: Not sure if your confidence is improving? Here are clear signals you’re headed in the right direction.

24:14 — Challenge for Listeners: List 3 to 5 things you’re proud of from this year. Big or small. Then reflect on what they say about you.



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Hello. This is your host, Austin Hopkins, and welcome to the introvert leader podcast.
Okay, in part one, we talked about how to build confidence. We talked about why it mattered, what it looks and sounds like, but what happens when your confidence gets shaken, when something really bad happens and you don't know how to get past it? That's what I want to talk about today. I want to give you the strategies to rebuild your confidence once it takes a hit. Now I want to kick things off and tell you a story about a time where my confidence took a major hit. So it's 2010s I'm working at that large corporate bank, and I'm a branch manager. At the time, each branch manager was responsible for sales and service and operational excellence. And a part of operational excellence was a financial audit that happened once a year, maybe twice a year, if you were lucky. And this audit score stayed with you for the entire year. For the people that did really well, that meant more money, bonuses, promotions, you name it. For the people that didn't do well, it meant shame. It meant being written up and potentially even fired if things didn't go well. So failing an audit, obviously, was like a big no no. You had to pass your audits. You had to make that a priority. I'll start by saying audits are not my strong suit. That's not where I thrive. I don't thrive in the nitty gritty details of that kind of stuff. It's not to say I can't do it. It's just not my strength zone or my favorite thing. So I get asked to lead a new branch, and within a few months of me being there, we have our first audit. And leading up to that audit, I had done what I could. I wanted to make sure we were in a good spot, you know, reviewed the procedures and who was handling what and what our processes were, and we failed. We absolutely failed the audit. It was super embarrassing. And you know, I'm thinking to myself, My gosh, are they already regretting their decision on bringing me on board, like, What the hell am I doing here, Austin? Whatever. I keep my head down, and I assure the team. Hey, we're going to pass this next one. Don't you worry. And so this is where I kind of turn it up to another level. I am inspecting everything I could imagine. I am making sure people are clear on their expectations. I am making sure we have good end of day processes, good end of week processes. I mean, this audit is very exhaustive, right? They're looking at the signature cards from the accounts that were opened every day. They're looking at the wire transfers that were sent out. They're looking at making sure that every account was labeled correctly in the computer. I mean, very detailed stuff. So I'm going through all that and making sure my entire team knows how important it is. So about six months to eight months later, we get our next audit. I'm so excited I see the auditors in the parking lot. I'm like, this thing is going to go, Well, I got this, no problem, right? So guess what happens? They come in, they do the audit, and they find six things wrong, not just 123456, things wrong, which is, like, a ton of things to find wrong in the audit. I am gutted at this point, I could not be any more depressed about what's going on. I'm thinking to myself, Austin, you have failed two audits in a row. They literally asked you to come to this branch to turn it around, and you've done the exact opposite. You failed two very, very important audits. So at this point I am just like questioning, should I be in this branch? Can I handle this? Am I even capable of doing operational excellence? I don't even know if I'm capable at this point, and I just keep telling myself, though, it can't get any worse, like, I'm not gonna fail three audits. Like, there's no way that's gonna happen. So I just keep putting my head down and I make sure the team knows that, like, hey, that's okay that we failed a couple of audits. But there's some other cool stuff that's going on, right? I wanted our attention to go on the stuff that was actually going well, because we were doing really well in some other areas. Our service scores were fantastic. We were getting really great feedback from our clients. Our sales were doing fantastic. We were seeing an upward momentum and trajectory as far as our sales. And so there was bright spots, right? And it could have been really easy for me to just focus on the audit and why everything wasn't going well, and how the branch was kind of failing, but I just knew that there was going to be a path that got us to a passing audit. I just knew we could do it like I knew that if I kept focusing on the stuff that mattered, kept delegating, kept making sure everyone understood what was at stake, making sure the vision was set, making sure that I was inspecting what I expected, like I knew we were going to get there, and sure enough, the next audit we passed, it, I felt so freaking amazing. I cannot tell you how excited I am. Probably better than when I got promotions in the past. I probably felt better than when I got a pay raise or when I took over a new branch like this was a win that I really, really worked for. But during that season, after I had filled that second audit, my goodness, could I have imagined that we were going to get past it and move to the next step? Yeah, I can imagine. But man, it felt like it was far away. And, man, it felt like it was overwhelming. And so I tell you that story just to show that you can 100%
absolutely come from some really crap. Happy Times, rebuild your confidence, get to another level, to where you're actually achieving the things that you know you're capable of achieving. So that's what I want to dig into further today. I want to talk about how to rebuild confidence. I want to give you some stories, some examples, some strategies. So what I want to do now is cover what it actually feels like to lose confidence. Maybe you've felt some of these things. Maybe you've been in the situation where you are not feeling good, things are not going well. When confidence takes a hit, bad stuff starts happening. So the first thing is, I feel like everyone is judging me. I feel shame. I feel like everybody's eyes are looking at Austin and saying, oh my gosh, you did that. You made that mistake. What a loser. I can't believe you did that. How lame, like, literally, those are the feelings that I feel sometimes, right? Everyone's looking at me, everyone's judging me. You know, the entire company's talking about it. Well, I think you probably know this, when, in reality, no one gives a shit. What's going on in your life? Now, there may be some you may say, well, Austin, there are some people that care about what I'm doing. At the end of the day, who gives a shit? What those people think if they're not rooting for you, if there's somebody who's rooting against you, you don't really give a shit. What they think? There's no value there. So everyone's judging you. Everyone's, you know, looking at what you're doing. You feel shame. Don't feel good. Another one is, I feel like when I'm losing my confidence, I kind of go from flowing to forcing. So when I'm flowing, what I mean by that is I'm just taking action, making decisions, and I'm not overthinking it right I'm not stuck in paralysis. I'm not worried if I'm doing the right thing. I'm not thinking about the worst possible outcomes. I just am taking action and just doing stuff because it just feels like I'm capable and I'm confident to do stuff. So the opposite of that happens when my confidence takes a hit, I start to overthink every little thing, things that I used to do at work, emails that I used to sit without overthinking I'm like, should I send that? Or, you know, ideas that I might have, you know, volunteered to present in the past maybe I'm not doing because I don't know if I can handle it. So those are the kind of things that I start to feel is I start to overthink instead of just taking action and doing the things that I know I can do. Another one is self silencing. So I gotta be honest with you, self silencing is dangerous, right? We start to tell ourself things won't work out. We start to silence our ideas, our passion, our energy, because it's not going to work out. Why take the risk if it's going to fail? I don't want to fail. I don't want to take that risk, and so we hold back, right? And I think at the end of the day, obviously, big mistake, because we should let the world tell us to stop. We shouldn't try to stop things before they've even happened. Like, if you can't be your own best motivator, your biggest advocate, no one else is going to do that for you. That's on you. So if you are finding that you're not being an advocate for yourself, your confidence has probably taken a hit. You're second guessing stuff, right? I think another one is it feels isolating when I feel like my confidence is going down in the toilet. I feel isolated. I feel like I'm on this journey on this island by myself that no one else is dealing with. This is this massive rock or obstacle I got to get around that I just don't think I can do. And it does not feel good at all. I got to tell you I've been there, and I know how isolating it can feel. And you know you might even start comparing yourself to others and being like, well, I don't think Susie's messing with that. I don't think Johnny struggles with that. Well, Tony always seems so confident, and so you just feel more and more isolated. Nobody else is dealing with this. It's just me. I'm the only one who's going through this. That's just not the facts. Everybody is dealing with insecurity. Every single day, there's little moments of insecurity that pops up. Everyone's not talking about it, because everyone else is worried about what they're feeling. So just because you're feeling it doesn't mean no one else is in fact, they're probably feeling the same kind of things you are. So if you're feeling insecure at work, just know there's other people that are feeling that way as well. I've talked to the most confident people you could ever imagine in my career, and they've also dealt with confidence, and they've shared that with me. So don't feel like you're alone. I think the last one is the hill, or the journey seems too big when you take a hit to your confidence. It feels like the journey to get where you were or to get back to where things should be, it just feels impossible. I mean, it's like a Lord of the Rings level quest, like it is just impossible. There's dragons and there's freaking bad guys, and there's obstacles, and there's things that you just cannot even imagine, that you can't get through. It's just too much, and that doesn't feel good. It feels like the journey is impossible. Well, the reality is, it's just a long journey, right? And it's going to take time, but it's not impossible. It's just going to take you to take action and make some adjustments and use some of the strategies that we're talking about today, obviously. So those are the things that I feel when I'm losing my confidence, and usually when my confidence takes a hit, it's because I've experienced some kind of failure, something didn't go well, and I'm now questioning the future. I don't know, Can I can I handle this? Is there more failure coming my way? And I think at the end of the day, failure is going to happen over and over again. So I want to move into the next section where we break down reframing failure. So I don't want to spend the next five minutes telling you why failure is a good thing. You've heard that from successful CEOs and athletes and a list celebrities. I don't need to go into that any further. You understand that failure is important, but I don't know if you understand how to reframe failure. You might have heard the term failure is good, okay? That doesn't really help me when I'm going through confidence slumps, right? So I want to give you a couple of different ways that I have reframed failure in my own life that have really helped me go from fearing failure and not taking action and not doing what I should do because I'm afraid of failure to embracing it and actually seeing it, in some cases, as actually a positive. I know that sounds a little cliche, but that's the reality. I've actually started to see failure a little differently. So I want to give you three different ways to reframe failure. So number one, I believe when we're experiencing failure, we're getting feedback. We are literally getting feedback about the things that don't work. So when I try a new idea out with my team, if I'm a leader, and I introduce a new concept, a new idea, to my team, and nobody responds to it, and nobody takes it up over the next couple of months, I'm going to look at that situation as a failure and say, Okay, well, why did it fail? Was my idea presented clear enough? Did I get people to understand the gravity of it? Did I get the buy in before I moved forward? Was I clear on my expectations? What was it and then I get to use that information and figure out what didn't go well so that the next time I introduce an idea to my team, it's well thought out. I've made sure I've got buy in. I've tied it to something that actually matters. People understand the gravity of it. I make sure I inspect it right. So those things are different, and we're literally getting feedback when we fail. So the next time something doesn't go well at work, something doesn't go well in your home life, instead of just immediately going to this sucks. I hate this. Why didn't it go well, I can't handle it. Instead say, Okay, why didn't that go well? What did I not do that I should have done? Was I not listening to my gut? Did I not follow through? Like ask yourself some questions to figure out why it didn't go well. And guess what? The next time you try that thing, it's gonna go a little better, because you have some feedback and you've made some adjustments. So that's the first thing. Use those failures as feedback gold mines. That's the key, right there. Okay, number two, it's preparing me for the next big thing. So this one kind of comes from my faith. I remember reading in the Bible and growing up and just hearing the message that like we go through hard times, but it prepares us for the next big thing. And I really believe that to be true. When something doesn't go well at work, I learn something new, so that the next time a similar situation, or even harder situation pops up, I'm better equipped to handle it. And had I not gone through that failure, had I not experienced that hardship, I would not be able to handle it. So just imagine you're a baby. You can't run
before you walk, and you can't walk before you crawl. And every time a baby gets up and tries to walk and they fall down, they're getting a little bit better, and they're now a little bit more equipped to walk. And then they start walking, and they keep falling, and that's failure, right? And yet they keep getting back up so they can keep walking again. My little nephew is going through that right now. I'm on and he just started walking this last week, and he's fallen, right? He's fallen a lot, and that's failure, right? And that's part of life, but you get back up and you're a little bit better, and you know how to balance yourself, and you know how to carry yourself a little bit better. Same thing with your life. It's preparing you for the next big thing. So every time you experience a big failure, instead of focusing on it, feeling bad about it, feeling sorry for yourself, I want you to then say, Okay, this first preparing me for the next big thing. Had I not gone through this, I wouldn't be prepared for the next hard thing. And it all builds, right? Our skills build. We don't just magically grow up being ready to do certain things. You've got to build up those skills. You build up the skills through trial and error and failure. And this is my last thought when it comes to reframing failure, I believe failure makes the journey way more interesting. If everything is good and there's no contrast and there's no dimension, and everything is on an uphill trajectory, it's good, it's positive, it's sunshine and rainbows that makes nothing valuable. When everything's good, nothing's valuable. Things that are valuable come through the contrast of the failure the bad with the good. We work hard for the promotion. We get it, then we're proud of it, right? If we were just given a promotion without working for it, if we were just given a bunch of opportunities without any kind of failure or trial and error, will they mean as much we didn't work for them? So we have no skin in the game. And so I really think that's the last thing, if you can appreciate failure, not in a cheesy, uplifting, positive way, like pretending it doesn't exist, but just realizing you're going to go through failures in your life, and at the end of the day, when you look back at your life, you're going to be okay with the different ups and downs you had. It's going to make your life interesting. It's not going to just seem like it. An easy movie that's going to have some stakes. So stop letting the fear of failure hold you back. Instead, embrace failure for what it is, opportunity to learn, opportunity to prepare yourself for the next big thing, and it makes life interesting. Okay, what I want to do is transition into the four strategies to help you rebuild confidence. So here are the strategies that I've used. Each of them on their own is effective, but when you put them all together, you are going to be unstoppable. You're going to be so freaking confident that when you walk through the door, they're going to have to widen the door frame because your head is too big. You're barely going to be able to fit in there, because you're going to be so freaking confident, I kid, obviously. But seriously, each of these are very effective, and the power comes from putting them together. So the first one I talked about in part one, which is go through your highlight reel. So I want you to do me a favor and remember your highlight reel. So when is the last time you replayed the wins that you've had in your life? I'm talking about the stuff that you're proud of, the big stuff. I'm talking about the small stuff that just went well. I'm talking about replaying good stuff that has gone well in your life, in your career, in your relationships, in your health, in your wealth, in your financial security. I want you to think about the last time you've done that. Have you ever done that? Is that even something that's on your radar, if not, that's a problem, because we are all experiencing wins all the time, whether or not we've identified them, whether or not we've replayed them or savored them, we're experiencing wins, and if we're only chasing the next big thing and we're forgetting the good wins as they happen, well, we're then on this weird hamster wheel where we're always chasing something else and we're not accepting the positives that we already have. So do me a favor when your confidence is in the toilet. I want you to take a moment and think about your highlight reel. What is something you're proud of? Is it the way you showed up with your family? Is it your level of attention at your work? Is it your commitment at the gym? Is it your consistency with eating clean? What's one or two things that you're proud of, things that go well, if you can even just spend five to 10 minutes thinking about those things, it's gonna take you from, I can't handle the future, I'm insecure, I'm not confident, to, hey, you know what? I've had some wins in the past. I'm not a complete piece of shit. I've got some value. There's some good stuff happening here. I'm just in a slump right now. The next one is positive self talk. You've heard me talk about this a lot on the podcast, and I keep talking about it because it's so freaking important. The internal monolog, the things that are going on our brain, creates the reality in our lives. It literally shapes the reality around you. So if I am constantly talking negatively about myself, I then start to believe that, and then I start to attract that from others. I'm not good enough. I can't do this. This isn't gonna go well. Guess what? People start feeding on that. That guy's showing insecurity. I don't know if Austin can handle it. I don't think Austin's ready for this. He looks like he's in over his head, right? These are the things that we start to believe when we say about ourselves. So positive self talk is the key when it comes to changing your perception of yourself. So a couple of different things you got to keep in mind. The first thing is, it's going to be a little uncomfortable. It's going to feel fake, like I'm saying some things about myself that I don't necessarily believe to be true, and that's okay if it's first, if it's fake, I'm okay with that. Fake is better than talking shit about yourself. So it could be in the beginning of the day, like today's gonna go, Well, I know I can handle this. I'm an effective communicator. I'm going to do my very best. It could be something like that, or it could be, you know what I'm capable of doing this. I've been in this industry for 10 years. I know what I'm doing. Or it could be something like this. You know what? I know for a fact that I'm a good leader, and I'm going to do things today to make sure my team knows that I care about them. Whatever it is, positive self talk. Very, very, very important to rebuild confidence, because when we're having those low moments of losing our confidence, that's where we start to feel bad for ourselves, and things don't go so well the next one. Get small wins. So I think this is a really easy one, which is, find some things you can get some wins on. It doesn't have to be big things. I'm talking the smallest, smallest, tiniest, tiniest, little win. Okay, maybe you need an example. So you might think, well, Austin, I don't really do anything. That's cool. I don't really get any wins at work. Let me ask you some questions. Did you show up to work on time today? Did you get the work done that your boss asked you to? Did you yell at anybody today? Did you do your job with a smile on your face? Did you build a new connection with someone? Did you get out of your comfort zone for a little bit? Did you do something you wouldn't normally do anytime you're doing something that you perceive as valuable? I want you to try to get more of those things. Try to focus on getting small, small wins. Because guess what? You get enough small wins, they turn into a medium win. Enough. Medium wins turn into a large win. Enough. Large wins turns into confidence, baby. That's what we want. We want to be confident. So we got to get a pattern of wins. Winning makes us feel confident and capable, and capable makes us feel confident. Okay, so the last one is, I want you to accept the confidence phase that you're in. So this one's a little bit more challenging, because you might. Be feeling super insecure right now. You don't know what you're doing. You feel like you're in over your head. You feel like people are gonna figure you out. Okay, that's okay. I want you to stop fighting that and accept the phase that you're in. You're in a phase right now where you feel a little insecure. Okay, so what we all go through that the most successful people on Earth have gone through moments when they're insecure. The problem is most people spend all that time focusing on that. I wish I wasn't insecure. Oh, I wish I was more confident. I don't feel well. This isn't good, you know, I wish I was like everybody else, and you're then left just thinking about how things aren't going well. But if you instead tell yourself and label and say, Hey, right now I'm feeling insecure, this isn't going so well, I wish things were going better. It's a thought that you're observing and you're labeling, and that's great, but you're not necessarily giving into it. You're not ruminating it. You're not focusing on it. So you can, 100% rebuild your confidence using these in fact, I've used these strategies not just at work, but in my own personal life as well. In 2015
I'm doing some mountain biking with my dad, and I'm going over this wooden structure that goes up about 20 feet, goes to a plateau, and then it goes down this steep drop off. And I have been kind of working my way up and doing littler ones here and there, ones that were maybe 10 feet, five feet. And so I see the 20 foot one. I go up it. I go off the top. I don't have enough speed. I come crashing down. I shatter my collarbone. Oh my gosh. I am freaking out. I've never broke a bone before. It hurts like hell. And so I go home, I start recovering, right? Fast forward, my dad's like, six months later, he's like, Hey, we should go bike riding. I just am. I'm not ready for it at this point. I'm too nervous. I'm worried I'm gonna fall I'm like, I just can't do this. This is too much. I'm overwhelmed. I'm scared, honestly, genuinely, I'm not afraid to admit it. I was scared of breaking my collarbone again. And, you know, was it up to it? And I slowly had to rebuild my confidence. I had to get on the bike a little bit. So, you know, we would go, go right on flat stuff, and then eventually we would go and, do you know, some of the smaller, more technical stuff. And eventually I got back to where I was before. Now, I didn't go over that jump anymore, because I'm not a madman, but I did build my confidence back up so I could go enjoy mountain biking, and now I can enjoy mountain biking again, but that took time, right? We rebuild our confidence so, and I share that little story just to let you know, this kind of stuff applies to any area or life, not just your career. So let's say you've tried some of these strategies, and you think your confidence might be on the rise, but you're not necessarily sure. I'm gonna give you a couple of different signs so you can know that, hey, my confidence is on the right track. I'm feeling a little bit better. I'm moving, I'm grooving. So the first one is, you're doing versus overthinking. We mentioned it a moment ago, but if you're in your confidence zone, right, if you're feeling confident, things are going well. You are just taking action. You're not overthinking every little thing, because these are all things you know you're capable of doing. You've done before, and you are sure you can handle it. So if you're finding that you're just doing stuff and that you're not overthinking like things that you used to think about a lot now just kind of seem easy. They come naturally to you. Probably a good sign that you're on the right track. Confidence is on the rise, and you're in that flow state, baby, you're just doing what you need to do. Next one, you're seeing positive results. So this one's kind of an obvious one, but are you getting external feedback at your job, like, are people saying good things about you? Are you getting raises or promotions, or are you getting recognized? If those things are happening, that means you're in your confidence zone, right? You are doing things that you're good at, that are turning out well, and people are seeing that and then giving you kudos for it. That should be a clear sign you're on the right path. If you're getting feedback from co workers, from friends, from family, that hey, you're doing valuable stuff, you should absolutely take that as a sign that your confidence is on the rise. And then I think the last one is you recover from setbacks faster, right? So things that used to take you out for weeks and months now maybe just bum you out for a day or two, or things that used to just totally wreck your confidence, now you can kind of brush off and like they bum you out, but it's no big deal. You can recover. So I think that's the key. If you're recovering a lot faster and maybe even not even getting stressed out about things that you used to that means you're on the right track. So I'm hoping some of those strategies are going to lead to some of these signs for you genuinely, I hope that you try some of these strategies. You start feeling better, you start making moves at work, doing things you need to do, and getting the results that you want. What I want to do is wrap up by giving you a challenge. So this week, I want you to take a couple minutes and come up with three to five things you're proud of, and they can be big, they can be small. I don't care. I want you to come up with that list. Don't tell me you can't come up with three to five things. I know you can. What are three to five things that, if you show to someone else, you would say, Yeah, I'm proud of this. I think this was good. I think this was valuable. And then I want you to look at that. I want you to just think about that today, when you're feeling insecure next week, I want you to think about it. I want you to go want you to go over it and realize you have value. You've been valuable before. You're going through a slump. That's okay. Things are turning around, and there's more good to come. So I hope this confidence series was helpful. I really enjoyed breaking down how to build confidence, how to rebuild it. These are all things that I've experienced. Experience intimately, that I know the challenges of what it's like, and I just want to let you know that confidence is something that we're all working on. I hope I come across as confident on this podcast, because I do feel confident in what I'm saying. But just so you know, on the other side of this camera, there's insecurity. Every time I go to press record, I feel insecure. Every time I did something big at work, I felt insecure the first time. Over time you get better at it, you feel more confident. You take risks, you take action. Good stuff starts to happen. So I want to say thank you so much for listening. Make it a great day.
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Austin Hopkins

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