In today’s video, I’m going to share why “mindset work” doesn’t always work for certain people, the very important step most people don’t realize they’re missing, plus a simple 3-step process to shift your approach to mindset work so you can build lasting, sustainable self-confidence.
Figuring out how to build self-confidence can feel like an uphill battle. Maybe you’ve tried what the personal development experts say you “should” do:
- Affirmations
- Positive thinking
- Confidence hacks
- Motivational videos
…and yet, you still struggle with self-confidence more than you’d like to. You’re not alone.
Here’s what I want you to know upfront: Mindset work can be powerful. As a life coach, I use it a lot with my clients and in my own life.
However, when your nervous system is dysregulated, mindset work isn’t the whole solution, or even the first step. With a dysregulated nervous system, mindset work can become less effective. It’s not because you’re doing it wrong, but because you’re missing a piece most people were never taught.
Mindset is kind of like jeans… here’s how
Trying to do mindset work without regulating your nervous system first is kind of like trying to put on wet jeans. It’s difficult, uncomfortable, and not ideal.
Just like jeans are good, mindset work can be incredibly beneficial and transformative. It’s a good thing! However, just like with wet jeans, mindset work doesn’t fit well or feel good when the nervous system is dysregulated.
By the end of this article, you’ll understand why mindset work tends to be less effective when stress response is involved, how that connects to confidence struggles, and what a more complete, skills-based approach looks like for building lasting self-confidence.
This is especially relevant if you function well day-to-day, but still struggle with confidence in specific situations, especially those that involve uncertainty, visibility, evaluation, or disappointing someone.
If you’re struggling to build self-confidence, it’s rarely because you’re “doing it wrong”
When you struggle with self-confidence, it can feel like you keep getting stuck in the same patterns.
You might:
- Overthink instead of moving forward
- Overwork to prevent mistakes or judgment
- Procrastinate, even when you care about the goal
- Freeze, feel mentally foggy, or struggle to take action
It’s easy to interpret these patterns as personal flaws or assume the solution is simply stronger self-discipline, more motivation, or a “better mindset.”
In many cases, though, the patterns you struggle with actually make tons of sense when you understand that your brain and nervous system are sensing what they think is danger, and are trying to protect you.
When you view these patterns from the perspective of a frightened brain and an activated nervous system, the patterns still aren’t helpful… but they do make sense. You can learn more about that in this article and video on how nervous system regulation helps build self-confidence.
Why mindset work can be less effective when your nervous system is activated
When your nervous system is activated in fight, flight, or freeze modes (in other words, your stress response is active), it changes how your brain operates.
When a part of your brain that I call the Security Guard senses what she interprets as danger, she sounds the alarm in your body.
As a result, resources are directed away from the “thinking” part of your brain that is responsible for things like reasoning, planning, problem-solving, and future thinking. That part of your brain largely goes offline. Those resources are shifted to help you fight off a threat, flee from danger, or freeze to avoid making yourself a target. This is what we call nervous system activation or stress response.
Sounds helpful, right?
However, the Security Guard sometimes sounds the alarm when there isn’t any actual danger. In other words, her perceptions of danger aren’t always accurate. She does her best to scan your present environment for potential danger based on what she knows about your past (in fact, she’s an expert on it). Her predictions, though, aren’t always correct.
So, long story short, when your Security Guard senses a threat and sounds her alarm, your brain and body are primed to fight, run away, or shut down, and the logical part of your brain is more or less out to lunch. Not the best state of mind to build self-confidence in, right?
This is why you can genuinely want to feel more confident, and still struggle to follow through on what you know you “should” do in the moment.
When stress response is active, your brain often defaults to familiar patterns
When your Security Guard senses what she interprets as risk or danger (that could be physical, social, or emotional risk), she tends to fall back on familiar patterns.
Even if you’ve learned new strategies for managing your mindset and building confidence, your brain may revert to older coping patterns because they’re ingrained in neural pathways and feel convincing in the moment.
That’s why it can feel so frustrating. You can know what you “should” do and still struggle to do it consistently when pressure rises.
If mindset work isn’t helping, it’s easy to assume something is wrong with you
If you’ve ever thought, “Why can’t I just act differently?” or “Why can’t I apply all the mindset stuff I’ve learned?” you’re not alone.
It can feel easy to decide that mindset tools don’t work for you when doing mindset work doesn’t create the changes you want to see in yourself.
Most of the time, what’s actually happening is simpler than that (and something most people don’t realize): You’re skipping an important step. Chances are, your Security Guard is sounding the alarm and diverting resources away from your logical brain, which is the part of the brain you’re trying to engage when you’re doing mindset work.
Soothing your Security Guard and helping her turn off the alarm is step one. That’s called nervous system regulation, and it’s the step many people don’t realize they’re skipping. Once your Security Guard is feeling more calm, mindset work becomes step two. So many people think they’re failing when mindset work doesn’t work for them. In reality, they’re just kind of putting the cart before the horse.
When your stress response is active, the goal is not to “think your way out of it” through sheer cognitive force. Instead, the goal is to support your nervous system first so your thinking brain can come back online. Then, mindset work becomes more effective and impactful, and it becomes easier and more realistic to build self-confidence.
The patterns you struggle with often protect you from emotional discomfort
When people feel stuck in terms of how to build confidence, they often assume the issue is motivation or willpower.
More often, the issue is their relationship with emotional discomfort.
Pursuing growth and showing up confidently can bring up emotions like:
- Uncertainty
- Vulnerability
- Fear of judgment
- Fear of failure
- Discouragement
- Disappointment
The patterns you struggle with often serve one purpose: To help you avoid those uncomfortable feelings in the short term.
Overworking can be a way to avoid uncertainty by trying to control the outcome. Procrastination can be a way to avoid vulnerability by delaying action. Freezing can be a way to avoid the discomfort of initiating something that feels high-stakes.
I want to make it clear here that this doesn’t make you lazy, shameful, or “messed up.” This is a normal human reaction and actually, a survival adaptation.
Emotional discomfort is inevitable
Emotional discomfort is a part of life as a human. The interesting thing is that when we avoid short-term emotional discomfort, we often end up experiencing emotional discomfort down the road anyway.
Think about procrastinating on something important, then being mad or disappointed in yourself for waiting so long to take action. Emotional discomfort exists either way. Do you want to experience discomfort because you’re moving forward, or because you aren’t?
I also want to say here that it can be really easy to notice how you’ve avoided emotional discomfort now or in the past and get upset with yourself.
You can’t change how you showed up in the past. And, chances are, you were doing the best you could at the time with the skills and knowledge you had. Instead of criticizing yourself, have compassion for that past version of you, and decide that you’ll work to shift how you show up now that you know more.
How emotional discomfort can help build self-confidence
So, yes, emotional discomfort is inevitable. The good news, though, is that you can use it as a tool.
Instead of trying to eliminate emotional discomfort altogether, learn to build your capacity to experience it (instead of avoiding it) and move forward anyway. When you show yourself that the discomfort your brain is afraid of is 1) survivable and 2) not as bad as it wants you to believe, that helps build self-confidence. It creates evidence that you can navigate whatever comes up, even if it’s uncomfortable.
How much more confident would you feel if you believed that you could navigate whatever comes up?
How to build self-confidence when mindset work hasn’t worked in the past
If mindset work hasn’t worked for you in the past and you’re trying to figure out how to build self-confidence, here’s the approach I want you to consider. It blends three things:
- Nervous system regulation (soothing your nervous system during stress response): Recognizing what’s happening with your Security Guard and working with her to turn off the alarm so you can access the “thinking” part of your brain.
- Mindset work (thoughts, emotions, beliefs): Yes, the thing that hasn’t worked for you in the past… but, we’re going to approach it differently this time.
- Leaning into resilient discomfort: Recognizing discomfort that can serve you long-term and exercising your capacity to move through it and keep going.
You don’t need a complicated system to build self-confidence. Instead, these 3 basic steps can be cycled over and over to help you build self-confidence over time in a way that shifts your mindset while also honoring and retraining your Security Guard. You can return to this 3-step process when you notice the patterns you struggle with showing up.
Why this approach is so important
What often underlies confidence struggles (and this was true for me) is trauma response. Trauma response is more common than many people realize, and it doesn’t always show up as something dramatic or obvious. Often, it shows up through stress response patterns that quietly shape how you think, feel, and react in moments that involve vulnerability, uncertainty, or perceived risk. You can learn more about how trauma response impacts self-confidence in this article and video.
That’s one reason I pursued a trauma and resilience coaching certification in addition to my life coaching certification. It helped me recognize trauma response in my clients and equip them to navigate it effectively, which is something that my mindset coaching certification alone did not prepare me to do. It also reinforced what I see again and again: Lasting self-confidence is built through a blended approach that includes mindset work, nervous system regulation, and resilience-building over time.
Closing thoughts
Mindset work isn’t “bad.” It’s valuable, and in many ways, it has changed my life and the lives of my clients. It’s also just a part of the whole picture when it comes to building self-confidence.
If your brain and nervous system are responding as if something is risky, mindset work can become less effective. When you use nervous system regulation to support yourself through stress response first, mindset work becomes more effective and impactful. Concurrently, resilient discomfort becomes a skill you can build in real time.
If you’re struggling with confidence, it isn’t because you’re “doing it wrong.” You’re just missing a piece of the puzzle, and now it’s time to learn how to support yourself differently.
If you want help applying this to the patterns you struggle with so you can build sustainable self-confidence in the moments that matter most, schedule a Coaching Consultation here: https://www.amyschield.com/book.
A Coaching Consultation is a 30-minute conversation where we get clear on what’s really driving your struggles with confidence. I’ll listen closely, ask clarifying questions, and uncover the beneath-the-surface patterns that are keeping self-doubt in the driver’s seat. You’ll leave with insights and a simple next-step, whether we decide to work together or not. If it isn’t a good fit, I’ll point you toward other options.
