How to Activate Your Confidence
- 5 hours ago
- 6 min read
Tara Swann is an Emotional Empowerment & Embodiment Coach and three-time Author who guides women to alchemise emotional patterns, reclaim their inner power, and manifest a life that reflects their deepest truth.
As someone who struggled with anxiety for most of my life, I thought confidence was just something some people were gifted with. Anxiety was something I identified with, and something I thought I had to live with forever, until I discovered that the doorway between my anxiety and confidence was feeling.
You don’t have anxiety
When I was diagnosed with anxiety in my early 20s, I thought it was a life sentence. I’d think to myself, “I have anxiety now, and it’s just something I have to live with,” but what I wrote in my book, You Don’t Have Anxiety, is that anxiety should never be a diagnosis, it is a symptom, a symptom of something deeper.
Eighteen months into my coaching business, I announced a free online training and immediately felt consumed by anxiety. I paced my house thinking, “How can I do this? I can’t speak to people,” and I almost cancelled. My coach at the time offered a perspective that changed everything, “Your thoughts are attached to feelings. If you release the feelings, the thoughts will disappear as a byproduct.” I sat quietly, breathed into the tightness in my chest and throat, and let myself feel it without judgement. Eventually, I cried, and with that release came unexpected clarity.
I realised my fear of speaking stemmed from childhood, years of feeling criticised and challenged by my sister led my younger self to believe it wasn’t safe to use my voice. Those unprocessed emotions had quietly shaped my ability to speak for most of my life. Once I released the shame, worthlessness and inadequacy attached to those experiences, I showed up to that training with confidence, certainty and clarity. I remember thinking to myself, “If I can overcome a lifelong fear of speaking in 15 minutes, what else can I do?”
Claiming your potential
I always wanted to become a writer and published author, but a voice inside me told me I didn’t know enough and wasn’t good enough to write books. That voice stopped me from sharing my writing for years. Once I knew I could overcome these voices and fears, I used the tools to propel myself forward and not only write one book but publish three in the space of six months, as well as land some incredible speaking opportunities.
When you claim what you desire, your internal voices and fears will inevitably arise. You can either let them control you, or you can observe them and allow them to lead you to what it is that you’re holding in your body as well. This is the doorway to your confidence.
3 steps to release your fears
1. Acknowledge the voice in your head
Each time you try to claim your desires, whether it be writing a book yourself, going for a more challenging but exciting job, or maybe starting that business that lights you up, you have a voice that jumps in, telling you you’re not good enough, you need to know more, or maybe it’s better to stay where you are. That voice immediately attempts to talk you out of it, and if you’re reading this, you’ve likely listened to it a lot in the past.
What if, instead of listening to it, you observed and acknowledged it? Thank that part of you for trying to keep you safe, since that’s ultimately its intention.
2. Feel what’s beneath the surface
Once you’ve acknowledged that quiet but persistent voice in your mind, move your attention into your body and feel what’s there. You may feel a tightness in your chest, a knot in your stomach, or a sensation somewhere else in the body. Sit with that, place your hand on it, and just be present with it.
After a moment, you may feel it shift or move, you may even want to cry or express and release your emotion in some other safe way. Allow it to move as it wants to, without judgement or pressure. Just observe and move with it.
3. Make your new choice
Once you’ve felt the energy move through your body, take a few deep belly breaths. If you haven’t felt it move, that’s okay too. Just keep acknowledging it and breathing into it, without needing to fix or change anything.
Whether it has or hasn’t shifted, you can still make a new choice. Your new choice may be that you are good enough. Your new choice may be to start your passion project and keep using this process whenever fear arises. Your new choice may be to raise your standards for yourself and how you show up.
Whatever it may be, move forward in a way that honours that new choice. This is how you create self-trust and lasting change.
Igniting your confidence
The only thing standing between you and your confidence is the voice of fear. That voice of fear is likely a younger version of yourself, basing your ability to achieve your current desires on past experiences that simply aren’t relevant now.
Using the 3-step process above to observe that voice and feel what’s there is how you begin to take back your power, show up differently, and truly claim what you want for your life.
Some will say confidence grows when you do the thing that scares you, when you put yourself out of your comfort zone, and I don’t disagree, but what if you could also nudge your nervous system instead of stressing it? I found that stepping out of my comfort zone often meant my body went into a freeze response, which wasn’t at all helpful for my confidence, but allowing myself to become familiar with all parts of myself let me observe my responses instead of being overtaken by them.
Command what you want
You can command what you want for your life without wavering and allow life to show you where you’re still holding yourself back. You can do this before you “get out of your comfort zone.”
By commanding what you want and raising your standards, you’re going to stretch yourself and your nervous system’s capacity to hold what you want, whether it’s a more fulfilling career or business, a deeper, more connected relationship, or more wealth and abundance.
For me, that looked like stating to myself, “I am an author.” Then I showed up differently, wrote the book, and with each fear that arose, I stayed with it instead of trying to push through it, that process has led me to where I am now.
Self-led liberation
Life is going to continually show you where you’re not yet free, where you’re still living out of alignment, where you’re not showing up as your higher self, and where you’re not living up to your potential. This is a beautiful thing.
This also means you don’t need to go digging for where you’re lacking confidence, but instead ask for what you want, start moving in that direction, and allow life to show you, through your thoughts and emotions, where you’re still internally blocking yourself from being a match for that. You get to liberate yourself, moment by moment, by observing what life is showing you instead of becoming a victim to it.
At the end of the day, you have the confidence to create whatever it is you want, you just need to stop telling yourself you don’t.
If you would love to learn other ways to activate your confidence, get your copy of You Don’t Have Anxiety, available in paperback, e-book, or audiobook.
Visit my website for more info!
Read more from Tara Swann
Tara Swann, Emotional Empowerment Coach & Author
Tara Swann is an Emotional Empowerment Coach, Author, and Speaker known for helping women alchemise emotional patterns into personal power. She guides women into deeper confidence, clarity, and self-connection through her unique blend of emotional mastery, feminine embodiment, and manifestation work. Tara is the author of You Don’t Have Anxiety, Becoming Her, and The Ocean Is She, and is currently deepening her expertise through formal Tantra Practitioner training. Her mission is to help women remember who they are and consciously create lives that feel aligned, expansive, and unapologetically alive.
