How To Be Confident? Is Self-Doubt Mental or Physical?

Quotes and Expert Insights

I still remember something Mark Hyman said years ago about one of his clients. At the time, it surprised me, but looking at today's discussions about mental health, I can see that this idea is still far from widely accepted, even though we now know much more about the gut-brain axis.

Confidence and Gut Health

He said she felt anxious whenever she had to attend social gatherings. Even today, most people would probably say she needed therapy for social anxiety, perhaps caused by trauma or another negative experience in the past.

Interestingly, she felt it in her gut, and many people experience digestive discomfort in situations they find stressful or difficult.

That's why they're usually referred for psychological support or therapy.

But what if you focused on improving gut health instead?

And that's what Mark Hyman did. He gave his client a protocol aimed at supporting her gut, and the anxious feeling in her stomach disappeared. She stopped feeling nervous before social events. No therapy was needed.

Just imagine if she had followed the conventional approach to social anxiety, spent years in therapy and ended up paying a fortune to manage the symptoms without ever addressing what was causing them.

What if confidence starts in your gut? Your microbiota plays a role in producing the neurotransmitters that influence how you feel.

How to Boost Your Mood with Homemade Yoghurt?

If you're working on your gut health right now, remember that your mental and emotional wellbeing may improve along the way too. As your gut heals, you will start to feel better in other areas of your life as well.

In the meantime, here are a few inspirational quotes about confidence:

How To Be Confident

Many people wait until they feel ready before taking action, but experts say it's often the other way around: you need to act first to build confidence. This may have a lot to do with the way our brains work.

I'm not a fan of "fake it till you make it", because I think the idea is often misunderstood. For example someone may start charging expert-level fees for a service before they can actually deliver results. And honestly, pretending to be more confident or capable than you really are doesn't feel authentic.

But nevertheless, the only way to become confident is through action.

Dr. Ian Robertson

Doing something in spite of anxiety, taking action is just critical in building confidence.

The fact that you failed or been rejected 20 times does not mean that this time you will fail or be rejected. It's about setting goals for yourself, small goals for yourself - in whichever domain it is - that stretch you a little bit, that are not too hard and not too difficult, but they nevertheless stretch you.

You have to learn to set authentic goals that are yours and yours alone and to define success in terms of your progression against your goals and forget other people.

Allan Johnson, Phd

Confidence isn't just a feeling. It is a neural pattern that your brain strengthens over time. So when you succeed at something, even in small ways, your brain reinforces that experience through the release of dopamine - the neurotransmitter that's associated with motivation and award. We feel good when we get that hit of dopamine and the more we experience success the stronger this pathway becomes.

Dr. Shadé Zahrai and Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

What would you say is the opposite of self-doubt? Because self-doubt often holds us back. The opposite of self-doubt would be agency. There's actually research that shows that confidence, that feeling we're waiting for, actually comes after we've taken action, after we've done something.

The Bottom Line

There's more and more research into the gut-brain connection, so if you feel like you're making little or no progress with self-development, perhaps your gut health is worth looking into more closely.

Maybe we have been overlooking the physical aspects of building confidence for too long, putting too much focus on the mental side of things.

From The Dose Effect by TJ Power:

The second feeling that can arise as a result of low levels of oxytocin is a lack of confidence and self-belief.

Whether it's your gut, your neurotransmitters, or simply the belief that you can't because you're not good enough, building confidence requires agency.