The word confidence comes from the Latin con-fidence, meaning ‘with faith’. All of your networking, referral generation, relationship building and reputation enhancement comes from three centres of application:

Confidence: your faith, your enthusiasm, your appetite for the fight, your motivation, your attitude and your belief.

Competence: your talents (what God gives you), your skills (what you give yourself), your technical ability, your knowledge, your power scripts, your systems and processes.

Consistency: your durability, your long-term perspective, your resilience.

Here are six reasons why you may not be as confident as you could be:

1. Your Past. You’re facing forward, and although the past is what has brought you to where you are right now, it is not vital in taking you where you want to be in the next 3 to 5 years. What is more important is your future, because that’s where you’ll spend the rest of your life. So surrender it!
2. Your Fear. A little fear is good. It guards you and helps you prepare. It ought not to paralyse you. They say that anything that does not defeat you makes you strong, and by breaking through and facing what you’re scared of, you conquer it! So embrace it!
3. Your Negativity. The loudest lies you tell are to yourself. All of that self talk that goes on in your head telling you it’s impossible or you’re not worthy is all hot air! Counter it with strong affirmations, get around positive people and celebrate your wins. You can turn the negatives into positives. So neutralise it!
4. Your Failure. All roads to achievement lead through the land of failure. Give it a friendly name - it's simply the price you pay to achieve success. Never judge your whole life based on one incident. Remember failure is an event, not a person. You're not a failure until you think it and admit it. So conquer it!
5. Your Insecurity. There are things you’re great at, and things you will never be great at. When you compare yourself to others, are you comparing ALL OF YOU to ALL OF THEM? They may be better at selling, but they’d give their right arm for your happy family life or your health. You don’t need their approval if you’re happy with who you are. It’s a matter of perspective. So rationalise it!
6. Your Rejection. Everyone gets it. Life is about ‘knowing your no’s’. Most of the time a ‘no’ is someone's rejection of your offer of help rather than you as a person. Look for the lesson learned and use that to drive you forward to do better next time. Open it up, pick out the lesson and send it back. So use it!

The battlefield is in your mind. That’s where the biggest battles are fought. You’re unique, and God made you that way for a reason. Only you owns that unique blend of skills, talents, humour, thoughts, looks and values. Yet through a combination of external circumstances (rejection, failure) and the way you react and internalise them, your confidence is dented.