The better she gets, the higher her confidence climbs.
How to help your daughter with confidence
Confidence climbs as she gets better. So the first thing you can do is help her keep getting better at what she's working on. The second is to help her see that out of every opinion about who she is, her own counts most. Who she thinks she is, who she wants to be, and what she tells herself about herself every day. That opinion should be the most positive one there is.
Okay, so. Her best version has an idea built into it: that she works, learns, thinks, acts, and carries herself with full, high confidence. But somewhere along the road, or right at the start of it, she'll probably hit moments where she doesn't feel that way.
The reasons start, first of all, with how she sees herself and what she thinks about herself. Everything below comes from the chapter on confidence in my book. The whole approach is what I call the Method: a simple way to decide what she wants, do the work, and believe she can get there.
1.Help her keep getting better
The more she improves, the more the question of confidence comes up.
The better she gets, the higher her confidence should climb. In the book I say confidence is a part of the process you can't separate out. So the work comes first. As she gets better at what she's working on, in her sport or at school, her confidence and her self-image go up with it.
If she doesn't know yet what she's working toward, start with the post on goal setting.
2.Out of every opinion about who she is, her own counts most
Of all the opinions she'll ever hear about who she is, the most important one is her own.
Who she thinks she is, who she wants to be, and what she tells herself about herself every day. In her best version, those words should be the most positive there are. The best, the prettiest, the smartest, the strongest she can be.
And every other opinion out there, what other people think or say about her, shouldn't get in the way of her becoming that. Her life goes on, and people's opinions change.
3.Make confidence a goal with no deadline
In the book I call it an ongoing goal. A goal she wants to keep reaching every day of her life.
For me, it's being the best dad I can be to my kids. For her, maybe: "I have real confidence."
With an ongoing goal, the actions are something she works on every day, for an unlimited time. No end date. And like every goal, the actions can be broken down into tiny tasks that let her move forward more easily.
4.Help her feel good in her own skin
With the fear of rejection, the first thing is: don't reject yourself.
That means feeling good in her own skin, no matter what she's wearing or how she did her hair. To get there, she faces the fear of rejection head-on. (By the way, that's how she deals with every fear she has.)
Here's the exercise from the book. She goes somewhere she knows she'll run into people, and shows up exactly the way she usually feels uncomfortable showing up. (Legal, obviously.) Weird pants. Strange shoes. A bizarre hairstyle. She feels the discomfort and doesn't fix anything. Every time she feels it and deals with it, the fear gets pushed back, until it doesn't affect her anymore.
5.When the negative loop starts, a long thank-you list
One more exercise, for when she gets into that loop of negative thoughts about herself.
She makes a list of the things she can be thankful for. It can be a long list with everything in it. Thank you for my beautiful hair, thank you for my new shoes, thank you for my parents, thank you for my little brother, thank you for my best friend, thank you for my coach (ha ha). That list reminds her she has a lot of good things in her life, and there's no reason to think negative thoughts about herself.
For her: my thank-you list
One printable page for the next time the negative loop starts. A long list, where everything counts. Letter size.
Two more exercises from the same chapter are already on the blog: the mirror, in the post on trash talk, and one line to herself every morning, in the post on comparing herself to others.
Before you talk to her
Stop thinking, acting, or behaving according to what other people think or say about you. It really, truly does not matter. Your life goes on, and people's opinions change. That goes for you too.
What she says, and what you can say back
Every answer here is a line from my book, from the chapter on confidence and self-image.
| When she says | You can say |
|---|---|
| "Everyone thinks I'm not good at this." | "The most important opinion about who you are is your own." |
| "I can't go out looking like this." | "Feel good in your own skin, no matter what you're wearing or how you did your hair." |
| "Everything is going wrong." | "Write a thank-you list. Long. Everything counts." |
Why it's worth working on
When her confidence is low, every comment or tease that touches the exact spot where she thinks she's not enough, she takes to heart. And it really hurts. It can affect every area of her life. School, her relationships, her sport. It makes it harder to move forward on the road to her best version.
Confidence matters enough on its own that I gave it its own chapter in the book.
Questions parents ask
Does confidence come first, or the work?
The more she improves, the higher her confidence should climb. As she moves forward, confidence keeps coming up. It's part of the process.
What if the outfit exercise feels weird?
Try it a few times, and feel the discomfort that comes with it. Every time she deals with it, the fear of rejection gets pushed back, until it doesn't affect her anymore.
What's the Method?
A simple way to decide what she wants, do the work, and believe she can get there.
Is this for boys too?
Yes. The book is for all the girls, at every age. And for the boys too.
From Gazelle to Lioness
Confidence and Self-Image is a chapter in my book. Decide what you want. Act in that direction. Believe you'll get there. It's written to her, the way I talk to my own players, and it works like a workbook. There are tasks.
Free: The Mini Journal
By the end of the week she has closed the last game with a clear head, picked one thing to work on at practice, and written her plan for the next one. Seven pages, one a day, five minutes a day, written by Coach Isaac in the same words he uses with his own players.
- Day 1, The Reset. Tonight, before she goes to sleep. Three slow breaths, one honest sentence about what happened, a name for the feeling, and the one thing this game is teaching her. Then she closes the game. Tomorrow is a different page.
- Day 2, The Tape. The next morning. Coaches watch the tape the next day, never the same night, because the same night you only see the mistakes. The next day you see the whole game, including what she did right.
- Day 3, My Why. When the why is strong, the how gets easier. She writes down why she plays, clearly enough to say it out loud.
- Day 4, One Focus. She knows what to fix and why it matters. Now she turns it into one small thing she can do at practice this week, and repeats it. That's how real improvement works.
- Day 5, Winter. A sports season works like the seasons of the year, and game season is winter. You can't cancel winter. What you can do is get better at it: stronger physically, stronger mentally, stronger with your feelings.
- Day 6, Believe. Belief isn't magic. It's what she says to herself, over and over, until it's what she thinks. On this page she writes her own lines instead of the ones other people put in her head.
- Day 7, Next Play. Her game plan for the next game. Eyes forward. The season only moves in one direction.
It's free. Leave your email, and the download opens right away, in Letter and A4.
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Based on chapters 5 and 15 of From Gazelle to Lioness by Coach Isaac.