Building Blocks of Success: Confidence & Self Esteem

BoldJourney is all about helping our audience and community level up by learning from the experiences of others. One of the most important topics we’ve been focused on sharing insights and lessons on is confidence building and self-esteem. Below, you’ll find some brilliant entrepreneurs and creatives sharing their perspectives and advice.

Emily Reagan

Being a military child and military spouse who moved every few years, was not easy on my social life or career, but it produced a deep confidence in myself to adapt and handle new situations. I learned I could count on myself to get through anything uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or challenging. I got used to trying and adapting new things. I always found a way. Read more>>

Jennifer Wiley

After going through disappointment countless times, there comes a point where you just say, “Enough is enough.” You keep pushing forward, leaving that disappointment behind. Despite going through a tough childhood through foster care, not being raised under a two-parent household, or not having a lot of knowledge of my own family, I consciously made the decision to keep moving forward. Read more>>

Christopher Davis

As a child, I was extremely shy. If I didn’t know you, I couldn’t or wouldn’t speak other than the greeting of the day. With that being said, my self-esteem and confidence were very low. From being the shy kid at school, the same shyness followed me into the military. For my first 6 years, I was able to stay out of the spotlight, away from being directly in front of big crowds.  Read more>>

Kahle Kreitzinger

I believe my confidence and self esteem is something I’m constantly having to check. I feel the most confident when I push myself into what makes me uncomfortable. When I overcome my discomforts I learn so much and it makes me very proud and confident in myself. I CAN do this, or I am willing to try. Read more>>

Tony Vinh

I think confidence and self-esteem is developed from the preparation and hard work of doing something over and over again until it becomes easier to do. I don’t ever feel 100% confident in anything I do at first. But if I work on it for awhile, I do eventually feel reassured that I know how to do it, and that’s where the confidence naturally comes in.  Read more>>

Ian Oh

When I was 24, I came to the U.S. with a dream of becoming a Hollywood actor. All I had was one luggage, a digital camera, and $2,000 cash. Breaking into the film industry and making a living as an actor, especially as a immigrant Korean, was not easy. For the first few years, I had to work nonstop just to survive and make a living in LA. Read more>>

Evan Ellenbogen

I really want say “get educated, stay educated,” in order to answer this question. The summer after I graduated high school I moved from New Jersey to California. this was in in 2009, when I was 18 years old. I immediately found myself studying yoga and deepening my relationship to myself. Read more>>

Kavita Megha

Until recently, these were qualities I always thought came to people naturally – either you had confidence, or you didn’t. I never stopped to think about how people developed their self-esteem, or questioned why I assumed people around me felt confident in the things they did before they did them.  Read more>>

Alexandr Zelenskiy

As counterintuitive as it may sound, I believe the key to cultivating a healthy self-esteem is through learning to accept constructive criticism. When I first started with music production, much of my confidence stemmed from pride, and I struggled to accept any sort of criticism about my work. However, over the years of honing my craft, I’ve learned the value of embracing different perspectives.  Read more>>

Kali Picard

For me, building confidence and self-esteem is done two ways. The first is doing a thing repeatedly until I feel like I’ve developed a strong understanding of the skill. In middle school, my parents had art books set out on the coffee table, and I would sit and attempt master copies of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches. I did this for hours.  Read more>>

Ryan Page

Confidence levels and self-esteem are not static. It moves for me all the time, depending on the circumstances or even just the day. It can be challenging for everyone to maintain their sense of confidence, particularly in new situations. That is why my confidence and overall self-esteem have developed from repetition. Putting yourself out in the open and just going again and again until it becomes automatic. Read more>>

Marteja Bailey

With time and actively working towards understanding myself, my triggers, and what I truly desired. I love the concept of “faking it until you make it” only because we all have our days but if we train the mind to think positively and feel good, eventually the “faking it” becomes natural. Like why not feel good? Why not love yourself?  Read more>>

TANISHA LAVERNE GRANT

My self esteem was develop through my late father Thomas L Grant Jr. who affirmed my dreams and created pathways and resources for me to pursue those dreams. When I was a junior at Chester High School in Chester, Pa my father encouraged me to apply to the KYW NEWS STUDIES PROGRAM program in Philadelphia.  Read more>>

Randa Agha

I strongly believe that building confidence and self-esteem is closely tied to ongoing learning and making use of the challenges and setbacks we encounter. The most valuable lessons come from learning from our failures and mistakes. As I always advise others, I encourage them to absorb as much knowledge as possible during their youth.  Read more>>

Casey Mozingo

The biggest thing I had to overcome in my professional career is overcoming a lack of confidence and self-esteem. Even this year, one of my goals is to tackle more of my imposter syndrome. When I first started in photojournalism I was so shy. I can remember like it was yesterday when I was sent out for my first photo assignment. Read more>>

Katy Troy

My own journey to feeling confident was not so much a road paved with accomplishments, success, titles or achievement, but rather self discovery, patience and self compassion. In my experience, confidence isn’t about what you have achieved or acquired, but knowing who you are.  Read more>>

Sheila Fein

I believe in taking the critic off my shoulder. When I first began to work as a digital artist I was lost in the technology. I looked up everything and asked people I thought could help me. I practiced and by trial and error I began to create what I needed and wanted to. Because I am not afraid to start from nowhere, that skill within me, gives me the self esteem to follow through on all my endeavors.  Read more>>

Kathleen Kelly

For me, developing self-confidence and self-esteem is about taking the risk to write about those difficult things that we all face but don’t talk about. My experiences as an ER nurse are filled with the most critical and sensitive moments of people’s lives. We don’t have a language for what I see, as a medium, between that veil of birth and death.  Read more>>

Maria Cortes-Graham

At times, my life felt like a never-ending boot camp for building self-esteem and confidence. I often found myself feeling like the black sheep regardless of how prepared or mature I was. These experiences forced me to re-evaluate my mindset and rethink my strategies. However, I held onto the belief that there was always a reason for me being there and that life was teaching me a valuable lesson. Read more>>

Katiuscia Baggio

I experienced profound insecurity throughout my childhood and teenage years due to my struggle with stuttering. I endured relentless teasing and mockery from my peers during elementary and secondary school, which resulted in an overwhelming sense of shame becoming a constant presence in my life, particularly when I was asked to read aloud in front of the entire class.  Read more>>

Kendra Washington

Confidence and self-esteem to me is something that we can create for ourselves. No one can give you true confidence or raise your self-esteem. That comes from within. For me it came from years and years of doing what I said I will do. Telling myself I would workout at 5am before a full day of clients and sticking to it.  Read more>>

Samantha Moody

I’ve learned to develop my confidence by first finding the courage to be my most authentic self. In some cases confidence can be a gift from God, and for some confidence required training and practicing. I had many moments of self doubt but in life when you have no choice but to figure it out and soldier on that gives more confidence and most importantly more courage. The key to anything you do walking into your faith and holding your head at the highest. Read more>>

Ashley Timmons

Over time, I have nurtured my confidence and self-esteem in my craft by actively engaging in workshops, educational programs, and seeking feedback from both customers and colleagues. This continuous pursuit of knowledge and improvement has allowed me to not only expand my creativity but also establish myself as a trendsetter in the industry. Read more>>

Utsav Bajgain

Self-esteem is founded on the self. My ‘self’ which was a sum total of my mind, intelligence, individuality, identity, experiences and socialization got transformed when i started Transcendental Meditation (TM) in 2013. Through the practice of TM, all these ever changing levels of life – mind, intelligence, individuality, identity, experiences, etc. are transcended, and then the innermost most fundamental level of my self starts to enliven.  Read more>>

Samantha DeCarlo

One of the biggest challenges an artist may face is the ability to believe in themself. Even after years of practice at our craft – 10 years of painting in my case – we can fall victim to the negative thoughts that tend to seep in at any point. I can be in the middle of a painting and begin to doubt the strength of my concept or the technique I’m using to create it. Read more>>

Tammy Dyson Roach

Growing up, I was always surrounded by strong independent Women. I was fortunate to know, both of my great grandmothers, my great aunts, my grandmothers, my mother, my aunts. Beautiful women serving as homemakers, career women, caretakers and women of God. These Women ran the show and kept family very close. Read more>>

Ruth Nemzoff

One significant way of building self-confidence is taking risks and failing. Learn that from your mistakes. You will also learn that it’s up to you to assure that failure isn’t fatal. Failure can build resilience and self-esteem. Read more>>

Atlas Lehan

I developed my confidence and self-esteem through my relentless curiosity in discovering who I truly am. By trusting my instincts and experimenting with what fascinates me, reality unravels to reveal more and more of my identity and the person I truly am. I believe self-confidence is cultivated by accepting oneself in the ongoing process of self-discovery. Read more>>

Camille Jones

Growing confidence and developing a secure self-esteem are lifelong efforts. There’s no mountaintop to reach that says, “You’ve made it! You’ve reached maximum confidence!” Everyone will experience highs and lows that may shake their confidence at times, especially as an artist where vulnerability is at the forefront of everything you do. Read more>>

Kimberly Hughes

Honestly, my confidence has waxed and waned throughout my life, yet I’ve found more and more as time goes by. I would try things out for myself and see how they felt – if they felt right or wrong, internally, by my own divine compass. Read more>>

Cory Novak

Discovering improv during my senior year of high school totally flipped the script for me. It was a game-changer that seriously boosted my confidence and self-esteem. See, I used to be super shy, always dodging the spotlight. But I knew I had to tackle my stage fright and fear of public speaking. Improv was like the perfect crash course to work on that stuff and build up my confidence along the way. Read more>>

Virginia George

I don’t think anyone has perfect confidence and self esteem every day – it ebbs and flows, and I certainly still have bad days here and there. That said, time and experience are the best cure for imposter syndrome. At some point, you realize no one can call you a hack because you’ve been doing this for several years, and that takes away a lot of the power that you once thought other people had over you.  Read more>>

Jacia Kornwise

My confidence and self-esteem have been my most profound earliest challenge. Being born blind in my left eye, and it visually being a different shape and colour, made it inevitable that the world would ask me, “What is wrong with you?”. I naturally internalized that I didn’t fit in, I was different, ugly, deformed and someone that would never be chosen or featured. Read more>>

Na’eem Walton

I developed my confidence and self esteem through a multitude of different experiences. Firstly, how I was raised played a major role. Some of the sayings my mother instilled in me, like “Never prove people right” or always giving me some of the best congratulatory messages and constructive criticism helped shape my confidence. My early days in athletics had a lot to do with the way my self esteem was built. Read more>>