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.

Glenda Grant

To grow my confidence and self-esteem, I engaged myself in art practice and education. I’ve dedicated countless hours to improving my skills, consuming art theories, and engaging myself in tutorials and videos. By absorbing the wisdom shared by fellow artists and translating it into practice, I’ve found my confidence steadily growing. Read more>>

Sheana Kizer

The saying “it starts at home” comes to mind and for me it truly started at home. My parents did such an exceptional job developing my confidence and self-esteem. I could tell a million stories of just how intentional my parents were, always telling me how smart and beautiful I am.  Read more>>

Rachel Ruff

My confidence and self-esteem developed through surrendering to my own insecurities and fears. Instead of giving in to them, I let the dark thoughts have their moment and then I turn them off by responding, “Its okay, I’ve got this. I am going to do the best I can do.” Read more>>

Leanne Schultz

This has been a bit of a long journey for me and at times, a real struggle to overcome. When it came to my art practice, there were a few decisions that helped me move through these struggles. The first was moving from painting what I thought I could paint and pursuing what I wanted to paint. I needed to stop giving myself limits based on what I thought I was capable of and give myself a chance to explore freely. Read more>>

Gina Parrish

I have always been passionate about the arts and consider myself to be an artist at heart, but being an artist comes with a certain amount of sensitivity and insecurity that can be difficult to overcome. Any sort of creative field, whether blogging or theatre or anything else you can think of, comes with competition and competing against others who you perceive to be more successful or more talented can make it difficult to have healthy confidence and self-esteem. Read more>>

Emma Gibson

People working in the Arts have notoriously low self-esteem and confidence. What other job has you reviewed, critiqued, and judged publicly after every performance? The paradox is that the work itself requires a vulnerability and sensitivity. When the currency of the work is emotion, it is hard to be unemotional! Read more>>

Joey Aguirre

You have to know who you are and you have to stay true to yourself. There is only one way to gain confidence in anything and that comes with practice. Hard work. Nothing that’s worth achieving will come easy, the sooner we all realize this the faster we’ll start working harder and smarter. Set short goals for yourself and remember the feeling whenever you reach them. Let it hit you that you just did that and then keep going, rinse and repeat. Read more>>

Randi Mutnick

I thought confidence was something I would start to embody if I could just “fake till I make it” long enough. Keep pushing myself through the nerves, through the fear. But that wasn’t really the case for me. Every time I would have to make a presentation at work the nerves would take over and surge through my body. Read more>>

Danielle Portis

I believe my love language has been words of affirmation my entire life. So growing up, I learned to figure out what I was good at, great at and what needed improvement based on what other people said about it. I learned that I could do most things I put my mind to and I gained confidence in my ability to just try it and see what happens. I trust that if I like it, I can always get better at it. Read more>>

Orest Galitsky

Through a long journey of various mistakes and overcoming fears. I never fear gaining new experiences and love setting challenges for myself. Going through different tough periods and achieving any positive results makes me stronger. Read more>>

Robin Cohen

Part of my confidence and self-esteem developed over time when I learned how to receive other people’s enjoyment of my work rather than dismissing or deflecting their praise. Once I learned to accept other people’s delight—like seeing children’s excitement after painting their faces or the comfort a pet portrait brought to a grieving pet owner, those reactions were more valuable than monetary payment. Read more>>

Jillian Kogan

I’ve always believed that confidence is a journey rather than a destination. A few years ago, I made a conscious decision to approach life with a different mindset—not with the pressure of getting everything done at once, but by taking one step at a time and embracing the process. Some days, I might accomplish more than others, but I’ve learned that progress, no matter how small, is better than stagnation. Read more>>

Erica Bryant

In the formative years of my life, I always displayed self-confidence and high self-esteem. I never felt doubt or felt incapable of achieving anything I desired. Some people might regard this as unrealistic, but it was normal to me. It was only when I started to get older that my self-confidence remained unchanged, but my reaction to perceived lack of support from others started to bother me.  Read more>>

Christopher Renfro

Dating back to my teens, I had a pretty lonely rough life. Losing family members left and right from old age. I watched my mother die from cancer as a young man and my father pass away from Alzheimer’s 3 years ago. I never felt valued in myself because I have always been fighting fights for other people and putting myself 2nd. I began to notice I didn’t think much of myself, so I decide to make a change.  Read more>>

Amber Krisher

I believe confidence and self-esteem are derived from self awareness and perseverance. Self awareness means understanding who you are and how your life experiences influence the person you are today. Self awareness also allows you to recognize and modify behaviors that are triggered from a deep seeded insecurity.  Read more>>

Shahrina Ankhi-Krol

Developing confidence and self-esteem was not easy for me. In fact, I still struggle with them from time to time. I believe that in the current world of social media immersion, we ALL suffer from some form of lack/low self-esteem. Denying it would be doing disservice to ourselves. Read more>>

Rachel McMillan

As a wedding vocalist and bridal make-up artist, these are career paths that truly demand a confident person in it’s entirety. I wasn’t always confident though, I just did little things here and there that would eventually get me to the point where I am now. I call this the Mr. Miyagi method, where nothing makes sense when you’re doing it but it will come into play at the most vital times. Read more>>

Ken Miller

I developed my confidence and self-esteem through my study of self-esteem especially books by Nathaniel Branden. I began with small successes which led a bigger successes and I began to believe in my competency in my work field. I also increased my self worth by the individuals that I associated with and most importantly those that I entered into intimate relationships with. Read more>>

Risa Mara Machuca

Being a child of two cultures, I always felt different and like I didn’t belong or %100 identify to one particular view and way of life. It is this exact upbringing that made me feel and connect to my own personal strength. Perspective is everything and we are fortunate when we realize that being different isn’t a bad thing and it is in fact a super power. Read more>>

Ericson Ekeleme

That’s a good question and I love how my journey in music has changed with obstacles and challenges but one thing about success is that confidence is a bi product of the success you earn and work for. I wasn’t always confident in my self but it’s only me that will walk the road I’m on so I chose to believe in my self, also learning from figure heads and managers on how to scale and trust my gut on projects I would say my confidence is the fruits of my labor, the more you have good projects with good feed back it becomes easier to trust your talent! Read more>>

Krisztina Konya

Developing confidence and self-esteem has been a long journey for me, filled with its fair share of ups and downs. There were times when my decisions didn’t lead me where I hoped, and I faced challenges that tested my resolve. But through it all, I clung to a deep-seated belief that there was more to my story than the setbacks I encountered.  Read more>>

Courtney Kretly

Believe it or not, I’m naturally a very introverted person! I get my energy “boost” from quiet time or reading a book – I’ve always been that way! To be successful in real estate, I’ve had to dig deep and really put myself out there. Sometimes it has made me uncomfortable, but mostly it has made me confident in myself and able to strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere!  Read more>>

Dommique Diamond

Funny enough I’ve developed my self-esteem and confidence from my younger sister, she actually one of the most confident person I know anything she wants to do she puts her mind to it and she doesn’t care about the opinions of others to be honest I learned a lot from her over time from being comfortable in my own skin to standing up for myself. Read more>>

Josh Nirvana

Developing my confidence and my self esteem were not the easiest things to do especially growing up. I’ve face numerous battles with insecurities. Something I feel everyone goes through in this lifetime. Insecurity is tough, aggressive, scary, stressful, envious, & controlling. Not the easiest to deal with at all. So growing up I developed my confidence as I started to love on me more. Embrace my body more.  Read more>>

Ana Moreno

I was a manager at this restaurant CAVA and I would always have these conversations with my crew. I had a good reporte with them and they would always tell me all their drama. But this one closing shift, one my young female teenage crew members asked me “ Ana, how did you become so confident” I responded with Pain. Read more>>

Brittany Brady

For some time, I questioned why others would ask me about my “confidence”. To me, the word was often used in place of arrogance or as a slight and so I resisted the term. As I grow in my journey, I am realizing that my confidence and positive self-image stems from a belief that I am designed uniquely and intentionally and that every element of my being serves my purpose.   My mother recently referred to confidence as “an inner knowing, a peace that all will be well and that you are who you are”. Read more>>

Kara Rainer

Developing your confidence and self-esteem, I think, is really so subjective. Its a personal path that comes easy for some and difficult for others depending on how they were raised. I was really late to the game with developing confidence and self-esteem. I grew up with the idea that I didn’t know enough to even attempt looking into acting, no one would take me seriously, …I have no training, ie: I am not good enough to even try to be an actress. Read more>>

Mackenzie Day

When I was in the first grade was when boys started telling me I shouldn’t have hairy legs. I remember the feeling deep rooted inside of me now at 24, and as memories of moments have faded there’s still a few that stand. It’s truly alarming how young kids are so quickly shifted into the older insecure teenagers, and I was one of them. Read more>>