Learning how to build confidence was something I had to earn the hard way. It wasn’t always part of me. For years, I lived in insecurity, fear, and self-doubt. At 305 pounds, lost in addiction, and chained to destructive habits, I didn’t even believe in myself, let alone carry myself with confidence.
I used to think some people were just born with confidence. Maybe it came from growing up in the right environment, having the right genetics, or always winning. That was my excuse. I looked at others and thought, “They have something I don’t.” And because I believed that lie, I stayed stuck.
It took hitting rock bottom to learn the truth. Confidence isn’t a gift. It isn’t natural. It isn’t something you wait for. Confidence is built through action, ownership, and resilience. It’s the byproduct of discipline.
At 2:33 a.m. on August 2, 2015, I decided to change. That moment was not filled with confidence. It was filled with desperation. But desperation turned into action, and action built discipline. Over time, that discipline turned into trust in myself. And that trust is where confidence came from.
This is how I built my confidence, not through luck, but through choices. And if I built it, you can too.
The Myth of Confidence
Confidence is misunderstood. Too many people think it’s a personality trait you either have or don’t have. They picture the guy who walks into a room with his chest out, talking loud, and assume that’s confidence. But most of the time, that’s just noise covering insecurity. Real confidence is quieter. It’s steadier. It doesn’t need to announce itself.
The myth is that confidence is something you need before you start. That’s the lie I lived for years. I told myself, “When I feel confident, then I’ll take action. Then I’ll change. Then I’ll step up.” But the reality is the opposite: action comes first, confidence comes second.
When I was deep in addiction, I didn’t act because I didn’t feel capable. I didn’t work out because I wasn’t confident in my ability to stick with it. I didn’t chase bigger goals because I assumed I wasn’t ready. That mindset was a trap.
Here’s what I’ve learned: if you want to know how to build confidence, it doesn’t start with waiting to feel strong. Confidence isn’t the starting point. It’s the result.
Think about it like this: if you wait until you feel confident to start running, you’ll never start. But if you lace up your shoes, go out the door, and run a mile, even if it’s slow, you gain proof. That proof is evidence you can trust yourself. And the more evidence you stack, the stronger your confidence grows.
It’s the same in recovery. When I quit drinking and using, I didn’t wake up confident I’d succeed. I just decided to act. The first sober day was shaky. The second was hard. But day after day, the evidence piled up. Every day I stayed sober, I built confidence that I could keep going.
Confidence isn’t magic. It’s repetition. It’s action. It’s ownership.
Ownership: The Foundation of Confidence
If there’s one word that explains where confidence begins, it’s ownership. You cannot build confidence while blaming your circumstances, your past, or other people. As long as everything is someone else’s fault, you’ll never feel in control. And without control, there is no confidence.
I learned this the hard way. For years, I blamed everyone but myself. I blamed stress. I blamed trauma. I blamed genetics. I blamed the world. But blaming never changed anything. It kept me weak. It kept me small. It kept me powerless.
The turning point came at 2:33 a.m. on August 2, 2015. That’s when I decided to take ownership of my life. I didn’t know what the future held. I didn’t know if I could stay sober. I didn’t know how I would rebuild. But I did know one thing: no one was coming to save me. It was on me.
That moment wasn’t filled with confidence. It was filled with fear. But fear with ownership is more powerful than false confidence without it. Ownership gave me the foundation to build from.
When I accepted full responsibility, I gained control. Not control over the world, but control over my choices. And that’s all I needed. Because every choice was a chance to prove something to myself. That proof stacked up, and over time, it became confidence.
Here’s the truth: confidence dies where blame lives. If you blame, you stay stuck. If you own, you grow.
Think of ownership like the foundation of a house. Without it, the whole structure collapses. Purpose, discipline, resilience, integrity, and empowerment—none of it stands without ownership. And once you pour that foundation, every brick you add makes the structure stronger.
The day I took ownership, I poured the foundation. Every sober morning added a brick. Every workout added another. Every time I stood up after failing, another. Eventually, the structure was solid. That structure is my confidence.
And the same is true for anyone. Confidence doesn’t start with feeling strong. It starts with saying, “This is my life. My choices. My responsibility.”
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Discipline and Action: How to Build Confidence Through Daily Choices
Once ownership is in place, the next step is discipline. And discipline is where confidence really starts to grow.
Discipline is simple: do what needs to be done, whether you feel like it or not. That’s it. Most people overcomplicate it. They wait for motivation. They wait until conditions are perfect. They wait until they feel ready. But discipline doesn’t wait. Discipline acts.
And here’s the key: confidence is the byproduct of discipline. Every time you keep a promise to yourself, you’re casting a vote in favor of trusting yourself. That trust is how confidence is built.
When I started rebuilding my life, I didn’t have discipline figured out. I had excuses. I told myself I was too tired, too busy, and too broken. But excuses never built confidence. They destroyed it.
So, I stripped it down to the basics. Stay sober today. That was the first discipline. Then I added fitness. I was out of shape and overweight, but I decided to move anyway. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t fast. But it was consistent. And consistency is what matters.
I remember when I started running. My Garmin watch constantly told me I hadn’t slept enough or shouldn’t train that day. If I had listened, I’d have stayed stuck. But I ignored it and ran anyway. Every mile I ran was a deposit into the bank of confidence. It didn’t matter how fast or how far. What mattered was that I showed up.
Discipline carried me through pain, too. I’ve trained through injuries, through days when my body screamed at me to stop. I’ve run when the weather was unbearable, when the heat advisory said to stay inside, and when fatigue tried to convince me to quit. Every time I pushed through, I told myself, “I don’t stop just because it’s hard.” And that message built confidence that no outside voice could take away.
It’s the same in recovery. Every day I stayed sober was another rep of discipline. Some days it felt impossible. But I didn’t wait to feel strong. I acted. And through action, I became strong.
Here’s the pattern: ownership sets the foundation, discipline stacks the bricks, and action locks them in place. Over time, those actions turn into habits, and habits turn into identity. That identity is where confidence lives.
Confidence isn’t about telling yourself you can do something. It’s about proving it, over and over, through disciplined action. When you have a stack of proof, you don’t need to fake confidence. You live it.
Pain, Fear, and Failure
Most people want confidence without struggle. They want the feeling of being strong without going through the fire that makes you strong. But real confidence is born in pain, fear, and failure.
Pain taught me lessons I couldn’t learn any other way. I carry scars that remind me of that. When I worked in law enforcement, I was once stabbed while taking down a suspect. Blood running down my side, adrenaline flooding my body, I still cuffed him and got him in the back of the patrol car. That moment taught me something I’ll never forget: pain doesn’t decide my actions. I do.
Another time, I injured my knee in a fight while making an arrest. Every step hurt, but the job wasn’t finished. I kept moving. I kept pressing. The pain didn’t stop me. Later, the injury stayed with me. Rain still makes that knee ache. But instead of letting it sideline me, I trained around it. I refused to let pain define me. That’s confidence knowing pain can’t take away your will.
Fear was another teacher. I’ve had bullets flying near me, threats screamed in my face, and situations where the wrong move could have been my last. Fear was real. But fear didn’t paralyze me. It sharpened me. Confidence isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the decision to act in spite of it.
Failure may be the greatest teacher of them all. I’ve failed more times than I can count. I’ve fallen flat on my face. I’ve made bad decisions. I’ve let people down. And for a long time, failure destroyed me. I let it convince me I wasn’t capable. But over time, I learned something: failure isn’t the end. It’s feedback. It’s training.
Every failure carries a lesson. The only real failure is refusing to learn. Once I started seeing mistakes as reps instead of roadblocks, I stopped fearing them. That shift built resilience. And resilience is confidence in action, knowing no matter how hard I fall, I’ll get back up.
That’s where my “ignore and override” mindset came from. Pain hurts, but it doesn’t have to stop you. Fear shakes you, but it doesn’t have to control you. Failure stings, but it doesn’t have to define you. Confidence is built in those exact moments when you prove to yourself you can endure.
Most people see pain, fear, and failure as reasons to stop. I see them as reasons to keep going. Every time I’ve done that, my confidence grew. Not the fake kind, not bravado, but the deep, unshakable kind. The confidence that comes from knowing I’ve already survived worse and kept moving forward.
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Confidence in Daily Life
Confidence isn’t something I leave at the gym, or on a run, or back in my law enforcement years. It shows up in everything I do today. It’s in the way I lead groups, the way I coach people in recovery, and the way I interact with my family. Confidence isn’t just about how you stand or how you speak. It’s about how you live.
When I facilitate a group, I don’t walk in wondering if I belong there. I know I belong because I’ve put in the work. I know my story. I’ve lived it. I’ve endured it. And I’ve built something solid from it. That’s why people listen, not because I tell them I’m confident, but because they can feel that I am.
In recovery coaching, confidence matters because people are looking for a real example. Not someone perfect. Not someone who never struggled. They want someone who’s been through hell and made it back stronger. My confidence doesn’t come from never falling. It comes from knowing I fell hard, and I got back up. That’s the kind of confidence people can trust.
Confidence also shows up in small, daily decisions. It’s in the discipline of getting up and training when no one’s watching. It’s in choosing healthy food instead of old habits. It’s in saying no to excuses. Each of those choices reinforces the same truth: I can rely on me.
Even with my family, confidence plays a role. I’m not perfect, but I show up. I set an example. I let my kids and grandkids see what resilience looks like. They don’t need words. They see it in action. That’s real confidence—living in a way that others can feel without you having to explain it.
And here’s the important thing: confidence doesn’t mean arrogance. It doesn’t mean thinking I’m better than anyone. Confidence is humility in action. It’s knowing I don’t have all the answers, but I have the strength to face whatever comes. It’s the quiet belief that I can endure, adapt, and keep moving forward.
When people tell me they struggle with confidence, I remind them it’s not about waiting for a feeling. It’s about building proof. That’s the real answer to how to build confidence. You don’t need to feel strong to start. You just need to act. Strength and confidence will follow.
Confidence in daily life is about stacking small wins. Day after day. Choice after choice. Brick after brick. Over time, the structure becomes so solid that even when life shakes it, it doesn’t fall. That’s what I’ve built. And that’s what anyone can build if they’re willing to put in the work.
Conclusion
Confidence isn’t something you inherit. It isn’t handed down. It isn’t given by anyone else. It’s built. Brick by brick. Choice by choice. Through ownership, through discipline, through facing pain, fear, and failure head-on.
When I look back, I see the version of me who once believed he’d never change. Overweight, addicted, insecure, broken. If you had told that man he’d one day live with confidence, he wouldn’t have believed you. And that’s because he thought confidence was something you had to feel before you acted.
The truth I’ve learned about how to build confidence is this: it’s not the starting point. It’s the result. It comes after action, after discipline, after resilience.
Every day I stayed sober, I earned it. Every mile I ran when my body said stop, I earned it. Every time I faced pain and kept moving, I earned it. Confidence came slowly, piece by piece, until one day I realized I didn’t have to search for it anymore. It was part of me.
And here’s what I want you to know: if I built it, you can too. You don’t need perfect conditions. You don’t need to wait until you feel strong. You need to start where you are. Take ownership. Take action. Build discipline. Stack proof. And over time, you’ll look in the mirror and realize you’ve built confidence that no one can take from you.
Confidence isn’t loud. It doesn’t need to shout. Real confidence is steady. It’s unshakable. It’s the quiet certainty that you’ve already faced worse and survived, and whatever comes next, you’ll handle it.
So stop waiting for confidence to appear. Go out and build it. Brick by brick. Step by step. Day by day. Discipline is the way. Resilience is the proof. Confidence is the result.
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