Being truly self-confident means that you are who you say you are. Real confidence comes from authenticity. You can’t be a fraud and actually be self-confident. You can have fake cockiness, but not true self-confidence.

A lot of what I write about is about living each day like it is your last. I write about it because I truly believe it is the secret to a great life. It means something to me. I am very passionate about this topic. You’ll never be able to convince me that treating each day as a gift is in any way negative. Therefore, the topic seems to come up again and again in my work.

However, there are times where I catch myself not living the day as if it were my last. There are times when I don’t treat each day as a gift. It’s on those days when I’m behaving in a way that goes completely against my philosophy on life, where I feel the least self-confident. I catch myself behaving in this way and I immediately feel like a fraud. Luckily, most times I can realize what I am doing and I snap out of it. But sometimes, it takes me a while.

For example, like every couple in the history of the world, there are times that my wife and I get in disagreements. When I have conflict with someone, I usually shut down. My default setting is to close up shop and completely shut that person out. I know, I’m working on it. But there are times when we are in a disagreement and I completely shut down.

When I’m behaving this way, even if I have every right to be upset, I immediately feel awful about myself. I’ve realized that I feel awful because I’m not in congruence with the man I want to be. I’m not being the man who I say that I am. The man I want to be.

The man I want to be wants to live every day like it is my last. That includes always working through things with my wife and never taking her or the days we have together, for granted. There have been times when my wife and I are distant (likely because of me) and I have sat down to write. I find myself really struggling with the words. I feel like a fraud. One time during a writing session, I literally closed my laptop, immediately called my wife and apologized. The argument, the disagreement, the fight, is never worth the cost of me not being who I want to be.

There are limitless examples of things that we do that go against who we say we are or who we want to be. We say we want to get in shape, but we skip workouts and eat junk. We say we want to be the best spouse, but we don’t plan the date nights. We say we want to be the best parent, but we don’t even know what’s going on in our children’s lives. We say we want to be wealthy, but we keep borrowing money on our credit cards. We talk a lot, but we rarely back it up with our actions. This is why we are lacking self-confidence.

I actually think it’s worse than just a lack of self-confidence. When we are acting in ways that are not congruent with the person we want to be, I believe it has catastrophic consequences. I believe that it is the leading cause of anxiety. I know that I was my most anxious self, when I wasn’t living a life that I was proud of. I suffered debilitating panic attacks, seemingly out of nowhere, at least at the time. Thinking back, I have no doubt that they were due to me not being the man I know I could be.

Nobody likes a fraud or a fake. When you read my words, it’s very clear that this wasn’t written by some AI bot. You know it’s real because you can feel it. You can feel the passion I have flowing through the words. Well, I hope you can. Because it’s exactly what and how I feel every time I open my laptop and type away. The words flow from me, as if they are coming straight from my soul. It doesn’t matter what kind of day I’ve had. I get the same feeling every time. I get lost in this flow state because it’s authentically me.

Be who you are but always strive to grow. Do things for you and because you want to do them. Don’t do them because it’s what you think others expect of you.

Be who you say you are and watch your confidence soar.