The Chemistry of a Confident Woman

Whether in the workforce, academic environments, or family systems, it’s no secret that women have been conditioned by our culture to think less of ourselves. This may cause us to overwork to prove our worth to the world.

By the time we finally recognize the need to change our mindset, we’ve already created a lifestyle of insecurity, self-sabotage, performance, and perfectionism. This can become so ingrained in our brains that our cells physically conform to our beliefs, emotions, and thoughts—and our actions obey them! When we decide to see ourselves accurately through Christ, we can replace our patterns of insecurity with a lifestyle of confidence.

Let’s discuss how to uproot our insecurities and replace them with confidence that will last by following the Reclaim Your Confidence Framework to build a new infrastructure for rock-solid confidence.

1. Faith | Reprogram Your Beliefs
2. Focus | Renew Your Thoughts and Words
3. Feelings | Review Your Emotions
4. Follow-through | Revise Your Actions
5. Feedback | Receive Your Reward

1. Faith | Reprogram Your Beliefs

Your faith functions as your internal programming. It is what you believe to be most true, even subconsciously. You live by laws based on your perception of the world. Even if you want to behave more confidently, if you haven’t reprogrammed your faith, your efforts will not match your outcomes.

Lies are so pervasive in the world around us that we accept them to be the very faith through which we navigate life … and then we wonder why we’re so insecure! One myth many people believe is that our beliefs can’t be changed. We can choose to replace our insecurities with confidence, but this process requires us to reprogram our beliefs about ourselves, God, and others.

We do this by challenging our existing programming and replacing it through the study, meditation, and declaration of Scripture and truth. Through the renewing power of Scripture, the Spirit gives us sound minds, enabling us to make healthier decisions in alignment with our destiny.

2. Focus | Renew Your Thoughts and Words

By the time we think the thoughts or speak the words, we’ve given them our focus. Without an overhaul, this focus is the energy we employ to reinforce the faulty frameworks that have been causing us to sink in insecurity. Then our lives become a reaction to our thoughts and words.

The Bible confirms this cause and reaction in Romans 8:5–6. We see “death” in our lives as insecurity, self-sabotage, and overall darkness. When this happens, we can likely trace it back to the thoughts produced from our minds and the words produced from our mouths.

We often assume our thoughts to be true because we don’t create enough space to step back and recognize them as mere “thoughts,” much less challenge them. We don’t have to accept every thought as true. Nor do we have to react emotionally to our thoughts or behave in certain ways based on our thoughts. But we do have the power to destroy that reasoning and train our thoughts to obey Christ through Scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. Feelings | Review Your Emotions

We feel the way we feel because of the thoughts we think. In other words, what we focus on determines how we feel. Many people, particularly women, tend to struggle to compartmentalize their internal feelings and their external reality, making them more likely to accept their emotions as truth.

Even though Proverbs 4:23 commands us to guard our hearts, the good news is that we don’t have to do it alone. We have the power to renew our emotions with God as our counselor. When we cast our cares on God, He sustains us and refreshes us.

4. Follow-through | Revise Your Actions

How women respond to our internal framework is called follow through. So often we follow through by reacting, not deciding. Reactions are unintentional responses to our unreliable feelings. In contrast, decisions are intentional commitments to our dependable faith.

Many Christian women have built habits upon their insecurities, which is why their lives don’t produce the abundance that Christ promised. They struggle to bear “fruit” and exhaust themselves striving for all the wrong people. Just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

As women pursuing confidence, we mustn’t simply change our hearts; we must also change our habits. We accomplish this when we commit our actions to what God’s Word says rather than responding to the way we feel.

This is the truth: we can commit to faith even when we don’t feel it, and we can commit to what we want to be true before we fully believe it’s true. We can settle our deepest doubts with decision and once we see our faithful follow-through producing fruitful feedback, we’re able to accept the truth that what we do is who we become.

5. Feedback | Receive Your Reward

Like a return on investment, our input determines our output. The results we produce—the good, bad, and in-between—provide feedback that helps us assess the quality of the effort we input based on the data we gather from their output.

If we place our faith in human ability, we will be spiritually stunted and lack hope for our future. We won’t have the internal infrastructure to withstand the weight of our external circumstances.

But when we establish our faith, focus, feelings, and follow-through in God’s ability, we will be sustained throughout hardship while spiritually flourishing.

What a beautiful promise.

In light of this promise, we must place our confidence entirely in the Lord. Believe in His goodness. Meditate upon His holiness. Speak His kindness. Feel His generosity. And respond to His faithfulness. Then we will have sharpened our ability to stand in confidence.

Adapted from Chapter 6 of Stand in Confidence: From Sinking in Insecurity to Rising in Your God-Given Ability by Amanda Pittman. Learn more about living in confidence at Amandapittman.com.