#WednesdayWisdom #031: A Good Husband’s Dilemma: What if You Don’t Believe in Yourself?

Husbands,

What if you don’t believe in yourself? It’s an issue every man has wrestles with at least once in his lifetime…no matter if he admits it or not. From the alpha-male, who beams with self-confidence…to the shy introvert, who fears confrontation.

When the Struggle Gets Real

During a Relationship Bootcamp, a couple was doing a very strenuous activity. They were at the point where the struggle was about to get real…and they needed to trust and rely on each other more than ever before. As they were struggling together, the young man fell, which made his wife fall.

During the discussion afterwards, the young man said something that made me raise my eyebrows.

“I trusted my partner to support me. But I didn’t trust myself to do what I needed to do…to be supported.”

And that got me thinking…

You know that place in your relationship…when a life-event happens – and you have to switch things up and do something you’ve never done? For example, when you go from engaged to married. Or, when a couple is having their first baby.

In your mind…you know things are about to change and you also have to change with them. But in your heart…you don’t fully believe you have the ability to make the necessary changes to do something different.

This is a scary dilemma for a good husband. Because socially, men aren’t supposed to act like they can’t handle things. Right? But, every man reaches a point where the necessity of the moment surpasses his ability to fulfill it. And that’s when the crisis of confidence and self-doubt challenge a man’s belief in himself.

Don’t try to BE the man you want to become…
GROW INTO the man you want to become

3 Steps to Growing into the Man You Want to Become

Our belief about ourselves dictates what we feel, what we think, and what we do (always…and in that order). For a husband to build up his belief about himself, he has to grow past his self-doubt and become the man who has confidence in himself to meet whatever relationship challenge he faces. Here’s how.

1. KNOW…you don’t have to be right all the time. In school, you were rewarded for getting answers right. But that’s not how all learning happens. Learning also happens when you do something wrong…and you learn what not to do. So…built into the growth process is the acceptance of being wrong at times and learning from it.
2. KNOW…confidence is a belief system. Confidence is your belief that the outcome is going to turn out as expected. If you have a strong belief that you can accomplish a specific goal, then you have a high degree of confidence in yourself. If a man does not believe he can achieve his desired outcome, then he has low confidence in himself. The reasons why may vary. But his low or high degree of confidence is always based on his belief system.
3. DO…build up your confidence. Set small achievable expectations for yourself to re-train your belief system. For example, when I was single, I knew I wanted to be a good husband, but I didn’t believe I could be…because of my uncaring nature. So I had to train myself how to care for a woman’s feelings. I set small achievable goals to ask women I knew, “How are you doing?” I then would actually listen to what they said and respond with genuine concern.This was a challenge in the beginning because I hadn’t actually cared about a woman’s feelings in nearly a decade. But over time, I became confident in my ability to ask a woman how she feels, listen to her feelings and concerns, and respond caringly. This skill allowed me to hear and respond appropriately to my wife’s feelings and concerns after I got married…just like a good husband is supposed to.

#WednesdayWisdom

Set small expectations for yourself. And once you achieve it, set another…and then set another…until you build up your belief in yourself (confidence) that you can meet whatever relationship challenge you face.

Contact me for speaking engagement @ info@HisLeadershipHerTrust.com.