I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad * by Robert Kiyosaki. Robert is a very successful entrepreneur, and this book is about his journey. It’s great for “thinkers” because it show you how to use your mind to make money. As a thinker rather than a doer, I found it really encouraging and liberating to learn that I can be successful too. If you’re a follower of this blog, you’ll know that I’m prone to exaggeration, but for once I can say that with all sobriety that this book has changed my life. (I’m not rich — not yet — but it’s dramatically impacted the way I think).

One of the principles he talks about is the need to acquire assets in order to make money. Assets are anything that make you money rather than lose it. So, for example, if you own a house and rent it out, you make money from it (people pay you to live there). On the other hand a car, traditionally seen as an asset, in fact loses you money because it goes down in value and you spend money on it (fuel, repairs, tax, etc).

I think the same principle can be applied to confidence. Spend your time getting things that add to your confidence. Just like if you buy some houses to rent out, you’re acquiring money-making assets, you can “buy” things in your life that will give you a return on your investment in terms of confidence (and a whole host of other things, such as optimism, experience, wisdom, growth).

If you have an unhealthy habit, say smoking, quit it! Don’t see this as getting rid of something bad, see it as acquiring something good. Quitting it will give you a sense of accomplishment. You can then reinvest this accomplishment into new projects. Your thinking will be, “I quit smoking, I could … ” (you get to choose what you do next).

A great source of confidence for me is past accomplishments. As a teenager, I had quite low confidence and spent a lot of time with my computer instead of, for example, going outside and getting a life. However, that investment (the cost here is time … and a social life) is now producing results for me. The confidence I picked up in learning to do something I couldn’t previously do can now be applied to learning things I can’t do at the moment but would like to do. For example, learning how to make money. I learnt PHP, I can learn to make money.

Build these assets in your life and they will never stop producing confidence for you. The trick is to use that momentum to go on to the next thing. Regularly remind yourself of your past achievements. (If you feel you don’t have any achievements, think again. I’ve learnt that that what I look for, I usually find. Don’t look at your life expecting to find failures, look expecting to find successes.)

* If you use this link to buy this book, I get some money from it. It doesn’t cost you any more, but it does help me to keep writing this blog!