Confidence Building Exercises: 10 Practices From the Best Podcasts

The confidence building exercises that actually work, pulled from podcast conversations with coaches, a Navy SEAL, and elite athletes: keep small promises, run the next-play reset, prepare deliberately, and reframe the story you tell yourself.

2026-08-18 1% Better

The most reliable confidence building exercises share one trait: they build proof. Confidence grows when you give your brain evidence that you follow through, prepare well, and recover fast from setbacks. Across podcasts from On Purpose to The Ed Mylett Show, the coaches and performers below keep returning to the same handful of practices, and every one of them is something you can start today.

These exercises come from our summary library of recent episodes, mostly from the past year, so treat this as the best current thinking from working coaches and athletes, a practical starting point you can test. Each step links to the full episode summary it draws from, free to read, so you can go deeper on any practice that lands.

One pattern stands out: real confidence is quiet and earned. It comes from keeping promises to yourself, preparing until you trust your own readiness, and choosing action while fear is still present. Build those habits and the feeling follows.

1. Trade self-focus for service

Self-doubt spikes when your attention is locked on yourself: how you look, how you are coming across, whether you measure up. The On Purpose confidence blueprint offers a fast reset. When you walk into a room or a meeting, redirect the question from 'How do they see me?' to 'How can I be of value here?' That single shift quiets the ego and hands you a job to do, which is where confidence lives. Natalya Neidhart built a WWE career on the same move, becoming the star maker when she felt overlooked.

From: On Purpose: the 4-step blueprint to end self-doubt · The Ed Mylett Show: Natalya Neidhart on unbreakable confidence

2. Keep small promises to yourself, daily

Mental performance coach Alan Stein Jr. traces durable confidence to a plain source: the promises you keep to yourself when no one is watching. Say you will wake at 6 a.m. and jog, then do it, and you deposit a little proof. Hit snooze and you withdraw some. Pick one tiny, daily commitment you can hit with near certainty, and stack the wins over weeks. Michael Chandler frames the same idea from the octagon: excellent, repeatable preparation is what lets him step in with zero second-guessing.

From: The Ed Mylett Show: build unshakable confidence with Alan Stein Jr. · The Ed Mylett Show: a bulletproof mindset through preparation

3. Aim for excellence, and drop the perfection standard

Michael Chandler's first big loss came after he started chasing perfection as a ranked champion. Every sparring round became a chance to fall short of an impossible bar, and his performance sank. His fix: measure success as 1% gained each day, a target you can actually hit, so confidence compounds day over day. Give yourself grace to be human while keeping the standard high on effort. As Chandler puts it, comparison to perfection wires you for pain, because it is a bar you will miss every single time.

From: The Ed Mylett Show: Michael Chandler on excellence over perfection

4. Run the whiteboard-memory reset after a setback

Great shooters like Kobe Bryant used what Alan Stein Jr. calls a 'whiteboard memory': after eight missed shots, they erase the result and take the ninth as if all eight had dropped. Borrow it. When a call, pitch, or rep goes badly, name it, wipe the board, and give your full attention to the next play. The skill is separating how you feel from what you do next, because you control the action even while the emotion lingers. Practiced enough, one bad moment stops poisoning the ten that follow.

From: The Ed Mylett Show: Alan Stein Jr. on the next-play mindset

5. Prepare until you trust yourself

Elite ski coach Warren Smith reduces confidence to a habit of preparation. His ability to sprint for a train at 53, a year after knee surgery, came from five minutes of daily mobility work that built trust in his body. Navy SEAL Jason Redman calls the same discipline the Overcome Mindset: awareness that things can go wrong, preparation for when they do, and action once they hit. Do the small daily reps of readiness in whatever your arena is, and confidence arrives as the byproduct of having done the work.

From: Feel Better, Live More: the one habit behind confidence and resilience · The Ed Mylett Show: Navy SEAL Jason Redman on living greatly

6. Break the scary thing into numbered micro-steps

When Warren Smith's clients freeze at the top of a steep run, he maps the descent into tiny points: 'Point 1, step here. Point 2, side-slip there. Point 3, start the turn.' The overwhelm drains because the brain gets one small, doable action at a time. Use it on any intimidating task: the hard conversation, the launch, the first workout back. Write the first three physical steps, then do only step one. Motion itself creates the evidence that you can handle the rest.

From: Feel Better, Live More: Warren Smith on mapping the path through fear

7. Reframe the story you tell about your past

Ed Mylett's guests keep landing on the same lever: the meaning you assign to an event, more than the event itself, is what shapes you. Natalya Neidhart turned childhood hardship into fuel once she reframed her father's struggles as the result of brain injuries she had misread for years. Ask a sharper question about your own history: 'Why not me?' You have likely already paid your dues through the work. Jason Redman applies the same reframe by treating most setbacks as schedule disruptions, saving the phrase 'bad day' for something that leaves a permanent scar.

From: The Ed Mylett Show: Natalya Neidhart on reframing family trauma · The Ed Mylett Show: Jason Redman on redefining a bad day

8. Turn comparison into study

Comparison usually corrodes confidence, telling you how far behind you are. The On Purpose blueprint flips it into fuel: study the people ahead of you as a playbook. Move the thought from 'they are so far ahead' to 'if they can do it, here is the path.' Roxy Nafousi adds the other half: count your everyday qualities as real evidence of worth, the way you organize, advise, or show up for people, alongside the resume wins. As Nafousi puts it, 'People do not care how you look. They care how you make them feel.'

From: On Purpose: turning comparison into emulation · On Purpose: Roxy Nafousi on knowing your worth

9. Build self-esteem as a reputation with yourself

'Self-esteem is a reputation you have with yourself. You're watching yourself at all times. You know what you're doing and you have your own moral code.' Naval Ravikant's line, from Modern Wisdom's 2025 recap, points straight to the exercise: live up to your own code and do things for other people. Sacrifice for someone or something you love and you generate genuine pride, the kind no external win can fake. Pair one act of service today with one promise kept, and you feed the inner scorekeeper directly.

From: Modern Wisdom: Naval Ravikant on self-esteem as internal reputation

10. Take action while the fear is still there

Every confidence practice converges here: you act before you feel ready. Jason Redman describes standing on the 'ramp of life,' frozen by fear of failing or being judged, and his instruction is simply to jump, because the step off the ramp is what unlocks growth. Alan Stein Jr. adds the mechanism: you cannot always control the feeling, only whether you let it drive your behavior. Choose the action, let the emotion ride along, and let each brave rep become the proof that fuels the next one.

From: The Ed Mylett Show: Jason Redman on jumping despite fear · The Ed Mylett Show: Alan Stein Jr. on separating feelings from action

Why this protocol works

The through-line: proof beats pep talk

The coaches here rarely reach for affirmations. Alan Stein Jr., Michael Chandler, and Warren Smith all describe confidence as a residue of evidence: kept promises, reps logged in the unseen hours, preparation you can feel in your body. That is why the exercises above are behavioral. You are assembling a case file that says 'I follow through,' and the feeling of confidence is the verdict your brain returns after reviewing it.

Attach to the next action, let results be results

A second thread runs from the basketball court to the meditation cushion. Stein's whiteboard memory, Chandler's 'win, lose, or draw, I am still okay' mantra, and the Zen reframe from 10% Happier all point the same way: tie your identity to effort and process, the parts you control, and let outcomes be outcomes. Jiryu Rutschman-Byler's question, 'Am I more concerned with my problem than the fact that I am alive?', opens the same space to act from steadiness while a setback is still fresh.

Preparation earns the right to act boldly

The last pattern reconciles two ideas that seem to pull apart: prepare obsessively, then move before you feel ready. Warren Smith and Jason Redman supply the preparation; Redman and Stein supply the leap. The resolution is sequence. You bank readiness through daily reps, so when the moment demands courage you have evidence to draw on, and you jump with fear still present because waiting for it to vanish means waiting forever. Preparation is what makes the jump reasonable.

Every episode referenced

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best confidence building exercise for adults?

The highest-leverage exercise for adults is keeping small daily promises to yourself. Mental performance coach Alan Stein Jr., on The Ed Mylett Show, argues that confidence comes from evidence you follow through when no one is watching, so pick one tiny commitment (a morning walk, ten focused minutes) and hit it daily. Michael Chandler pairs this with an excellence standard measured as 1% gained per day, which keeps the bar reachable and the wins stacking.

What are good confidence building exercises for the workplace?

For work, run two exercises. First, before a meeting or pitch, swap the question 'How do they see me?' for 'How can I be of value here?' The On Purpose confidence blueprint shows this service shift quiets self-doubt and gives you a task to focus on. Second, use Alan Stein Jr.'s whiteboard memory: after a rough call or presentation, wipe the result and give full attention to the next one, so a single miss stops shaping your whole day.

How can teens and young people build confidence?

For teens, the most transferable practice is breaking intimidating challenges into numbered micro-steps, a method ski coach Warren Smith uses to move frozen students down a slope one small action at a time. Pair it with reframing setbacks: on The Ed Mylett Show, Natalya Neidhart describes turning early hardship into fuel by changing the story she told about it, and asking 'Why not me?' when self-doubt whispers that she had yet to earn her place.

What confidence exercises help women specifically?

The episodes here treat confidence as universal, and two practices come up repeatedly for women navigating male-dominated rooms. Roxy Nafousi, on On Purpose, teaches counting your everyday qualities as real evidence of worth, moving beyond resume wins. Natalya Neidhart, the longest-tenured woman in WWE history, models the 'why not me' reframe and building your own security through work when you feel overlooked, so belonging becomes something you claim rather than await.

Where can I find these confidence podcast episodes for free?

Every exercise on this page links to a free summary of its source episode in the 1% Better library, complete with the key takeaway, detailed insights, and verbatim quotes. The practices here draw from On Purpose, The Ed Mylett Show, Feel Better Live More, and Modern Wisdom, and you can open any one to go deeper before committing to the full audio. Browse the full catalog to find more shows on mindset and self-worth.