Conquer Your Self-Doubt at TOEFL iBT: New Course to Elevate Your Confidence
At the risk of being painfully obvious… and in case no one told you this yet… Your confidence has a huge impact on your score at TOEFL iBT.
So if you’re criticizing your English or doubting your abilities, you should be ready to see low scores in various sections of the TOEFL iBT test. After more than 12 years guiding foreign-trained professionals to get super high scores in all 4 sections of TOEFL iBT, I can tell you… confidence is very closely linked to a person’s final score.
When foreign-trained professionals show up to study and take TOEFL with confidence, they bring energetic magic. Confidence makes them exude champion energy (not “I already failed” energy), trust their instinct and choose the right answer (not waste time doubting and overthinking), find a way to express an idea (not go blank or worry that this one word is wrong), and recover quickly from mistakes so they finish strong (not dwell or give up).
So if you dwell on your past failures at TOEFL, worry about your English not being good enough, or waste a lot of time and energy doubting and overthinking the answers, you may want to check out the new course that I describe below.
How do you massively raise your confidence?
If you lack confidence with your English and TOEFL iBT, you may already know that you do not get confident as a result of suffering through embarrassment, shame or frustration in TOEFL classes, study sessions or real test experiences. You do not get confident simply because you forced yourself to finish a mountain of practice activities in a book or website. You also don’t get confident by listening to horror stories of people who are trapped with TOEFL for years.
If you see your English or TOEFL iBT the same way that I used to see my ability to do physical activities, then I’m here to say — you’re right. Massively raising your confidence is more complicated than everyone wants you to believe.
Below, I‘m sharing how I stopped being “bad” at doing physical activity after 3 decades because many foreign-trained professionals tell me that they have “bad / not good” English and it started when they were younger.
Even though my story below is not about TOEFL, the reasons why I had low confidence are the same reasons why foreign-trained professionals have low confidence.
The process that helped me is a process that raises confidence in any area that you need to apply it — including your English and TOEFL iBT.
So, while you read you about my experience, I encourage you to think about your own situation with this test.
And I want you to ask yourself, “What will happen for me if my confidence around TOEFL iBT grows in the same way that (and as quickly as) Jaime’s confidence around physical activity grew?”
Do you relate to how I used to be?
When I was a kid, I was literally the shyest and most nervous kid in Physical Education class. I was super uncomfortable playing any team sports or even running.
Yes, my mom put me in swim classes. Yes, my dad made me join the basketball team. Yes, my school was legally required to give me gym classes throughout my entire childhood until I graduated from high school. I had plenty of opportunities to practice and get better…
… but I never did because I told myself I was “weak” and “terrible” at anything and everything that required me to move my body so I was never actually “good” at any of that stuff. And I certainly didn’t enjoy it.
Can you see how excited I was about swimming class? I would rather have done 10 hours of homework. Seriously.
![](https://jaimemiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/swim-card-compressed.png)
My low confidence and bad attitude stayed with me for nearly 30 years.
Sure, as an adult, I forced myself to do athletic things (because it was healthy and “I must”) BUT my secret belief — that I “sucked at it” — meant that I always felt as stupid and shy as I did when I was a kid.
I couldn’t motivate myself to continue any physical activities long enough to see any real results. And that meant that I stayed “bad” at everything I tried.
This relates as much to your situation with TOEFL iBT as it did to my situation with physical activity. Because we avoid things that we’re bad at or things that make us uncomfortable… after we scrape together the minimum amount of motivation, we have such a limited supply of energy that it runs out long before we get results. That is how and why we stay stuck in a vicious cycle of failure and being “bad” at the thing.
The Secret No One Talks About
Everything began changing a few months ago when I took a business program and started meeting regularly with a fellow innovator named Craig.
I quickly realized he had a rare, super valuable methodology that could show people how to bring champion energy and enthusiasm into any situation. He had a name for his course: The Inevitable Champion Guide. But he was struggling to organize it into a structured framework that anyone could follow. From 12+ years producing digital courses for TOEFL iBT, that is an area of strength of me.
So I offered to help him produce his course and he would help me develop confidence with physical activity.
As I began discussing Craig’s ideas and structuring them into a coherent curriculum, I did what I always do whenever I make a course — I tested out the assignments by doing them multiple times and making sure they were worth a person’s time and effort… which means that I absorbed the principles in Craig’s course…
THAT was how I began breathing power, confidence and genuine enthusiasm into MY biggest insecurity for the first time in my life.
Not only did my physical activity level go from 0 times per week to 4-6 times per week, but more importantly, I figured out the secret to showing up with the kind of confident excitement that made it effortless to handle surprises and setbacks. And that accelerated my progress even faster.
What if your confidence grows in 5 months as mine did?
Soon after I began thinking about the principles in The Inevitable Champion Guide and answering the questions for myself, I started looking for a conveniently-located gym.
This was surprising because for the past 6 years, I did absolutely no exercise whatsoever. Without understanding what I was signing up for, I registered for classes at a place that offered “TRX classes.”
When the instructor said, “You should be here 3 mornings a week, starting tomorrow,” I made zero excuses.
Even though a little voice in my head whispered that maybe I should wait a few days, I went out that very afternoon and bought shoes. I woke up at 4:30 AM the next morning to arrive on time.
Old Me would have been horrified about the opportunities to embarrass myself when I put my feet in the straps to do pushups and other moves that I was bad at. That nervousness used to make me grumpy and humorless.
New Me got down on the floor and figured it out. Then I went back again and again, often the first person to arrive. I never dragged myself in or complained about being tired or sore. Amazingly, I didn’t get hurt. When I made mistakes or misunderstood, I just laughed, brushed it off and kept going.
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I kept thinking about the ideas and concepts in The Inevitable Champion Guide. so that I could organize them One weekend, I went for a day hike and climbed down some rough terrain so I could hang out by the waterfall. You can see below that I started to lose my footing on the rocks and I caught myself.
Old Me would have felt stupid or embarrassed and then wanted to get back in the car where things were safe and comfortable… or if Old Me had stayed outside, I would have been irritable — but New Me stayed in a good mood and kept going. And even at the moment when I slipped, I was confident and laughing about it.
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After answering some of the questions in The Inevitable Champion Guide, I realized I had always wanted to learn how to kayak. It seemed peaceful and relatively undemanding… so I called around and I signed up for a kayak class.
When I registered with the teacher on the phone, he was like, “It’ll be a chance to practice water safety.” Well that sounded good.
Little did I know that I was registering for a “kayak roll” class — and that is NOT the same thing as kayaking.
I did not know what I was getting into until the moment after class started when I realized that if I could not flip my own kayak over, the teacher would flip my kayak over for me… and I was going to be upside down, under water, trying to flip myself back up into the normal position above water. Repeatedly. For 2 hours.
I literally did not know that I even needed to bring a towel with me, ok?
Old Me would have gotten out of the boat at that moment and gone home because if she stayed, she would have ended up crying.
New Me volunteered to go first, flipped upside down probably 10 or 12 times during the class, figured out how to deal with water going in my ears and up my nose — and found ways to enjoy the entire thing. And when class was over and I had no towel to dry off, I ran through the parking lot back to my car with soaking wet clothes and squeaking flip flops, laughing until I dried off with a roll of paper towels I left in my trunk.
From the girl who hated swim classes, my exhilaration was a big change.
![](https://jaimemiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/kayak-2-768x1024.jpg)
![](https://jaimemiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/kayak-768x1024.jpg)
As the summer wore on, I climbed Tumamac Hill.
It starts at 3108 feet above sea level and rapidly climbs up 947 feet to a final elevation of 4055 feet — so by the end, I was three quarters of a mile above sea level.
Old Me would have taken a thousand water breaks, complained the entire way and been embarrassed that kids and moms with strollers were going faster. But more likely, Old Me would have said it was “too dangerous” to hike in such hot weather and would have just stayed home.
New Me put on some extra sunblock, didn’t compare myself to others, didn’t turn around when the water ran out, paced my breaks and felt super proud at the top.
![](https://videoapi-muybridge.vimeocdn.com/animated-thumbnails/image/a01f27ad-abf0-4a9a-bef8-e1d034dc9d1e.gif?ClientID=vimeo-core-prod&Date=1698899557&Signature=bb6361a776038e07ca71b5af44d1c4b9cdacf692)
![](https://jaimemiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Jaime-hikes-Tumamac.png)
Old Me used to be super intimidated to lift free weights. The arms are fine. Leave them alone.
New Me bought gloves because I was getting callouses on my palms from all the weights I was lifting after I increased my workouts from 3 days a week to 4 to 6 days a week, depending on my work schedule. New Me doesn’t complain or hesitate to find time before my work day, during my work day or after my work day to go and move my body.
![](https://videoapi-muybridge.vimeocdn.com/animated-thumbnails/image/d219a0eb-2af6-498a-b38b-45d8e9c431bc.gif?ClientID=vimeo-core-prod&Date=1698782178&Signature=827b8e6a98e8cff7d48b37a72de7377d7d57edcb)
All of these confirmations of my newfound strength and confidence stacked on top of each other.
So then, randomly, a friend who I hadn’t seen in years invited me to hang out with her one Saturday morning so we could go paddleboarding.
Even though I had never gone paddleboarding before, I jumped at the opportunity.
After my friend and I got excited about our plan to see each other, we discovered that the class was NOT for beginners.
My friend started to back out of the plan and make excuses. New Me was like, “I’m going to be totally fine. I can figure it out. I’ll see you on Saturday!”
And you know what? New Me was right. I went paddleboarding and attended a Level 2 class the same day that I got on a paddleboard for the first time.
My friend and I ended up having an awesome day because Old Me wasn’t in control anymore.
![](https://jaimemiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/paddleboard.jpeg)
These are not random, isolated achievements.
They are just a few examples of the kinds of things that Old Me would never have done because I lacked confidence.
In the past 5 months, I applied the principles in The Inevitable Champion Guide to shift a 30-year-old belief that I am “weak” and “suck” at fitness into a new truth that allowed me to find the woman inside me who is not only genuinely excited about being physically active… but is actually incredibly capable and outgoing.
Where can you learn this kind of confidence?
For me, it came from applying the concepts that I helped bring structure and order to inside of Craig’s course…
The Inevitable Champion Guide
a 30-day innovative training
for High-Achievers
Ready to Heal Burnout and
Move Beyond Adversity with Calm Confidence
So You Reinvigorate Your Whole World
… Basically, by doing the course, I transformed my insecurity into a surprising new amount of confidence and enthusiasm.
So if I could do that… what about you and your English for TOEFL iBT?
I am so proud and excited to share...
After months of helping Craig distill his expertise into a digital course, it is ready for use. If you’re interested, let me know and we can talk about how to get it in your hands.
Does it work for TOEFL iBT?
Good question! The answer is The Inevitable Champion Guide makes it easier for you to show up with your champion energy in any area of your life, and that includes how you use your English for TOEFL iBT.
While we were developing the course, some of my TOEFL iBT students actually completed the core activities in The Inevitable Champion Guide.
Here’s some of the feedback that they gave…
![](https://jaimemiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/mortar-and-pestle.png)
![](https://jaimemiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/mortar-and-pestle.png)
![](https://jaimemiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/mortar-and-pestle.png)