Nobody is born with limitless self-confidence. If someone seems to have incredible self-confidence, it’s because he or she has worked on building it for years. Self-confidence is something that you learn to build up because the challenging world of business, and life in general, can deflate it.
It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures. —Oprah Winfrey
Self-confidence is an attitude about your skills and abilities. It means you accept and trust yourself and have a sense of control in your life. You know your strengths and weakness well, and have a positive view of yourself.
However, think back to when you were learning to drive. Can you recall having lower self-confidence about your driving skills when you didn’t have much experience on the road? Recall at the time how much there was to think about and to do: watch the road and other vehicles, focus on how hard you step on the accelerator and the brakes, turn the wheel just right to go around the corner, etc… As your skills and experience grew, your self-confidence grew.
On the other hand, low self-confidence might make you feel full of self-doubt, be passive or submissive, or have difficulty trusting others. You may feel inferior, unloved, or be sensitive to criticism. Feeling confident in yourself might depend on the situation. For instance, you can feel very confident in some areas, such as academics, but lack confidence in others, like relationships.
We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?— Marianne Williamson
Self-efficacy and self-esteem are sometimes used interchangeably with self-confidence, but they are subtly different.
We gain a sense of self-efficacy when we see ourselves (and others like us) mastering skills and achieving goals. This encourages us to believe that, if we learn and work hard in a particular area, we'll succeed. It's this type of confidence that leads people to accept difficult challenges and to keep going in the face of setbacks.
Self-esteem is a more general sense that we can cope with what's going on in our lives, and that we have a right to be happy.
Also, self-esteem comes in part from the feeling that the people around us approve of us. We may or may not be able to control this, and if we experience a lot of criticism or rejection from other people, our self-esteem can easily suffer unless we support it in other ways.
How Confident Do You Seem to Others?
Your level of self-confidence can show in many ways: your behavior, your body language, how you speak, what you say, and so on. Look at the following comparisons of common confident behavior with behavior associated with low self-confidence.
Which thoughts or actions do you recognize in yourself and the people around you?
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As you can see from these examples, low self-confidence can be self-destructive, and it often manifests itself as negativity. Confident people are generally more positive – they believe in themselves and their abilities, and they also believe in living life to the full.
So how do you build this sense of balanced self-confidence, founded on a firm appreciation of reality?
The bad news is that there’s no quick fix or five-minute solution.
The good news is that becoming more confident is readily achievable, just as long as you have the focus and determination to carry things through. And what’s even better is that the things you’ll do to build your self-confidence will also build success – after all, your confidence will come from real, solid achievement.
No-one can take this away from you!
So here are some tips that can help you to increase your self-confidence:
#1. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF
This is #1 for a reason.
As you already learn, self-confidence comes from within. If you are looking for outside sources to build your self-confidence, you are going to fail miserably.
So, you have to work on and take care of yourself.
#2. STAND TALL
Take note as to how you walk. If you have a hard time seeing how you walk, have a friend record you walking.
You may be surprised. Are your shoulders slumped? Is your head down?
This is how someone walks who doesn’t have confidence.
Stand up tall with your head up when you walk.
If you’ve been walking around with your shoulders slumped and head down, the change is amazing when you start walking properly.
#3. SMILE
Learn to smile.
It’s crazy that I say learn to smile but many of us don’t smile that much.
When you see someone, smile, and say hello. Better yet, just walk around with a smile on your face.
Just doing this will make you instantly feel happier inside and will do wonders for your self-confidence.
In fact, if you stop here and just make these 3 points habits, you will be well on your way to building self-confidence.
#4. CHANGE YOUR HABITS
What are you doing that is causing you to lack confidence?
Are you scared of speaking in public?
Instead of hiding when you are called upon in the office or in class, make it a habit of getting past your fear and speak up.
Maybe your lack of confidence comes from being overweight.
Instead of giving in to your craving for a pizza, go for a walk instead or have a tall glass of water.
Both of these will help you to get over your urge and will help you to build self-confidence because you didn’t give in to your craving.
The key here is to make tiny changes that become habits. At the moment, these changes don’t feel like much, but they have a powerful impact on bettering your life and as a result, building self-confidence.
#5. THINK POSITIVE
Many times we have a lack of confidence because we fear or doubt an outcome to an event. Instead of thinking negatively about an outcome, think positively. Think of the great things that will come out of it.
On the off chance that things don’t turn out as you planned, don’t get discouraged.
Instead, look at the bright side.
Maybe you didn’t get that new job, but there could be a better fit for you right around the corner. You never know, so don’t get discouraged so easily.
When you can find the positives in all situations, you lose your fear and this is a great step in building self-confidence.
#6. STOP CARING WHAT OTHERS THINK
You aren’t out to please others, your goal is to please yourself and be happy.
What makes you happy won’t make others happy most of the time. So you can either be miserable and make them happy, or just focus on your own happiness.
Since you have to deal with yourself 24 hours a day, I suggest you make it a point to make yourself happy.
While it will be hard at first and you might disappoint others, they will get over it and so will you. As I said, you have to live with yourself, so you might as well be happy otherwise life will not be much fun.
#7. THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE IN YOUR LIFE
Even if you experienced failure and unhappiness in your life, there certainly are a few achievements.
These need not be great achievements, but quite simple ones, such as getting good grades at school or college, a promotion at work, getting along well with your neighbors, getting your driving license, or learning to swim.
Thinking about those achievements makes you realize that you have experienced success in your life, and not all is a failure.
This would make you feel better about yourself and about your life, and improve your self-esteem.
#8. FOCUS ON WHAT YOU DID AND ACHIEVED, NOT ON WHAT YOU DID NOT DO AND DID NOT ACHIEVE
Why fill your mind with scenarios of failure?
If you keep thinking about failure, you unconsciously expect and anticipate it, and might eventually attract it to you. This would further spoil your sense of self-confidence.
You should replace this negative movie in your mind with a movie about success.
See yourself in your mind, where you really want to be, living the life you really want.
If you keep watching a movie of success in your mind, you will eventually attract success.
This process would build up your self-confidence.
#9. WRITE DOWN A LIST OF YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS AND SUCCESS
Take another step toward building your self-confidence and write down a list of your achievements and success, and look at this list often.
You might say that you have never experienced success.
You are wrong about that.
You might have not experienced great success, but you surely had, even if only occasionally, experienced some kind of success. Even baking a good cake, being in good relations with your spouse or children, or going for a walk almost every day is a form of success.
#10. THINK ABOUT YOUR TALENTS AND ABILITIES
Set a time each day to think about your talents and abilities, and find ways to develop and use them. Do not say that you have no talents and skills. Everyone has some. You just need to find them.
#11. SET SMALL, SIMPLE GOALS
Set small, simple goals that are within your reach and go achieve them.
This will greatly boost your confidence.
I am talking about really small goals, such as cleaning and arranging your wardrobe or drawers, inviting friends to your house, starting to learn swimming, taking a short walk, or talking with someone whom you don’t like.
These small acts will make you feel better about yourself and increase your self-confidence.
#12. GIVE YOURSELF MOTIVATIONAL TALKS
Be firm, and do not allow negative comments about you and about your life to run in your mind. You need to be more aware of what is going on in your mind and not allow negative self-talk to go on in your mind.
#13. WHAT WE WEAR, OFTEN, AFFECTS HOW WE FEEL
What kind of clothes makes you feel better?
What colors make you feel more confident?
Choose the clothes and colors you like and the ones that make you feel more confident.
#14. LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD
When talking, speak up and clearly, and don’t be afraid to express your opinions.
#15. CHANGE THE COMPANY YOU KEEP
This is the hardest option for building self-confidence and so it comes last.
If you are hanging out with negative people that lack confidence, you will mimic them and be just like them. Because of this, you have to be smart with who you spend your time with.
Hang out and be friends with people that encourage you and push you to be your best.
Stop hanging out with people that hold you back or put you or others down.
It might be hard at first to pull away from these people, especially if you’ve been friends for a long time, but it is the best thing for you.
Remember, you only get one shot at life.
You can either be miserable with others or you can be your best and live life to the fullest and be happy. It’s your choice, so you can’t get upset if life doesn’t turn out the way you want.
In the long run, getting toxic people out of your life is the best thing you can do.
The tips on this page will help you build your self-confidence. In some cases, you might need more than these tips.
Sometimes, if there is a situation of extreme lack of confidence, lack of assertiveness, and lack of self-esteem, you might need to seek professional help, like a counselor or a psychologist. They would help you find the reasons for their lack and offer you ways to help you build them up.
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Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this article and found something to take away with you.
If you’d like more real-life examples of daily self-care, you can connect with me on Instagram.