Winning Self-confidence
Winning Self-confidence
How are you supposed to be confident about something when you have
nothing to feel optimistic about?
Like, how are you supposed to be confident at your new job if you’ve
never done this type of work before? Or how are you supposed to be confident in social situations when
no one has ever liked you before? Or how are you supposed to be confident in your relationship when
you’ve never been in a successful relationship before?
The same deal goes for relationships. No confidence in intimacy will
lead to bad breakups and
awkward phone calls, and emergency Ben and Jerry’s runs at three in the
morning.
And seriously, how are you supposed to be confident in your work
experience when previous experience is required to even be considered for a job
in the first place?
The Confidence Conundrum
If you’ve
always lost in life, then how
could you ever expect to be a winner? And if you never expect to be a winner,
then you’re going to act like a loser. Thus, the cycle of suckage continues.
This is the
confidence conundrum: where to be happy or loved or successful, first you need to be confident… but to be
confident, first you need to be happy or loved or successful.
So, it seems like you’re stuck in one of two
loops: either you’re already in a happy and confident loop.
And if you’re in the loser loop, well it seems
damn near impossible to get out.
It’s like a dog chasing its tail. Or Domino’s
ordering its pizza. You can spend a lot of time cuticle-gazing, trying to
mentally sort everything out, but just like with your lack of confidence,
you’re likely to end up right back where you started.
But maybe we’re going about this all wrong.
Maybe the confidence conundrum isn’t a conundrum at all.
If we pay
close attention, we can learn a few things about confidence just
by observing people. So, before you run off and order that pizza, let’s break
this down:
1. Just because somebody has
something (tons of friends, a million dollars, a bitchin’ beach body)
doesn’t necessarily mean that this person is confident in it. There are
business tycoons who lack confidence in their wealth, models
who lack confidence in their looks, and celebrities who lack confidence in
their popularity. So, I think the first thing we can establish is that
confidence is not necessarily linked to any external marker. Rather, our
confidence is rooted in our perception of ourselves, regardless of any tangible external reality.
2.
Because our
confidence is not necessarily linked to any external, tangible measurement, we
can conclude that improving the external, tangible aspects of our lives
won’t necessarily build confidence. Chances are that if you’ve lived more
than a couple of decades, you’ve experienced this in some form or another.
Getting a promotion at your job doesn’t necessarily make you more confident in
your professional abilities. It can often make you
feel less confident. Dating and/or sleeping with more people doesn’t
necessarily make you feel more confident about how attractive you are. Moving
in with your partner or getting married doesn’t
necessarily make you feel any more confident in your relationship.
3. Confidence is a feeling. An emotional state and a state of mind. It’s the perception
that you lack nothing. That you are equipped with everything you need, both now and for the future. A person
confident in their social life will feel as though they lack nothing in their
social life. A person with no confidence in their social life believes that
they lack the prerequisite coolness to be invited to anyone’s pizza party. It’s
this perception of lacking something that drives their needy, clingy,
and/or bitchy behaviour.
The obvious
and most common answer to the confidence conundrum is to simply believe that
you lack nothing. That you already have, or at least deserve, whatever you feel
you would need to make you confident.
But this
sort of thinking—believing you’re already beautiful even though you’re a frumpy
slob, or believing you’re a raving success even though your only profitable
business venture was selling weed in high school—leads to the kind of insufferable narcissism that causes people to argue that obesity
(something more detrimental to your health than smoking cigarettes) should be
celebrated as beauty and that it’s, like, totally OK to carve your name into the Roman Colosseum, because,
you know, selfies.
A lot of people soon realize this doesn’t work,
and so they take a different approach: incremental, external improvement.
They read articles that tell them the top 50
things confident people do, and then they try to do those things.
They start to exercise, dress better, make
more eye contact, and
practice firmer handshakes.
This is admittedly a step above simply
believing that you’re already confident and that you don’t belong in the loser
loop. After all, at least you’re doing something about your lack of
confidence. And actually, it will work—but only for a little while.
Again, this type of thinking only focuses on
external sources of confidence. And remember, deriving your self-confidence
from the world around you is short-lived at its best and completely fucking
delusional at its worst.
So no, external improvement is not a
sustainable solution to the confidence conundrum. And feeling as though you
lack nothing and deluding yourself into believing you already possess
everything you could ever dream of is far worse.
“The only way to be truly confident is to
simply become comfortable with what you lack.”
The big charade with confidence is that it has
nothing to do with being comfortable in what we achieve and everything to do
with being comfortable in what we don’t achieve.
People who
are confident in business are confident because they’re comfortable with failure. They realize that failure is simply part of
learning how their market works. It’s a reflection of their lack of knowledge,
not a reflection of who they are as a person.
People who
are confident in their social lives are confident because they’re comfortable
with rejection. They’re not afraid of rejection because they’re comfortable
with people not liking them as long as they’re expressing themselves honestly.
People who
are confident in their
relationships are
confident because they’re comfortable with getting hurt. They’re not afraid
to be vulnerable and tell someone how they feel and then
establish strong boundaries around
those feelings, even if it means being uncomfortable (or leaving a bad relationship).
Building Confidence Through
Failure
The truth is that the route to the positive
runs through the negative. Those among us who are the most comfortable
with negative experiences are those who reap the most benefits.
It’s counterintuitive, but it’s also true. We
often worry that if we become comfortable in our failures, if we accept failure
as an inevitable part of living, that we will become failures.
But it doesn’t work that way.
Comfort in our failures allows us to act
without fear, to engage without judgment, to love without conditions. It’s the
dog that lets the tail go, realizing that it’s already a part of himself. It’s
the Domino’s that cancels its order, realizing it already has the pizza it
wanted. Or something.
Confidence
Confidence is a belief in oneself, the
conviction that one can meet life's challenges and succeed, and the willingness
to act accordingly. Being confident requires a realistic sense of one’s
capabilities and feeling secure in that knowledge.
Projecting confidence helps people gain
credibility, make a strong first impression, deal with
pressure, and tackle personal and professional challenges. It’s also an
attractive trait, as confidence helps put others at ease.
How to Build Confidence
Social
confidence can be developed by practicing in social settings. Individuals can observe the structure and flow
of any conversation before jumping in, and they can prepare questions or topics
to discuss ahead of time.
Anxiety can
take hold when people are plagued by self-doubt, so putting themselves in and
getting accustomed to the specific situation they fear can
assure people that nothing truly bad will happen. And the activity gets easier
with practice.
How can I
improve my confidence daily?
Being confident means knowing that you can handle
the emotional outcome of whatever you’ll face. Begin by acknowledging
every emotion, including
difficult emotions, rather than avoiding them. Speaking up for yourself,
limiting self-criticism, and other strategies can help build emotional strength
and confidence.
How do I build confidence in a specific domain?
Confidence is not all-encompassing: You can have
high confidence in some areas and low confidence in others. In whatever new
domain you choose, hone your skills and develop
self-efficacy by watching others, practicing yourself, and
taking advice from the experts.
How can I develop mental strength?
How should I build confidence for a job interview?
Overconfidence and Under confidence
A realistic appraisal of one's abilities
enables people to strike a healthy balance between too little and too much
confidence. Too little confidence can prevent people from taking risks and
seizing opportunities—in school, at work, or in their social life.
Too much confidence can come off as cockiness,
arrogance, or narcissism.
Overestimating one’s abilities might also lead to problems such as failing to
complete projects on time.
What’s the
difference between confidence and narcissism?
Narcissism
can be due to insecurities and defence mechanisms, while
confidence comes from self-awareness and the ability to tolerate and reflect on
one’s insecurities. Confidence instills a personal sense of being capable and
competent, while narcissism encompasses a sense of superiority over others.
Why are we
drawn to narcissists?
People like
those who are higher in narcissism better than those who are lower in
narcissism, according to one recent study, and that may be because people overestimate how much self-esteem narcissists have. Perceiving
a strong sense of confidence, which puts others at ease, may be the key to
narcissists’ appeal.
What are
the reasons someone might have low confidence?
What are
the costs of under confidence?
How to Raise Confident Kids
Children—and especially adolescents—can
struggle with insecurity and self-doubt as they navigate academics,
friendships, and romantic relationships. But parents can play a part in providing their
children with the tools they need to develop self-confidence.
How do you
raise confident children?
Although
parents may understandably be tempted to help children solve every challenge
that comes their way, stepping back and letting kids solve problems on
their own can hone executive function skills,
teach motivation, and help instil a strong sense of self-agency and confidence.
How do you
raise a confident teenager?
To instil
self-confidence, parents can support adolescents’ goals, treat mistakes as
learning experiences and failure as evidence of trying, encourage practice and
persistence, and avoid unloading their worries onto their children. These and other responses can
help teens believe in themselves.
How do you raise
a confident daughter?
Acknowledge, reflect on, and trust your daughter’s feelings. By empathizing with her emotions and trusting them, she will learn to do the same. If she trusts how she feels, she will trust who she is. This will ideally allow her to verbalize how she feels and work through challenges, rather than acting out.
How do you
raise a confident son?
Societal stereotypes still dictate that boys be tough, strong, and stoic. But denying emotion and vulnerability can be harmful. Validating boys’ feelings, teaching them to channel anger into healthy outlets, and encouraging them to ask for help when necessary can set boys up to be confident and successful.
Ways to Build Your Confidence
- Throughout our
development, confidence is cultivated.
- Increasing confidence
is an inside job that takes concerted effort, practice, and persistence.
- A willingness, taking risks, and trusting in
yourself, among other things, contribute to confidence-building.
- We aren’t born with confidence; we cultivate
it over time. Some factors contribute to it and directly take away from
it. Socio-cultural and familial constructs communicate subliminally and
overtly about who we are and how we’re expected to be. How we navigate our
relationships and how successful we perceive ourselves to be in all realms
of life also impact our self-concept. The degree to which we acquire self-efficacy, self-love, and self-compassion is are
further factors that contribute to our overall confidence.
Our Values
I frequently ask patients to consider the
following: “Is this behavior or action going to contribute to my confidence or
take away from it?” Pondering this question helps to establish whether or not a
particular decision is guided by intrinsic formative values.
Decisions that are guided by fundamental
values are often more effectively processed. There’s increased consideration as
to the possible conflicting values that are causing decision-making to be
challenging, and there tends to be less residual negative emotions that get
evoked such as regret, guilt, and shame.
Proactively and mindfully making sound decisions greatly impacts our
confidence.
Throughout our development, confidence is to
be built upon, fortified, and integrated. There are significant ways to focus
and directly work on it.
1.
Notice,
observe, and show compassion to your inner protector. We all have inner protectors. It’s the part
that desperately wants to protect you from discomfort and perceived “danger.” To
avoid conflict, rejection, and negative emotions (among other things), it can
deter you from setting boundaries, asserting
and expressing your needs, and acting in an empowered way because of
perceptions regarding your worthiness.
2.
Avoid
putting yourself in a position of victimhood. There are many ways in which you may do this
without ever realizing it. Some examples include falling into the comparison
trap and ostensibly evaluating yourself as less than, surmising that you’re the
only one that ever went through what you did, and generally acting from a
passive place (e.g., operating out of helplessness and dependency, expecting
others should read your mind).
3.
Celebrate
all moments you lean into your values. All wins are wins. If you take the time and put
concerted effort into leaning into being your best self, those are ideal
circumstances to be acknowledged, validated, and celebrated. You’re making the
choice to enhance yourself; you deserve that recognition. Your confidence,
inspiration, and motivation will
undoubtedly benefit from it.
4. Slow down. Creating space for contemplating, grounding, and
re-regulating your emotions is critical. It leads to less perseverating, spiralling,
and making impulsive, mindless decisions. Take the time
to learn and practice mindfulness. You can invite mind-body techniques and
exercises into your daily practice. Expanding your mindfulness and
present-moment awareness has been proven to increase personal health, mental
health, and general well-being.
5.
Look
within, rather than outside of yourself.
Increasing confidence is an inside job. Don’t rely on others for confidence-building;
take personal strides toward creating a life you're proud of and satisfied
with. In your relationships, practice being less controlling and heavy-handedly
attached to expectations and outcomes. Also work on avoiding allowing others’
actions to usurp power over your mood and actions.
6.
Be
accepting of all thoughts, feelings, and body sensations no matter what. You can’t control thoughts, feelings, and body
sensations—just the actions you choose to take. All are welcome because they
inform and remind you what’s important to you. They’re a direct portal to your
values and highlight how wonderfully multidimensional you are. Your hurt, fear, and anger are
just as humanly poignant and important as your joy and contentment. Take pride
in the many facets of you.
7.
Embrace
your humanness. You, like me and everyone else, have imperfections.
You are more likely to accept these imperfect parts if you get familiar with,
understand, and appreciate all that makes you imperfect. These parts also
contribute to what makes you incredible. Your perfectionism lends
to your conscientiousness, your
hypervigilance lends to your thoughtfulness, etc. Practicing self-compassion
will assist you in recognizing when you’re trying your very best despite your
human challenges.
8.
Never give
up. Mistakes are lessons, not failures. Every circumstance helps you to learn more
about yourself and what you want more or less of. It gets you closer to living
the life you want. If you don’t get it right the first time with plan A, go to
plan B. Go through the whole alphabet if you need to, until you find what
you’re looking for.
9. Make and take the time for you. Accept that all things worthy require your
time, energy, persistence, and continual practice. This includes moments of
self-care, nurturance, and self-compassion. Treat
yourself as if you’re the most important and special person you know.
10.
Trust in
yourself. Trusting
yourself includes making decisions independently and unilaterally without
having to check in, second-guessing yourself, and needing constant reassurance
from others. The more you do, the more you prove to yourself that you’re
capable and can do what you set your mind to.
11.
Build
strength in your inner and outer worlds. Your inner and outer worlds make up the whole
of you. Being focused, organized, and thoughtful impacts the way you approach
the setting in which you live, how you treat your body, and how you connect in
your relationships. Having balance and peace in you and surrounding you will
make you feel better about walking into your life each day.
12.
Be willing. Willingness is pivotal. In a state of
willingness, you’ll be more flexible and expansive and will avoid the pitfalls
of denial,
avoidance, protectiveness, and disconnection that can often lead to stagnation.
Rather than excuses, rationalizations, and illusions of work, you’ll approach
your life more fully and openly.
13.
Continually
challenge yourself and take risks. Growth is developed through challenging yourself to
do hard things. It helps to grow your resilience, coping
skills, and self-efficacy. The more you put yourself out there, the more you’ll
prove that your preconceived notions, narratives, and false beliefs aren’t
absolutes and can ultimately change with new corrective experiences.
14.
Don’t take
things personally. I remind my patients that hurt people hurt others
and that people don’t trigger you, you get triggered. It reminds you that you
need to give up your insistence to control and understand that people's
behavior is typically a reflection of where they're at, rather than based on
something you said or did.
15.
Cultivate a
healthy inner circle. Being surrounded by healthy people and
relationships directly reflects how you think, feel, and act toward yourself.
The way you’re treated and treat others is an indication of where you’re at in
your personal development and self-growth.
Developing Confidence
Count
yourself in with “3,2,1 go” and ask yourself the question, “Who am I?” You are
a person who is not too shy to back away from a challenge. Counting gets you
started. 2. Give yourself 20 seconds of courage. That’s all it takes. 3. Take a
seat at the table - literally. Don’t wait around, actually get started with
this one simple action. 4. Cheer for other people’s success. Confident people celebrate the success of others rather
than feeling threatened. Quote: “Good for her, not for me” by Amy Poller.
Confident people support those around them. 5. Boost
your confidence with an activity you are already great at. What is something
that is easier today than one year ago? What is your most proud accomplishment?
Think about these questions because confidence is born in what we have already
achieved. “Use your prior success to propel yourself forward.” 6. Celebrate
constantly. Celebrate all goals, past and present. Know and honour your
proudest accomplishments. Do something nice for yourself when you reach your
goals. It doesn’t matter HOW you celebrate it matters that you DO celebrate.
What could you do if you were 10x more confident?
Stop judging other people is a great one. The
way you think becomes a built-in pattern. So, if you're overly judgmental of others,
you'll be overly judgmental of yourself, too. For example, people who judge
others for their looks are often the most insecure about how they look.
I wrote
all my accomplishments before a job interview. I wanted that role, so I was
already confident when I got to the interview. Didn’t just secure the role,
they gave me a role that is higher than what I applied. Remember
your accomplishments, remember your testimonies. They will keep you grateful
and going
1. count yourself in 2. give yourself 20 seconds to be brave (you just need a start) 3. take a seat at the table 4. cheer other people's success 5. boost your confidence in a new activity 6. celebrate yourself consistently (find ways to celebrate yourself)
6 behaviours to increase confidence: 1. Count yourself in
--> Counting will get you started, and the momentum will keep you going 2. Be
brave for 20 seconds 3. Take a seat at the table, --> go in, sit down, and
get the deal done 4. Cheer for other people's success. --> Confident people
cheer for other people. "Good for her, not for me" (Amy Poehler) 5.
Bolster your confidence in the activity you're already good at 6. Celebrate
constantly
Six behaviors to increase confidence coming from a medical student. Counting yourself in; this is a very good starting point, one of the first things you learn quickly in medical school is the amount of work and dedication one has to commit every week just to survive. Lessons on ethics talk about impostor syndrome and the phases many medical students face when arriving at medical school. It is very different than undergraduate school as you are now competing with your peers for residency spots, and you look around and realize that everybody next to you is very intelligent. This causes the thoughts of “Maybe they made a mistake… I do not belong here… I am not smart enough…” For those students who got straight A’s, now getting a passing score feels just as great. Another phase of impostor syndrome is the “we are all in this together” feeling, when you have survived the first semester and think to yourself, “Wow, I am not the only one who feels this way.” You start to make new friends, and we support each other, share notes, and share strategies because we are all in this together. By counting yourself in, it is essentially acknowledging that you have put in tremendous work to get into medical school, believe that you belong and start learning! 20 seconds of courage: I have not tried this, but I would love to incorporate it in my life to see if it works for me. In medical school, you quickly get thrown in to practice talking to real patients, even if they are actors (they are grading you) during the first two years. You have to learn to give presentations to your peers, and a lot of extracurricular activities, such as volunteering, for that amount of “free time” that you do have. Take a seat at the table: This can be very helpful because there are many positions students take during medical school. For example, there are student government positions, peer mentor/tutoring that one does to learn leadership skills. Attending conferences in those specialties we are interested in, networking and meeting new people with the hopes of building relationships for your future. Cheer for other people’s success: You learn to cheer for your peers' successes very quickly. Medical school takes a mental toll on people. Talking to your peers and seeing that they passed the course they struggled with on the first exam, and seeing how happy they are after passing, is a great feeling. Getting that support feels just as great. Bolster your already confidence: Practice makes perfect. With time, talking to patients comes easier and easier. Learning your strengths in test taking and improving in any way you can. Celebrate constantly: Every medical student knows this. Every day can be celebrated as long as you get through your lectures! Passing an exam, having time to work out, talking with family, and staying on top of things are things I celebrate every day. When I don’t complete lectures, that’s okay too, some lectures take longer to learn than others, we adapt, and we give it our best shot.
"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure, or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that's where you will find success."
Boost Self-Confidence
Once we believe in ourselves, we
can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals
the human spirit.
Truer words
have never been spoken. It’s nearly impossible to make time for your dreams, to
break free from the traditional mold, and to truly be yourself if you have low
self-esteem and self-confidence.
Some people
make a strong distinction between self-esteem and self-confidence. The
difference is whether you believe you’re worthy of respect from others and
whether you believe in yourself (self-confidence). In the end, both amount to
the same thing, and in the end, the actions give a boost to both self-esteem
and self-confidence.
If you are
low in self-confidence, you can do things to increase your self-confidence. It
is not genetic, and you do not have to be reliant on others to increase your
self-confidence. And if you believe that you are not very competent, not very
smart, not very attractive, etc. … that can be changed.
You can
become someone worthy of respect and someone who can pursue what they want despite
the naysaying of others.
You can do
this by taking control of your life and taking control of your self-confidence.
By taking concrete actions that improve your competence, your self-image, you
can increase that self-confidence, without the help of anyone else.
1. Groom
yourself. This
seems like such an obvious one, but it’s amazing how much of a difference a
shower and a shave can make in your feelings of self-confidence and for your
self-image. There have been days when the mood around completely changed with
this one little thing.
2. Dress
nicely. If you
dress nicely, you’ll feel good about yourself. You’ll feel successful and
presentable and ready to tackle the world. Now, dressing nicely means something
different for everyone … it doesn’t necessarily mean wearing a $500 outfit, but
could mean casual clothes that are nice looking and presentable.
3.
Photoshop your self-image. Our self-image means so much to us, more than we often realize. We
have a mental picture of ourselves, and it determines how confident we are in
ourselves. But this picture isn’t fixed and immutable. You can change it. Use
your mental Photoshopping skills and work on your self-image. If it’s not a
very good one, change it. Figure out why you see yourself that way, and find a
way to fix it.
4. Think positively. One of the things is how to
replace negative thoughts with positive ones. How can I change my thoughts, and
by doing so, make great things happen. With this tiny little skill, you will be
able to train for and run a marathon within a year.
5. Kill
negative thoughts. Goes hand-in-hand with the above item, but it’s so important that I
made it a separate item. You have to learn to be aware of your self-talk, the
thoughts you have about yourself and what you’re doing. When running, the mind
would start to say, “This is too hard. I want to stop and go watch TV.” Well, learn
to recognize this negative self-talk, and soon, a trick that changed everything
in life.
Know yourself and you will win
all battles.
6. Get to
know yourself. When
going into battle, the wisest general learns to know his enemy very, very well.
You can’t defeat the enemy without knowing him. And when you’re trying to
overcome a negative self-image and replace it with self-confidence, your enemy
is yourself. Get to know yourself well. Start listening to your thoughts. Start
writing a journal about yourself, and about the thoughts you have about
yourself, and analysing why you have such negative thoughts. And then think
about the good things about yourself, the things you can do well, the things
you like. Start thinking about your limitations, and whether they’re real
limitations or just ones you’ve allowed to be placed there artificially. Dig
deep within yourself, and you’ll come out (eventually) with even greater
self-confidence.
7. Act positively. More than just thinking positively,
you have to put it into action. Action is the key to developing
self-confidence. It’s one thing to learn to think positively, but when you
start acting on it, you change yourself, one action at a time. You are what you
do, and so if you change what you do, you change what you are. Act in a
positive way, take action instead of telling yourself you can’t, be positive. Positively
talk to people, and put energy into your actions. You’ll soon start to notice a
difference.
8. Be kind
and generous. Know that
being kind to others, and generous with yourself and your time and what you
have, is a tremendous way to improve self-image. You act
following the Golden Rule, and you start to feel good about yourself, and to think that you are a
good person. It does wonders for your self-confidence.
One
important key to success is self-confidence. A key to self-confidence is
preparation. – Arthur Ashe
9. Get
prepared. It’s hard
to be confident in yourself if you don’t think you’ll do well at something.
Beat that feeling by preparing yourself as much as possible. Think about taking
an exam: if you haven’t studied, you won’t have much confidence in your
abilities to do well on the exam. But if you studied your butt off, you’re
prepared, and you’ll be much more confident. Now think of life as your exam,
and prepare yourself.
10. Know
your principles and live them. What are the principles upon which your life is built? If you don’t
know, you will have trouble, because your life will feel directionless. This is
a key principle, and try to live life following it. Think about your principles
… you might have them, but perhaps you haven’t given them much thought. Now
think about whether you actually live by these principles, or if you just
believe in them but don’t act on them.
11. Speak
slowly. Such a
simple thing, but it can make a big difference in how others perceive you. A
person in authority, with authority, speaks slowly. It shows confidence. A
person who feels that he isn’t worth listening to will speak quickly, because
he doesn’t want to keep others waiting for something not worthy of listening
to. Even if you don’t feel the confidence of someone who speaks slowly, try
doing it a few times. It will make you feel more confident. Of course, don’t
take it to an extreme, but just don’t sound rushed either.
12. Stand
tall. I have
horrible posture, so it will sound hypocritical for me to give this advice, but
I know it works because I try it often. When I remind myself to stand tall and
straight, I feel better about myself. I imagine that a rope is pulling the top
of my head toward the sky, and the rest of my body straightens accordingly. As
an aside, people who stand tall and confidently are more attractive. That’s a
good thing any day, in my book.
13.
Increase competence. How do you feel more competent? By becoming more competent. And how do
you do that? By studying and practicing. Just do small bits at a time. If you
want to be a more competent writer, don’t try to tackle the entire profession
of writing all at once. Just begin to write more. Journal, blog, write short
stories, and do some freelance writing. The more you write, the better you’ll
be. Set aside 30 minutes a day to write, and the practice will increase your
competence.
14. Set a
small goal and achieve it. People often make the mistake of shooting for the moon, and then when
they fail, they get discouraged. Instead, shoot for something much more
achievable. Set a goal you know you can
achieve, and then achieve it. You’ll feel good about that. Now set another
small goal and achieve that. The more you achieve small goals, the better
you’ll be at it, and the better you’ll feel. Soon you’ll be setting bigger
goals and achieving those too.
15. Change
a small habit. Not a big
one, like quitting smoking. Just a small one, like writing things down. Or
waking up 10 minutes earlier. Or drinking a glass of water when you wake up.
Something small that you know you can do. Do it for a month. When you’ve
accomplished it, you’ll feel like a million bucks.
16. Focus
on solutions. If you
are a complainer or focus on problems, change your focus now. Focusing on
solutions instead of problems is one of the best things you can do for your
confidence and your career. “I’m fat and lazy!” So, how can you solve that?
“But I can’t motivate myself!” So, how can you solve that? “But I have no
energy!” So, what’s the solution?
17. Smile. Another trite one. But it
works. I feel instantly better when I smile, and it helps me to be kinder to
others as well. A little tiny thing that can have a chain reaction. Not a bad
investment of your time and energy.
18.
Volunteer. Related
to the “be kind and generous” item above, but more specific. It’s the holiday
season right now … can you find the time to volunteer for a good cause, to
spread some holiday cheer, to make the lives of others better? It’ll be some of
the best time you’ve ever spent, and an amazing side benefit is that you’ll
feel better about yourself, instantly.
19. Be
grateful. I’m a
firm believer in gratitude, as anyone who’s been reading this blog for very
long knows well. But I put it here because while being grateful for what you
have in life, for what others have given you, is a very humbling activity … it
can also be a very positive and rewarding activity that will improve your
self-image.
20.
Exercise. Gosh, I
seem to put this one on almost every list. But if I left it off this list, I
would be doing you a disservice. Exercise has been one of my most empowering
activities in the last couple of
years, and
it has made me feel so much better about myself.
All you have to do is take a walk a few times a week, and you’ll see
benefits.
21. Empower
yourself with knowledge. Empowering yourself, in general, is one of the best strategies for
building self-confidence. You can do that in many ways, but one of the surest
ways to empower yourself is through knowledge. This is along the same vein as
building competence and getting prepared … by becoming more knowledgeable,
you’ll be more confident … and you become more knowledgeable by doing research
and studying. The Internet is a great tool, of course, but so are the people
around you, people who have done what you want, books, magazines, and
educational institutions.
22. Do
something you’ve been procrastinating on. What’s on your to-do list that’s been
sitting there? Do it first thing in the morning, and get it out of the way.
You’ll feel great about yourself.
23. Get
active. Doing
something is almost always better than not doing anything. Of course, doing
something could lead to mistakes … but mistakes are a part of life. It’s how we
learn. Without mistakes, we’d never get better. So don’t worry about those.
Just do something. Get
off your butt and get active — physically, or active by taking steps to
accomplish something.
24. Work on
small things. Trying to
take on a huge project or task can be overwhelming and daunting, and
intimidating for anyone, even the best of us. Instead, learn to break off small
chunks and work in bursts. Small achievements make you feel good, and they add
up to big achievements. Learn to work like this all the time, and soon you’ll
be a self-confident maniac.
25. Clear
your desk. This
might seem like a small, simple thing. But it has always worked wonders for me.
If my desk starts to get messy and the world around me is in chaos, clearing
off my desk is my way of getting a little piece of my life under control. It is
the calm in the centre of the storm around me.
Somehow, I can’t believe that any
heights can be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come
true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs. They
are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is
confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly
and unquestionably. – Walt Disney
Self-Confidence Is More
Important
Self-confidence is linked to almost every
element involved in a happy life. Understanding these benefits is an important
first step toward living your best life with confidence.
Less Fear and Anxiety
The more confident you become,
the more you’ll be able to calm the voice inside you that says, “I can’t do
it.” You’ll be able to unhook from your thoughts and take action in line with
your values.
If you’ve suffered from low
self-confidence, you’re probably familiar with rumination, or the tendency to
mull over worries and perceived mistakes, replaying them ad nauseam. Excessive
rumination is linked to both anxiety and depression, and it can make us withdraw
from the world. But by filling up your tank with confidence, you’ll be able to
break the cycle of overthinking and quiet your inner
critic.
Greater Motivation
Building confidence means taking
small steps that leave a lasting sense of accomplishment. If you’ve ever
learned a language, mastered a skill, reached a fitness goal, or otherwise
overcome setbacks to get to where you wanted to be, you’re well on your way.
You might be thinking, “Well,
sure, I was proud of my ‘A’ in Calculus back in high school, but what does that
have to do with anything now?” If you think back to a key accomplishment in
your life, you’ll likely find that it took a lot of perseverance. If you could
triumph through adversity, then you can do it in other areas of your life where
you feel self-doubt.
As your confidence grows, you’ll
find yourself more driven to stretch your abilities. “What-if” thoughts will
still arise: “What if I fail?” “What if I embarrass myself?” But with
self-assurance, those thoughts will no longer be paralyzing. Instead, you’ll be
able to grin and act anyway, feeling energized by your progress in pursuing
goals that mean something to you.
More Resilience
Confidence gives you the skills
and coping methods to handle setbacks and failure. Self-confidence doesn’t mean
you won’t sometimes fail. But you’ll know you can handle challenges and not be
crippled by them. Even when things don’t turn out anywhere close to what you
planned, you’ll be able to avoid beating yourself up.
As you keep pushing yourself to
try new things, you’ll start to truly understand how failure and mistakes lead
to growth. An acceptance that failure is part of life will start to take root.
Paradoxically, by being more willing to fail, you'll succeed more, because
you're not waiting for everything to be 100 percent perfect before you act.
Taking more shots will mean making more of them.
Improved Relationships
It might seem counterintuitive,
but when you have more self-confidence, you’re less focused on yourself. We’ve
all been guilty of walking into a room and thinking, “They’re all looking at
me. They all think I look dumpy and that every word I say is stupid.” The truth
is, people are wrapped up in their thoughts and worries. When you get out of
your head, you’ll be able to genuinely engage with others.
You'll enjoy your interactions
more because you won't be so worried about the kind of impression you're
making, and you won’t be comparing yourself to others. Your relaxed state will
put others at ease as well, helping you forge deeper connections.
Self-confidence can also breed
deeper empathy. When you’re fully present, you’re more likely to notice that
your date seems to be a little down, or that a friend in the corner looks like
she needs a shoulder to cry on. When you’re not preoccupied with your self-doubt,
you can be the person who reaches out to help others.
Stronger Sense of Your Authentic
Self
Finally, confidence roots you in
who you really are. You’ll be able to accept your weaknesses, knowing they
don’t change your self-worth. You'll also be able to celebrate your strengths
and use them more fully.
Your actions will be in line
with your principles, giving you a greater sense of purpose. You'll know who
you are and what you stand for. You’ll have the skills to show up, stand up,
and speak up. In other words, you'll be able to let your best self shine
through.
A Few Actions Steps
1. Write down a favourite confidence
quote and put it somewhere you'll see it often. My colleague Meg Selig has
compiled a great list.
2. Do you have a photograph of a time you felt
confident and successful? It could be a graduation photo, a picture of you as a
kid after you learned to ride a bike or anything else that resonates with you.
Hang it on your fridge or bathroom mirror, and reflect on all the steps it took
to get to that point.
3.
Try one of
these self-confidence tricks from my colleague Alice Boyes.
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