How To Improve Your Self Confidence

Let me start by asking you a question, do you wish you had more self confidence? If your answer is no, then stop reading now, however, if your answer is yes, then you should carry on reading. Detailed below are top tips on how to improve your self confidence.

 

Where should you start?

If you want to find out how to improve your self confidence you need to start by thinking about where you are right now in terms of your personal confidence level and where you want to be. This could involve giving yourself a rating of between one and ten. One being the most unconfident person imaginable and ten being someone with the self confidence level of, for example, the President of the United States of America.

Low self confidence is not a life sentence, it can be learned and practiced, just like any other skill. Once you have mastered it, everything in your life will change for the better, because you believe that anything is possible.

Throughout this blog there are a number of tips for building up your self confidence. It is important that you don’t just read them and put them to the back of your mind.  You have to practice them every day, and there is no better day to start than today. You might have to fake it at first and appear to be self confident, but you will start to feel the foundation of self confidence grow within you.

 

Follow these Self Confidence Building tips

  • Study Confident People: A great way to achieve what you want in life is to find out how others have achieved it and then do the same things. Look out for people who have glowing self confidence and notice their characteristics. Listen to the way they talk and look at the way they behave. Listen, learn and copy them.
  • Choose Your Influences: Flood your mind with the most inspiring and uplifting thoughts and ideas you can find. Read biographies of people who have done exceptional things, listen to inspiring podcasts and begin to cut down and filter out negative news stories and pessimistic view points.
  • Increasing Self Awareness and Positive Thinking: This is all about being aware of your internal dialogue, what are you saying to yourself? Is it along the lines of; “I can’t do it”, “I am not good enough” or “I do not deserve it”? If so, start listening to what you are saying to yourself. Most people spend their lives blissfully unaware of their internal thoughts. The problem is that these thoughts are not doing your self confidence any favours.Low self confidence is often caused by negative thoughts running through our minds on an ongoing basis. If you are constantly being hard on yourself and telling yourself that you are not good enough, you are in essence, creating a self fulfilling prophecy. The result will be that you become what you are saying to yourself in your head. Therefore, you need to learn to think positively.Whenever you find yourself thinking negative thoughts force yourself to stop and think of something more empowering. Instead of saying “I can’t do this”, say “I can do this”. A useful strategy you can try is to wear an elastic band around your wrist and whenever you have a negative thought, snap the elastic band, it will soon stop happening and will help to re-enforce positive thinking.
  • Set Yourself Meaningful Goals and Challenges: You need to try and get into the habit of setting and achieving small goals and challenges for yourself. Your self confidence will start to build as you gain additional knowledge and skills as you achieve your objectives. Increasing your self confidence comes from real, solid achievements. Setting daily goals should become a habit, as not only will you get more stuff done, you will increase your confidence in yourself at the same time.
  • Body Language: The simple act of pulling your shoulders back and standing up straight gives other people the impression that you are a confident person. Not only this, but you will feel more confident if you are standing like this.
  • Exercise: Regular exercise makes your heart and bones stronger, lowers your risk of chronic diseases, keeps your weight under control and reduces feelings of anxiety and depression. While you are boosting your energy levels, oxygen capacity, muscle tone and general fitness, a side benefit is an increase in self confidence. Just the success of creating an exercise plan and sticking to it allows you to enjoy a sense of achievement. Physical fitness has a huge effect on self confidence, for example, if you are not in good shape, you will feel insecure, unattractive, and less energetic. Imagine how confident you would be if you were in the best shape of your life.
  • Celebrate Your Successes: Write down a list of the best things you have achieved in your life and laminate them on a piece of paper and carry it around in your pocket. Do the same thing with writing down all your strengths. Ask your friends and family what they think are your previous success and strengths. Whenever you are feeling down and lacking in self confidence, take a look back at your previous successes and strengths, as this is bound to give you a much needed confidence boost, which will push you to believe that you can take on your next challenge.

 

 

The Benefits of Increasing your Self Confidence

  • Positivity: Confident people are generally more positive than people who are not confident. They believe in themselves, in their abilities and they also believe in living an amazing life to the full. A positive attitude results from feeling good about yourself and knowing that your place in the world is important and meaningful.
  • Happier: People with self confidence are generally happier and more satisfied with their lives than people who lack self confidence.
  • Facing New Challenges: Self confidence breeds a high level of comfort when facing new challenges. Self confident people are typically more enthusiastic about the future and convey that excitement to others through their walk, how they hold themselves and how they have conversations with others.
  • Socially Comfortable: People who are self confident are more relaxed and at ease in social settings and when meeting new people. The positive energy projected by confident people is contagious and attractive to others.
  • Energy: Self confidence can help you to believe that you can take on the world with more energy and determination.

 

 Conclusion

In summary, there are many methods that can be tried to improve your self confidence. It will not be a quick fix solution, however, with determination and a positive mental attitude, you can increase your self confidence. Based on all the positive outcomes that can result from increasing your self confidence, it is worth the investment in yourself.

At the end of the day, you will never accomplish anything if you don’t have the self confidence that enables you to believe that you can do it.

 

What Should You Do Next?

If you are interested in receiving any extra motivation and inspiration towards your improving your self confidence then please contact me for a free 30 minute taster life coaching session at caroline@raisethebarlifecoaching.co.uk