If you’re struggling with self-confidence, it can affect every aspect of your life. See how you can build self confidence and learn to love yourself and start living a happier life.
Self confidence is a state of mind, and it’s a lot like confidence in other areas of your life. When you’re confident in your talents and abilities, it carries over to other aspects of life, like your relationships, work, friendships and hobbies.
Self-confidence can be defined as your ability to express yourself and be taken seriously by others.
Tiffany DeGeyter, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Schenectady, New York.
It’s your physical ability to control your own emotions.
Tiffany DeGeyter
How to Build Self Confidence
When you have self-confidence, it’s easier to meet the challenges that shape your life.
Self-confidence conveys the power you have to control both the internal and external behaviors of your own mind and body.
Katie Rickel, PhD, instructor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Public Health at Brown Medical School.
This gives you a greater ability to change your mind and your behaviors for the better, for your own sake rather than for the sake of getting someone else or something else love or admiration.
Katie Rickel, PhD
Some studies have shown self-confidence predicts success. You may be excitable when you’re feeling confident, which makes it seem like you’ve got nothing to lose.
But that’s also true of being nervous. So how do you achieve both? What habits will you need to adopt to reach your goal of being more confident in your own mind and body?
ScotMS
These habits can help. Here are three ways to develop high self-confidence habits now:
1. TAKE CREATIVE COMBOS THAT WORK FOR YOU
Self-confidence is more than having an “A” or “B” in your department. In order to have strong self-confidence, you’ll need to start incorporating multiple positive self-talk strategies into your daily life.
The chats below will help you avoid some of the pitfalls of self-shaming (i.e., telling yourself you’re not smart enough, or not sexy enough, or not smart enough to have a successful relationship). Available over on Rickel’s YouTube channel, these chat sessions are a great place to start.
2. ANXIETY WITH BUILD SELF CONFIDENCE BREEDS RELAXATION
“Social exclusion is a process of trauma-like avoidance that keeps us stuck in our own heads, sometimes to the point of missing opportunities for connection with the world,” says Rickel. When you have anxiety and panic attacks, the fear becomes trapped in your head, making it difficult to process the threat, communicate with others and feel safe. So she recommends creating routines that help you avoid social exclusion; for example, decide ahead of time where you’ll go to work, who you’ll talk to at parties, which people you’ll pick as co-workers and which lunch spots you’ll avoid.
Self-confidence doesn’t come naturally. In fact, most people struggle with self-confidence longer than they want to. So, it’s important to identify where you’re lacking and work on your self-confidence. Here are five suggestions to help you elevate your self-confidence when life gets tough.
3. BUILD SOCIAL
Being social is fundamental to a happy and healthy life. According to Elaine Aron, PsyD, a clinical psychologist and owner of Aron Assistance, “It is no coincidence that, in times of stress, we crave both comfort and company. Seeking the company of others provides us with psychological safety and comfort.”
So start spacing out your social interactions. Consider purchasing a head net and observing the faces in your office to get a sense of who’s around, who’s not and why. Research shows social connection is key when you’re stressed.
4. SELF CONFIDENCE IS EASILY ACHIEVABLE
Most people see managing stress as someone else’s job and take it out on themselves. Yet, they fail to learn how to be in control. “In stressful situations, people need to learn how to identify their inner strengths and identify strategies to take care of themselves,” explains Melissa Michaels, RN, counsellor and founder and CEO of Melissa Michaels Nutrition + Wellness.
You can start by focusing less on the negative events in your life and trying to learn from the positives. Change what you’re thinking and re-write the story that’s playing in your head by following these suggestions to become less stressed in the future.
5. TAKE QUESTIONS FROM REAL FRIENDS
Sharing your stresses and worries with family and friends can be helpful. Hayes suggests taking some time to “listen to them” and asking insightful questions. Many people struggle with spending time with others, so this technique can be helpful, especially when you’re with a support network you trust.
6. DO AN ESTABLISHMENT
This one requires a little self-awareness, but what’s not intuitive is that you deprioritize your own goals and self-care when you meet someone new. This is why establishing a personal goal to meet a specific person is an awesome way to boost you build self confidence.
Instead of thinking about meeting Mr or Mrs Perfect at the next confab, think about how attending that event will help you build a professional network. Are you looking to hire a coach or mentor? Want to look gorgeous in a dressing gown? Vision boards can show you where you’re headed and it can also set realistic goals to retain self-confidence.
7. UNPLUG and ACCEPT YOUR FEELINGS
It’s easy to be disconnected with how you’re feeling.
Before getting focused on your self-confidence through other means, you need to understand why you build self confidence works and prevent it from diminishing.
What Drives us?
“Confidence mirrors your perception of who you are,” says Melody Levine, a clinical psychologist and performance coach based in New York City. This particular confidence is unique to each of us and is influenced by a range of experiences, both internal and external.
Here are six things that can affect your build self confidence, using your strengths and experiences as a starting point:
A. IMPAIRED SELF-CONFIDENCE
Take on an idea difficult to down in order to progress.
It’s helpful to have your long-term goals in mind, but that doesn’t make it any easier to achieve them. “Working on a problem ahead of time may provide a sense of achievement at the end of the race, but it is usually faster than achieving the goal on your own,” Lippin says. “How you learn to cope with setbacks and mistakes only comes from living through them.”
One way to learn, and change, is to experience setbacks and failures. “This process can be similar to a hard breakup,” Piper explains. When that happens, you’re forced to confront both your flaws as well as the reality of what happened. “It will often be easier to make amends with yourself than with someone else.”
Training yourself to think rationally and positively accepting your limitations can help you focus on a positive outcome instead of dwelling on the negative.
B. IT WAS A MIRACLE
“Stress is often a mirror of our emotions,” Piper says. “If you see a friend who has been through tragic things, it can be easier to feel compassion for that person.” This may be one reason Piper’s clients often come back to her with issues of build self confidence. “I’ve seen more empathy and compassion from them in the past,” she says.
Of course, it’s normal to feel a range of emotions in response to your stressful experiences, but stepping back can “change your vision,” Piper adds. You’ll no longer be paralyzed by what happened, so you’re more likely to pick a new opportunity to move forward.
C. YOU FEEL UNWORTHY
“If you meet an unattractive person, there are still everyday actions that can distract you from seeing the good in them,” Piper says. “You are too often leading them on.” Attraction literally means your attraction to the thing itself, the way it looks. Not being attracted to what’s good for you has a number of potential consequences.
I’ve felt incredibly insecure all my life. I’ve felt like other people judged me and thought I didn’t deserve to be me. I felt embarrassed when I took pictures in public, because people would look at me like I was weird.
I’ve even felt like there’s something wrong with me because I could never be happy with just one person. I always had to be with others, always trying to impress others.
But then I realized I could be happiest with just me. I could be exactly who I wanted to be, and not worry about what other people thought or how they would like me. And it’s completely free.
You:
- don’t need another person.
- have no need to fit into a box.
- don’t have to deal with confusing thoughts about love and relationships.
- have no have to schedule time for yourself, you can do it whenever you want.
- don’t need to figure out a complicated course of action to deal with life’s challenges.
- can stop worrying about your image and start focusing on your happiness.
- can talk to anyone about whatever you want to talk about — friends, family, lovers,
- and you’ll feel confident in who you are as a person.
Engender Self Confidence
This is an article I originally wrote more than a decade ago. I was changing careers and starting a consulting service.
Self-confidence is an indispensable and crucial element of any healthy lifestyle because it reflects our extent of control. Untrained individuals often do not see themselves as confident, and we fail to be better agents of change. As a trainer who focuses on services for people struggling with weight loss and health-related issues, I’ve been fortunate to see the power of this confidence, and how critical it is for achieving personal goals. More than anything, to build self confidence breeds success.
HOW TO INCREASE YOUR INCONSTANCY
1. OPEN UP ABOUT YOUR INCONSTANCY
Talking about health concerns with trusted professionals like a doctor or dietitian can provide comfort and great information. However, it’s only helpful if the individual is open and honest. It’s not helpful to focus harshly on your shortcomings. This can do more harm than good.
It’s OK to say you’re curious about the reasons why some people can lose weight easily and others cannot and state that you do not yet have all the answers but are striving toward a healthier lifestyle.
2. CHANGE YOUR CONFIDENCE
Three barriers often keep prospects from beginning: fear, inactivity and doubt. Doubt stems from the misconception that we only have a short time on this earth, and we’re living and experiencing years later, perhaps even in an entirely new location. We often fear that what worked yesterday may not work well tomorrow, even if it’s working today!
Do you have the energy? Do you know the route to take? Are the eyes that bulge out from under the lower forehead bushy and confident? These are questions that need to be answered, so you can travel wisely.
Build Self confidence is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It will not help you if you’re over 30 and many other factors are at play. For example, personality and dependability also factor into this. So, you want to find reasons that solve your insecurities and fears; not reasons to perpetuate them.
3. REGRET NOT WRITING DOWN YOUR INCONSTANCY
Seasoned and experienced professionals cope with a massive amount of “stuff” in their lives. However, if you feel you’ve earned peer respect for being confident in a matter, you may have karma on your side. Remember, this process totally depends on you healing your insecurities and making changes within yourself.
If this were not true, rather than following the path of self-improvement, you might very well continue to experience insecurities. Although that’s not on the same level as someone earning a doctorate degree, it happens all the time.
Self-confidence is a state of mind. And like every area of your personality, the more you nurture and cultivate it, the stronger it’ll get.
Here are a few ways to boost your self-confidence, and the positive habits that make you feel confident:
Increasing Self-Confidence Through Mindset.
Practising humility is critical to build self confidence. Doubling down on the habits below can help you increase your ability to build self confidence.
Unlock an experience that’s like having a dietitian, trainer and coach, right at your fingertips. Go Premium for expert guidance and exclusive tools that will help you reach your personal health goals.
Related Posts
Living a Mindful life with Multiple Sclerosis
Improve Brain Function with language study
7 Tips to attain Debt Free Living
MS Lifestyle Blog