1. Focus on positive thoughts.
Looking on the bright side means focusing on the positive aspects of your life. Focus on your good health, achievements, talents, and experience. Research has shown that when elderly Canadians were convinced that their health was poor, they were much more likely to end up in hospital than those who were convinced their health was excellent. Time to dismiss all those negative thoughts!
2. Use the power of mantras.
Thoughts need to be verbalized and this is how the power of mantras, repeated to yourself, can work. Perhaps you are dogged by critical comments, desolate because of insults or crippled by setbacks? How on earth can you boost your confidence with all that going on? Many experts believe that when we repeat mantras, we can boost confidence. Try a few of these for yourself:
“What others say is a reflection of them, not me.” “The only approval I need is my own.” “I am good enough.” “I look great.” “I can succeed in this.”
3. Sit up straight.
There are now posture corrector apps which can be attached to your lower back to remind you to sit up straight with head lifted and shoulders back. The experts tell us that when we slouch, this affects our whole outlook on life. One study showed that those who sat upright were much more optimistic about their prospects in careers and their relationships. Those who were slouching were way down the list as regards confidence. Stop slouching!
4. Learn from setbacks.
Maybe you think that there are far too many setbacks and this has ruined your confidence in getting that dream job or getting a great figure. You may be thinking that your weight loss program is useless because you will never achieve your goal. The secret here is think of a setback or failure as feedback. It is telling you what to adjust and how to continue on the road, using a slightly different approach.
5. Think of expectations rather than fantasies.
If you fantasize too much and visualize lots of success, happiness and wealth, there may be a shock coming. Research now suggests that positive expectations are a much safer route to take to boost your confidence. After all, dreaming is part of a fantasy. Expectations are based on past experiences. Studies show that people with realistic expectations were doing better at getting the dream job or finding a partner.
6. Choose 5 things you can easily do.
Maybe you are a great jogger or cook? Perhaps you are kind and compassionate? Whatever it is, choose 5 of these things that you are really good at and always make you feel great afterwards. This is a great confidence booster and an even better one is to tick them off your list at the end of the day.
7. Seek out positive leisure time.
This is where you have to make an effort to avoid toxic company and also exposure to bad news. We are surrounded by disasters and every time we log on, there is news about some catastrophe, There is very rarely good news. This can drag us down into doom and gloom. The solution to boost confidence is to dedicate more time to physical activity, watching funny videos and above all, enjoying the company of positive friends and colleagues.
8. List your achievements.
You need to constantly remind yourself of what you achieved in your life so far. This often gets overshadowed by problems and worries. These can cloud your vision and make your goal seem impossible. A good idea is to keep a list of your successes near your computer to remind yourself. There is nothing wrong with self-promotion. This is a great confidence booster. The great thing about being self-confident is that you can inspire others to be like that too. Spread the good news!
9. Count your blessings.
My father also said this! Look at what you have now. You are in a comfortable space, you have enough food to eat, and you can even read my article! Did you know that happiness is made up of 90% of how you actually view your life? The other miserable 10% make up the actual circumstances. Too often, when you are not self-confident, you tend to concentrate on this tiny percentage. Every single day, make sure you list all the things you have to be grateful for. Your list will probably be quite long. That will make you feel happier straightaway and also boost your confidence
10. Keep taking risks.
Imagine that you have had negative feedback or that you have screwed up at work. These things happen all the time and your confidence takes a battering. The worst possible thing you can do is to crawl back into your shell and decide to keep a low profile. Head down and work away without taking any risks. This is not a good way to recover. We need to keep taking risks and keep moving forward to achieve success. That is the best recipe to get back your confidence. Retirement is not an option yet!
11. Forget perfectionism.
We all strive to be the best, the nicest, the most successful. The list goes on and on. But recognizing that perfectionism is simply not achievable can be a great recipe to boost confidence. Nothing wrong with excellence but perfectionism will ensure we spend too much time comparing ourselves to others all the time. That is not healthy at all and can ruin our confidence as we observe their successes. The best way forward to self-confidence is to stop beating ourselves up for our mistakes and our faults. Featured photo credit: Rainy Day Inspiration :: You Must Believe In Yourself!/Jennifer via flickr.com
title: “11 Easy Ways To Boost Your Confidence” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-30” author: “Roy Chandler”
You want to be able to walk around, knowing you’re an awesome person and truly believing it. You see everyone else doing it – strutting about full of themselves – but for you, it just doesn’t seem to come naturally. Whenever you try to act confident, your thoughts seem to end up back on your insecurities. Every moment passing is a moment you’ve spiraled deeper into this idea of insecurity and despair. Stop. Everyone gets insecure at times, that’s life. But existing in insecurity? That’s a habit that you learn. A learned thought-pattern. You can do something about it. In fact, here are 11 things you can do to boost your confidence right now.
1. Smile more
Sounds weird, right? Why would smiling improve your confidence? It’s actually pretty simple. Smiling makes you feel good. It fools your mind into being happier. When you feel good, you’re more likely to think you – as a whole being – are good. So by elevating your mood, you elevate your confidence. You become less concerned with your flaws, or what you perceive to be flaws. You become less fixated on that self-damaging inner monologue, and more absorbed in appreciating where you currently are. Just have a read of this article to understand how powerful smiling actually is!
2. Recognise your short-comings
Part of being confident is knowing who you are, what you are, and what you do well. Another part of confidence is knowing what you don’t do so well. Why is it important to know what you don’t do well at? For multiple reasons: So while it may sound contradictory to feeling confident, ultimately it opens us up to the reality of being human. It frees you from the need to be a perfectionist. That in itself will sky-rocket your confidence because you also realise that everyone else is going through the exact same thing!
3. Wear your best dress
This point isn’t literal, but of course it can be. It’s just a cute way of saying, “wear what makes you feel good.” We all have a ‘best dress.’ It’s not always a dress, of course, it can be a shirt, a tie, a pair of shoes, or whatever. It doesn’t matter what it is. Just find that object that makes you feel good and wear it. Soak it in, knowing you look good. Feeling good shows; the confidence oozes out of you. It’s a good one when you need that little extra kick of confidence. Just read this interview with David Sarwer, a contributing researcher for the Center for Human Appearance, for an overview of the science behind looking good making you feel good.
4. Ditch the comparisons
You are you. That’s all that can be expected of you. There’s really no point in comparing the unique person that is yourself to someone else. Just remember:
You have not walked the same path as the person you are comparing yourself to. You have not had the same opportunities as the person you are comparing yourself to. You do not possess the same set of tools as the person you are comparing yourself to.
There will be places that you excel, where others will fall short. There will be places that you fall short, where others will excel. This is life. Let it go, and simply be the best you that you can be. What everyone else is doing really isn’t a standard to hold yourself to.
5. Let go of other people’s expectations
A lot of insecurity stems from holding yourself to a standard that someone else made up. Just like the above point, no one has walked in your shoes and you have not walked in theirs. What other people expect of you is irrelevant. It should never be how you define your worth. You know what you’re going through, you know what you’ve been through, so only you truly can know what it is you are capable of. Free yourself from other people’s expectations. You be the decider of your worth. You be the decider of the expectations. When you can reclaim this power, you’ll realise that a lot of this unease in yourself has been because you’ve been trying to prove yourself to someone who can never truly understand you.
6. List 10 things that you like about yourself
Go ahead, do it. 10 things that you like about yourself. No matter how silly or insignificant they may seem. Done it? Great. See how easy it is to break away from putting yourself down? Continue to build yourself up. Make it a daily habit to list the things you like about yourself. Watch as your confidence soars.
7. Be prepared
When you are prepared, you’re going to be more confident with the situation you’re going into. For example, say you were going camping. It would be pretty nerve-wracking to go into it without any gear, any preparation, and no idea of where you’re going, right? Now say you’ve taken the time to get all your gear together, establish an action plan, and know where you’re heading. You’ll be a lot more confident going into it. You can relate this to any everyday situation. If you’re going to a party, be prepared by looking good, feeling good and having some conversation topics in mind. If you’re giving a speech, be prepared by knowing your speech. If you’re giving a presentation, practice presenting it. Preparation will lead you to security in the situation. (Confidence!)
8. Gear the conversation to a topic you know
If you commonly find yourself feeling insecure in social situations, and as though you have nothing to contribute to conversations, there’s a simple trick to fix that: Talk about what you know. Obviously you don’t need to walk up and just start aimlessly talking about it, just strike up a casual conversation with someone about something they’ve said. Once you’re talking to them about what they said, relate what it is you know to what it is they said. (It’s not as hard as it sounds.) There are infinite ways to relate topics to each other. Just find the overlap. Practice it on friends first if you don’t feel confident doing it with strangers, every step you take towards practising this will increase your confidence in social situations exponentially.
9. Identify your passions in life
There’s something about passion that brings out the most complex beauty within people. That moment when your eyes are full of awe and wonder, completely captivated by the moment, caught up in an inner sense of purpose and a burning desire. When you know your passion in life, it gives you a lot more sense of purpose. It gives you direction. It gives you meaning. It gives you security. Ultimately, these all translate into one thing… Confidence. If you know what you’re passionate about, you’ll always have a reserve of confidence at your disposal.
10. Ask other people for their opinion on you
It’s easy to get trapped in your head, and be convinced all of these flaws that you see are how everyone else sees you. Luckily, it’s pretty simple to remedy this self-damaging thought pattern. Go to someone you’re close with and ask them what they think of you. Listen to all the loving things they have to say about you. Listen as they point out all of your awesome points, that they see, rather than the flaws that you see. Once they’ve given you their opinion of you, try to understand it. Try to accept it. Try to realise that very few people, if any at all, are looking at you and seeing these flaws you’ve identified in your head. They’re seeing you when you’re not caught up in all this self-damaging monologue. There’s a beauty to you that you’re often blind to.
11. Be yourself
As simple as it is, and as contradictory as it may sound: being yourself is the ultimate source of confidence. When you are simply yourself, you’ll realise that all the masks you’ve worn were only ever holding you back from being confident. Owning who you are frees you from comparisons and judgement, because you are what you are – it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Ultimately confidence is something you exude when you unlearn the habit of constant insecurity. Deep down, you’re aware you have talents, worth and a unique value to bring to every situation. You just need to peel off the insecurity that you learned and allow that confidence to shine. If you’ve got anything to add, then please just drop it in the comments below. If you think you know someone that could benefit from this, just share it! Featured photo credit: Death to the Stock Photo via deathtothestockphoto.com
title: “11 Easy Ways To Boost Your Confidence” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-19” author: “Petra Martinez”
1. Only compare yourself to your past self
If you keep comparing yourself to others, of course you’re going to feel insecure. There’s always going to be someone out there better than you (unless you’re a world record holder or something, in which case I doubt you’re reading this). The only person you should compare yourself to is…yourself. Look at who you were yesterday, a month ago, five years ago. Then look at who you are now. Then, think about where you’ll be tomorrow, a month from now, or five years from now. Keep building on who you were, and who you are, to become the person you want to be.
2. List your life’s accomplishments
Make a list of everything you’ve accomplished in the face of adversity. And again, don’t compare this list to someone else’s. I walk with a mild limp, which sometimes gets me down. But when I think of the fact that doctors told my parents I would never walk, every step I take feels like an accomplishment. I’ve also earned two degrees and gotten married to the most amazing person I’ve ever met. Okay, enough about me. What have you done in your life that you have to be proud about? If I can be proud of being able to walk to the fridge for another Mountain Dew, you have to have something of your own to proudly brag about.
3. Be honest about what brings you down about yourself
Everyone has qualities they want to improve. There’s nothing wrong with admitting shortcomings. There is something wrong with acknowledging your shortcomings without doing something about them. If you know you’d feel better about yourself if you could lose some weight, don’t just wish it would happen; put a plan in motion to reach your goal. Don’t just wish you finished college when you were younger – look for a way to fit in night classes at a local community college. It’s never too late to improve yourself, until it is, and you’ll never get the chance to do better.
4. Admit past mistakes, and work toward fixing them
While we’re being honest with ourselves, let’s look at some of the mistakes we’ve made in our lives. Everybody messes up once in a while, and that’s okay. But just like it’s not okay to become complacent about our shortcomings, it’s also not okay to keep making the same mistake over and over again. Making a mistake can be a turning point in your life – the moment when you realize you could be doing better. Don’t get stuck in the mindset that one mistake leads to failure. Realize that failure, when taken advantage of, is simply a pathway to success.
5. Smile more
It sounds simple, and maybe a bit silly. But smiling is not just a reflex to a positive stimulus; it can actually be a positive stimulus. Try it. You can actually trick your brain into believing you’re excited or happy about pretty much anything. When you wake up and face the day with a smile, you’re more likely to feel positive about everything around you, including yourself.
6. Dress to impress
Just like smiling can make you feel better almost instantly, dressing “to the nines” can have the same effect, especially on your self-confidence. I am definitely not the most confident person in the world, but when I don a three-piece suit, I feel like I can take on anything. Even on a daily basis, wearing slacks and a sweater rather than jeans and a sweatshirt can change your entire perspective of the world, and of yourself.
7. Face the world – literally
Put your phone away for once. Look straight forward when you walk down the street, or even when you’re sitting outside waiting for a friend. Greet strangers with a friendly, sincere smile. Make eye contact when conversing with people. Stop staring at your shoes as you shuffle through the world. You’ll find the rest of the world to be much more pleasant than the ground. And you’ll feel more confident as you have a perfect view of your surroundings.
8. Live by the Serenity Prayer
Not George Costanza’s prayer. That just leads to insanity later. You know the one: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” Some things in life can’t be fixed, and we must let them go. Some things can be fixed, and we must be the people to fix them. Some things, we’re just so passionate about that we would do anything to change them, but no matter what we do, our efforts will be in vain. Having command over these issues in your life means you are in complete control, and can be confident to make improvements in your life and your world.
9. Live with integrity
Reinforce your words and ideals with actions. Don’t be that person that complains about the government but doesn’t vote, or the person that thinks sharing a Facebook post will help save the endangered rhinos. If you believe in something, act on it. It’s much easier said than done, I know. But once you get moving, it’s hard to stop until you reach your goal. Strive for excellence and you’ll feel excellent.
10. Be kind to others and yourself
Being nice to others for the most part guarantees that you’ll get it in return. Although you shouldn’t simply be friendly just to get it back, a byproduct of this is that you’ll feel great when others are nice to you. Not only will you feel great about having others be nice to you, you’ll also put yourself in a position to meet new people every time you step outside. This could lead to bigger opportunities, close friendships, and relationships that could last a lifetime.
11. Think positively about others and yourself
Along with being kind to others, find positive aspects of everyone you meet. Thinking positively about others has many benefits. For one, focusing on the good allows you to see the struggles they overcame and makes you appreciate them more. Secondly, the way you think of others is subconsciously how you think others think of you; if you only see people in a positive light, you will begin to magnify the positives in your own life. Lastly, thinking positively about others reflects well on you, and will lead to better connections and opportunities. Featured photo credit: Pixabay via pixabay.com
title: “11 Easy Ways To Boost Your Confidence” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-18” author: “Paul Park”
If I had to do it all over again, this is what I would concentrate on. If you can resonate with all this, here are 11 ways you can boost your confidence.
1. Your lack of confidence is not so obvious.
You probably think that everyone in the room is looking at how you behave, speak and move. The truth is that people are all too often, absorbed in their own thoughts. They are thinking about their next move, future plans and what they are going to have for dinner! Keeping this in mind helps you to become less intimidated by the people around you.
2. Be your hero for a day.
Who is your hero? You can bet your bottom dollar that they are full of self assurance and confidence. It probably oozes out of every pore in the way they dress, speak and walk! The secret is to pretend to be your hero and ask yourself how she or he would deal with this awful problem which is nagging you. Stepping outside that vicious circle where you and the ‘problem’ spin around out of control is really helpful. You can imagine a different, happier ending when you pretend to be your hero.
3. Take a philosophical approach.
The break up was unpleasant and has left you feeling un-confident. Take a philosophical approach where you think this has been a useful experience. You learned that this person was not for you, you will recognize the warning signs the next time and the right person is waiting in the wings. It just takes time but why beat yourself up for something which was not entirely your fault? You cannot win every game in the championship. Just think that you are still on a winning streak because you have a lot going for you.
4. Build your support team.
Choosing supportive friends will be essential to help you boost your confidence. These are the precious friends and family members who are always there to tell you that you can do it when faced with a problem, challenge or minor disaster. Avoid toxic friends who are likely to point out the buts and ifs, rather than tell you to go for it. The classic one is where they say that there will be stiff competition for that dream job. Your support team will be rooting for you and egging you on. That makes all the difference.
5. Take a humorous approach.
Most speakers tell a joke or maybe laugh a little at themselves. Why do they do this? Laughter produces those endorphins which makes everybody in the audience feel better and it also relaxes them. A lot of the tension goes. The audience warms to the speaker and are generally much less critical. If you want to feel more confident, just watch one of the funny videos here. You will immediately feel better. I love the one with Mayson Zayid whose talk is entitled ‘I got 99 problems … palsy is just one.’
6. Watch your body language.
Do you walk or slouch? Is your handshake firm? Making eye contact is vital when you are networking or speaking at a meeting. There is no doubt that body language sends a powerful message. Why not take advantage of it and convince others and, more importantly yourself, that you are confident and you can meet all the challenges with ease? Watch Amy Cuddy on how important body language is when we want to feel confident.
7. Build a Pinterest board.
What does your future look like and how do you want your life to be? One of the best ways is to build a vision board. You can have a notice board in your kitchen with favorite quotes and pictures that inspire you. This is difficult to organize and you may not have the space you need. Why not build a Pinterest board? Repin the images and the quotes that build your confidence and also that fit in with your goals. You get a vision of your future and this will help to build your confidence. Taking a few minutes a day to do this is much more fruitful than trying to keep up with all your Facebook ‘friends’.
8. Self-confidence is about you.
Think of it like this. Your confidence is like the motor that drives you. If that is defective in some way, then you will never even get into top gear. You are held back because of the fear of failing. But if you have a superb engine, then you are going to race ahead and achieve success. That is real confidence. Watch out for the triggers that can affect your confidence level. You may be late for work and rushed into a meeting, in which your performance is dismal. Plan ahead so that these triggers do not get a chance to catch up on you.
9. Cut down on the negativity.
Everybody gets overwhelmed at times by the negative self-talk that we inflict on ourselves. There are about 80,000 thoughts that flash through the brain every day. Let us think of some practical examples. We may be assaulted by worries, doubts and problems. They crowd in on us. But a good tactic is always to ask yourself if it is really true. Very often, the answer is that is based on a negative scenario which is like a contagious disease, infecting every train of thought. The secret is to cultivate a state of mindfulness and choose to take another road at the negative intersection. This is a great chance to build new, positive beliefs and stories about ourselves. “I have achieved so much,” needs to be your mantra.
10. Give yourself a daily mini confidence boost.
Listen to your favorite music or wear those clothes that make you look and feel really great. Read some inspiring poem or quote. Write it on a post it and place it on your computer at work. These little boosts of confidence can set the tone for a much more positive day.Try them out.
11. Teach others and benefit yourself.
When you set the example for your loved ones and colleagues by teaching them to be more confident, you will be surprised at your own results. Yes, teaching it by complimenting and encouraging people around you will pay you handsome dividends. Walk the talk and you find that your own confidence levels will soar as a result. Featured photo credit: Mona Lisa Eyes/Emilio Labrador via flickr.com
