I come across many individuals who ask me for tips to
increase self-confidence. I am sharing tips that helped individuals to increase
their self-confidence. The word ‘confidence’ comes from the Latin word to trust
or have faith. Self–confidence is belief in oneself and one’s powers or
abilities. Self-confidence allows you to feel secure, makes you realistic, and
helps you manage relationship, career, social and spiritual life successfully.
Self-esteem is one’s judgment of self-worth as well as an attitude toward the
self. It is how we feel deep down about who we are.
Low self-confidence is about fear of performing. For example,
you have to give a presentation to a large group of people, and you are
extremely nervous, because you are afraid of making a mistake. This would mean
you lack confidence, because you question your ability. On the other
hand, you are afraid of how people will judge you, which questions your own
self-worth. This would mean you lack self-esteem.
I have realized after several years
of helping others that self-confidence
and self-esteem go hand in hand. As you start to love and trust yourself, your self-esteem
improves. And as your self-esteem improves, you feel good, start taking decisions
and actions, and hence your self-confidence improves. You start doing things
you’ve wouldn’t have done before. The same thing happens when you start
increasing yours self-confidence. As your self-confidence builds, your self-esteem
improves, because you start counting your success, which make you feel good
about you.
First, let’s start building your self-esteem. I
believe, when you build your self-esteem your self-confidence builds
automatically. Everyone has their own strengths, abilities and skills to
enhance their self-confidence and become who they want to eventually be.
Just focus on being the best. Following steps may help you raise your
confidence.
1.
Stop your inner critic.
We
all have an inner critic. It is important to learn to manage and to replace the
voice of your own inner critic. This inner voice whispers or shouts destructive
thoughts in your mind. Thoughts like for example:
·
I
am lazy and sloppy, now get to work.
·
I
am not good at job at all.
·
I
am uglier than my friend/co-worker/partner.
You
need to stop the train of the thought driven by the inner critic, negativity and
replace these critical voices with more positive and helpful thoughts.
·
Be
aware of your self-talk, the thoughts you have about yourself and what you’re
doing. While doing my doctoral research, I often come across negative thoughts,
“This is too hard. I can’t write… want to stop. I am not good”
·
Simply
to say stop whenever the critic pipes up in your mind. You can do this by creating a stop-word or
stop-phrase. As the critic says something – in your mind – shout: STOP! No, no,
no, I am not going there!
·
Replace
negative thoughts with positive one. Refocus your thoughts to something more
constructive. Like planning what you want to eat for dinner or your study or
writing journal (personal diary about reflections of the day). I replaced
negative thoughts with positive ones, “C’mon, I can do this! Only one mile
left!”
2. Act positive.
More than just thinking
positive, you have to put it into action. Action, actually, is the key to
developing self-confidence. 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. Talk to people in a positive way, put energy
into your actions. You’ll soon start to notice a difference.
3. 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, set a goal you know you can achieve, and then work
to achieve it. You’ll feel good when you achieve your goals. 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 (yet achievable) goals and achieving those too.
4. Increase competence.
Identify skills you would
like to strengthen and practice diligently. Just do small bits at a time. If
you want to be a more competent researcher, for example, don’t start research
at once. Just begin to reading articles you like, and write. Read about
research methodologies, identify your preferred methodology and write summary
of your readings. The more you explore, the better you’ll be. Set aside 30
minutes to an hour a day to read and write. Sincere practice will increase your
competence.
5. Motivate yourself.
A simple but powerful way to motivate
yourself and to keep that motivation up daily is focus on doing what you
really like to do. When you really like doing something then the
motivation to do that thing tends to comes pretty automatically. But sometimes,
we feel lazy to do what we like. Push yourself to do even if your mind resistance
yourself doing it or feel not to do. So if you lose your motivation, ask
yourself: Am I doing what I really want to do? If not and if possible, then
refocus and start working on that very important thing instead.
6.
Appreciate yourself.
Take
a 2 minute self-appreciation break daily. It’s simple and fun habit. Take a deep breath, slow down and ask yourself
this question: what are 3 things I can appreciate about myself?
A
few examples that have come up when I have used to this exercise are as follow:
·
I
help quite a few people each day through what I write.
·
I
can make people laugh and forget about their troubles.
·
I
am very thoughtful and caring when it comes to maintaining friendship/relationship.
·
I
follow what I plan.
These
short breaks do not only build self-esteem in the long run but can also turn around
a negative mood and reload you with a lot of positive energy again.
7.
Appreciate others.
It
important to observe others, listen to others and appreciate others honestly.
It raises self-confidence of yours as well as who is appreciated. Complement
at-least one person a day. A few examples are as follow:
·
You
always help others.
·
You
have very good communication skills and write well.
·
You
are thoughtful.
·
You
look graceful today.
8.
Replace the perfectionism.
Few
thought habits can be so destructive in daily life as perfectionism. It can
paralyze you from taking action because you become so afraid of not living up
to some standard. And so you procrastinate and you do not get the results you
want. This will make your self-esteem sink. Or you take action but are never or
very rarely satisfied with what you accomplished and your own performance. And
so your opinion and feelings about yourself become more and more negative and
your motivation to take action plummets.
·
Go for good enough. When you aim for perfection then that
usually winds up in a project or a task never being finished. So simply go for
good enough instead. Simply realize that there is something called good enough
and when you are there then you are finished.
9.
Be your own best friend.
Instead
of beating yourself up, ask yourself: How would my friend/parent support me and
help me in this situation? Then do things and talk to yourself like he or she would. It keeps you from
falling into a pit of despair and helps you to be more constructive after the
first initial pain of a mistake or failure starts to dissipate. Be your best
friend.
10.
Speak slowly.
Such a simple thing, but it can have 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. 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.
11. Groom yourself.
Dressing well can make huge difference in
our self-confidence. You will feel good about yourself when you dress well.
You’ll feel successful and presentable and ready to tackle the world. Now,
dressing nicely means something different for everyone. I don’t mean here to
wear expensive clothes, but mean wearing clothes that are nice, comfortable and
presentable.
12.
Keep trying.
If
you are not able to work according to your plan, don’t feel sorry. Keep trying
until you don’t do what you wanted to do. Learn from past mistakes and focus on
opportunities. It might be a small thing like getting up from the couch and
going to the gym. It could be to be understanding instead of judgmental in a
situation. Or to stop feeling sorry for yourself and focus on the opportunities
and gratitude for what you actually have.
13.
Try something new.
When
you try something new, when you challenge yourself in a small or bigger way and
go outside of your comfort zone then your opinion of yourself goes up. You may
not have done whatever you did in a spectacular or great way but you at least
tried instead of sitting on your hands and doing nothing.
So
go outside of your comfort zone regularly. Don’t expect anything; just tell
yourself that you will try something out. And then later on you can do the same
thing a few more times and improve your own performance.
14.
Change a small habit.
Not a big one, like quitting smoking. Just
a small one, like writing things down, waking up 10 minutes earlier. drinking
a glass of water when you wake up or start an exercise. Something small that
you know you can do. Do it for a month and then continue. When you’ve
accomplished it, you’ll feel good.
15.
Don’t compare.
When
you compare your life, yourself and what you have to other people’s lives and
what they have then you have destructive habit on your hands. There is always
someone who has more or is better than you at something in the world. There are
always people ahead of you. So replace that habit with something better. Compare yourself to yourself. Focus on you on
your results and on how you can and how you have improved your results. This
will both motivate you and raise your self-esteem.
16.
Spend time with positive and supportive people.
Identify
positive and supportive people around you. Try to spend some time with them. Choose
to spend less time with people who are nervous perfectionists, unkind or
unsupportive of your dreams or goals. And spend more time with positive,
uplifting people who have more human and kinder standards and ways of thinking
about things.
You
can spend more time in reading self-help books, blogs, websites, or watch TV-shows or you tube that inspires you.
17.
Smile.
Smile 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. Always smile
to everyone you meet. Make it a habit.
18Audit
yourself.
Spend
some time daily with self. Introspect and reflection on your day. It is reality
check to your progress. If you have done well, reward yourself. If you have
performed well, punish yourself in terms of being more focused on goals, reduce
fun or social time.
19.
Write down your experiences
Writing
is very helpful tool. Write down your experiences, feelings and emotions. Try
to cover following aspects of the day:
·
How
was your day?
·
What
you felt?
·
How
you motivated yourself?
·
Where
do you find yourself on self-confidence? (Rate on point 10 scale where 10 is
improved, 0 is nor improved)
Make
a habit of writing. If you cannot write daily, write on alternate day.
Hope
this helps you. Do not forget to share your experiences. If you need professional help, do not hesitate
to write to us or call InspireLife. We will be happy to help you.
