You want to feel confident, right?
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:
1. You can improve. Knowing you don’t do well at
something gives you the insight to actively do
something about it. If you’re unaware that you
don’t do something very well, you won’t be able to
work on it – it’s as simple as that.
2. You know what you’re capable of. By knowing this,
you can easily avoid situations where your
confidence may take a blow by these short-
comings because you’re already aware of them!
3. Knowing where you fall short ultimately shines
light on where you excel. We can’t all excel at
absolutely everything, but this just helps us to
appreciate where we excel even more.
4. We can hand over what we can’t do well, to those
who will do it well.
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!
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