We are all a work in progress. From the moment we are born to the moment we die – we never really finish learning. That also includes learning how to be more confident.
Even though it may seem like some people are naturally confident, they are not, they just learned how to be so earlier than most. Low confidence and self-esteem issues have been cited as some of the major challenges for Australian kids and teenagers. This also ranks Australia as number 11 on the list of countries with low self-esteem.
If you’re struggling with self-confidence and self-esteem, you might be relieved to know that you’re not the only one. There are so many people in the world, who are having self-confidence problems, even those that appear the most confident.
Before we dive into all the best ways to learn how to be more confident, we must first discuss the importance of confidence.
The importance of confidence
Regardless of your age, confidence is one of those things that we need so that we can experience a better and fuller life.
Having more confidence also means being able to step out of your comfort zones, unlock all your potential, make smart risks, and have more opportunities.
But if we dig deeper, we’ll discover that confidence is more intricately connected with self-love and respect, with knowing yourself, and with the way you see everything around you.
The key to becoming more confident, thus, lies in diving deep into yourself and making some radical changes. So, let’s see what can you do to be more confident in everyday life.
1. Remove negativity from your life
The first step that most of us should take, regardless of how self-confident we are, is to remove all the negativity from our lives. We have all, at some point in our lives started tolerating a lot, even things we shouldn’t – negative things.
It’s this negativity in our lives that affects our self-esteem, and happiness and lowers our confidence. Thankfully, there are things you can do to remove negativity from your life. One of these things includes setting boundaries and learning to say no.
We can’t remove all negative energy or people from our lives, but we can learn to say no, we can learn to stay positive and aware, stop the negative dialogue, and practice relaxation and meditation.
2. It’s all in your head
Another thing we should learn if we want to be more confident in everyday life is that all our issues and insecurities are in our heads. Confident and self-assured people simply believe in themselves, believe that there’s nothing they can’t do, and that’s where their power lies – in their minds.
This leads us to circle back to the precious point about removing negativity from your life and being more positive. Learning how to be positive even when you don’t really feel positive is all in your head and it’s the key to overcoming your self-confidence problems.
3. Improve self-talk
Human beings are emotional creatures which means that we are mostly led by our emotions, which is not always ideal. Emotions can lead us to say and do things we don’t mean or things we will later regret. Our emotions also affect our thoughts and moods and vice versa.
This is one of the reasons why you need to learn to improve your self-talk because it can help you curb negative emotions and boost your confidence. Self-talk is something you do instinctively and naturally without even realizing it at times.
But you can find ways to master your self-talk and turn it to your advantage. Make your self-talk more positive, supportive, and affirming. Improve your self-talk and you’ll be more confident.
4. Practice self-love
Hand in hand with self-talk goes self-love. It may sound a bit cliche but it all stems from how much you love yourself and how much you appreciate yourself and your well-being.
Now, practicing self-love means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some people practicing self-love is helping others, for others, it’s going to the gym and being active. But for all of us, practicing self-love means rediscovering things you love about yourself and reciting them out loud, it means having positive thoughts and working on your body language.
5. Alter your physiology
This leads us to our next point – physiology. Believe it or not, your physiology tells a lot about your confidence. When you think about confident people, how do you envision them? Standing straight with their shoulders back and head held high, right?
You have no idea if these people are truly confident but they sure appear so. This means that you can look that way, too, and in turn, this will significantly increase your confidence. So, stand up straight, square your shoulders, hold your head high, and put a smile on your face. Also, when walking, keep your strides purposeful and brisk and your breathing even.
Your body’s posture will influence your confidence.
6. Learn to draw confidence from your past achievements
Confidence is especially important when you’re looking for a job. You may wonder how people get the job they want. The answer lies in self-confidence. People get the job they want and advance in their careers simply by taking credit for all the achievements and goals they’ve reached so far.
If you’ve finished school, college, university, or a course, made any contribution, or had a positive impact – on it and draw your confidence from it.
So, the next time you’re visiting a leading recruitment agency in Sydney, remember all your past successes and achievements. Don’t be shy about taking credit for what you deserve.
7. Dress confidently
Just like changing your physiology can boost your confidence, so can change your appearance. Changing your clothing and putting on makeup can instantly make you feel better about yourself. That’s the power of clothes.
Some studies show that clothing can influence your mood, emotions, your posture, and even your body language. This also means that clothing can also boost your confidence.
So, if that’s the case, you should dress in clothes that make you feel good more often. Not only will you boost your self-image, but your confidence, as well.
8. Learn something new
Learning new things makes us feel better about ourselves and in turn, it also increases our confidence. So, if you’ve had your eyes on that cooking class or you wanted to take up a new hobby, do it and enjoy it.
Discovering and learning new things is a great way to keep your mind active, beats boredom, gives you motivation and happiness, and, above all, improves your confidence. Which is exactly what you’re looking for.
9. Spoil yourself and know you deserve it
You are allowed to spoil yourself and celebrate your wins – both big and small. Spoiling and treating yourself is a great way to boost your happiness and well-being. That’s why you shouldn’t feel bad about treating yourself from time to time.
Whenever you feel like you achieved a certain goal, no matter how small, you should treat yourself to something you like and not feel bad about it afterwards. Doing this regularly will boost your self-confidence.
10. Exercise
Physical activity can help us boost our body image. And you know by now that if you’re happy about how you look, you will also be confident. Exercising can help you tone and strengthen your body.
The more you exercise, the better results you’ll be able to see and that will improve your self-esteem and thus your confidence. So, don’t wait any longer, get that gym membership right now.
11. Create healthy routines
Exercise is just one of many healthy routines that you can incorporate into your life. Healthy routines and habits can be great confidence boosters.
So, in addition, exercise, incorporate a healthy diet in your daily life, practice mindfulness, get enough sleep, smile more often and meditate.
You’ll see that all these healthy habits will help you be more confident.
12. Accept that you’re not perfect and you’ll make mistakes
No one is perfect. The faster you understand that the easier it will be to accept both yourself and others. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and balancing them causes us to make many mistakes. It’s these mistakes that cause us to lose confidence.
So, to boost your confidence you need to overcome the perfectionist in you because perfectionism can lead to so much stress, fear of judgment, loss of self-esteem and so much more negativity in your life.
One way to overcome this problem and accept the mistakes is to become more aware of your perfectionist tendencies, set more achievable goals, be positive and allow yourself to make mistakes.
13. Practice gratitude
Believe it or not, gratitude and confidence are very much connected. Being grateful allows you to experience positive emotions and, as you know by now, positive emotions lead to improved self-esteem and confidence.
That’s why practicing gratitude should become a habit in your life. A good way to practice gratitude is by writing down all the things you’re grateful for and by making an active choice to be grateful. Being grateful makes you see the world in a different light and in that way helps you build up your confidence.
To conclude
Let’s just get this out of the way first – you won’t get confident overnight. That’s not how things work. If your goal is to truly improve your confidence, you need to constantly work on yourself.
Start by doing only one of the above-mentioned tips, at first. Then slowly start adding more and more, and you’ll notice the change in many aspects of your life, not just confidence-wise.
