20 Sep On Being Confident

Confidence- everybody wants it and yet so many of us struggle with it. Whether it’s speaking up in your job, showcasing your talents or wearing a bright, bold lipstick colour, confidence is the thing that pushes us to boldly be ourselves. But just how can we build confidence within ourselves and our abilities? 

What Is Self-Confidence?

Self-confidence can refer to having trust in yourself, your choices and your abilities. It can even be more situation-specific like you might be more confident in putting together a report than you are giving a presentation. Having a healthy level of confidence can make you more likely to succeed at your personal and professional goals and help drive you to overall growth. Being confident does not mean that you feel ready to take on the world 24/7, it means that no matter what, you know that you can trust in yourself. 

We all struggle with our confidence from time to time, here are 6 tips that can help you create and build confidence.

Show yourself some compassion

A lot of the time, our doubts and fears show up as a means to protect ourselves from hurt, judgment, and failure. There is not one person on earth that hasn’t experienced fears and doubts but what often separates ‘successful’ people from the rest, is that they do things despite these feelings. Let your inner-critic know that you understand that they may be trying to protect you but your skills and preparation says that you’ve got this. And even if things don’t turn out the way you hoped, at least you had the confidence to try and that will hopefully drive you to try again. 

Stop falling into the comparison trap

With social media, it’s easier than ever to compare yourself to the next person. You see them living a lavish life, going out, buying nice things, and getting great opportunities and you tell yourself that you must be lacking somehow. But we tend to forget that social media only shows a highlight reel of someone’s life, not their downs. And even if you’re comparing yourself to someone in your real life, it helps to remind yourself that we aren’t all on the same journey. You cannot compare your chapter one to someone else’s chapter 20, it’s not fair to yourself. 

No more negative self-talk

The words that we say to ourselves can become how we see and think about ourselves, so when speaking about yourself or your work, try to minimise the negative words and self-limiting beliefs. If you find yourself struggling to speak nicely to yourself or believing those words, reciting some affirmations could be something that could help you reframe your thinking around how you see yourself.

Look to your community 

Surrounding yourself with people that speak life into you can make all the difference to how you see yourself. When looking at your relationships, be it professional or personal, how do these people talk to you? Do they uplift you and give genuine critiques when needed or do they break you down? If you find yourself feeling bad after being in someone’s company, perhaps it’s time to distance yourself from that person. Instead, surround yourself with people that want the best for you and want to see you do great in life. 

Focus on self-care

The theory behind this practice is that if you feel good about yourself, you’ll show up as a more authentic and confident you. Spend some time taking care of your physical, mental and emotional well-being by looking at what is needed in each pillar. You might feel that maybe you need more sleep, more nutritious meals, more movement or perhaps spend more time being still. Whatever it is, do the things that make you feel your best. 

Challenge yourself

A great way to help build your confidence is to push yourself to do things, big and small. You could give yourself short and long-term goals and set out steps to achieve them. These goals can be simple or even big ones that scare you a bit but the aim is to give yourself a proven track record that you can achieve what you put your mind to. 

Self-confidence won’t always be constant, like any other feeling, it will sometimes be at a high and other times at a low. But if you remember that there are little things you can do to boost your confidence and how you see yourself, you will always be able to build yourself up. 

How do you help build your self-confidence? Please let us know in the comments, we’d love to hear from you.