Do you wish you had more confidence? Do you
sometimes look at other people and wish you were as confident and self-assured?
What is self-confidence? One
definition is an individual’s trust in his or
her own abilities, capacities, and judgments, or belief that he or she
can successfully face day to day challenges and demands
Reflect
for a moment on how self-confident you think you are. How confident do you feel
around your work? What about your confidence when you are with friends and your
family? How confident do you feel about making a presentation at work or
talking to a stranger?
Being self-confident will help you achieve
your goals and go after the things you want out of life.
If you lack confidence and want to build
your self-confidence, it is important to keep in mind that it is a process and
it can’t be built overnight. I have put together steps that you can take to
help you increase your self-confidence and the more you practice those steps
the better your end result will be.
The first thing and most important one is
to understand that your thoughts, feelings and behaviours are all interlinked. Understanding
this connection will help you stop that inner voice in your head that stops you
from achieving your goals.
Before I give you some tips on how to learn
to have more confidence I want to give you an example how your inner voice can
undermine your confidence.
Imagine you are walking into a room at a
networking event and think “I don’t know anyone here, I will look stupid,
everyone will look at me, I don’t know what to say”, your feeling will be
anxiety and your behaviour will be that you might not talk to anyone or try and
hide in a corner.
On the other hand, if you think instead “I
don’t know anyone, but I will pick out one other person on their own and go
straight over and introduce myself”. That way you may still feel a bit anxious,
but nothing like in the first scenario. As a result, instead of trying to hide,
you go to a person and introduce yourself.
Below are some tips on how you can start
working to improve your self-confidence. I found from experience they work very
well with my clients. The key is to keep practicing them and the ore you do
each exercise the more confidence you are going to build.
Tip 1) Before you are going to face a
situation where you want to feel more self-confident, work through it in your
head, like in the above example, and ask yourself what are you thinking about
the event/situation and how can you think about it in a more helpful way.
Tip2) Use positive affirmation. Get some
index cards and write a positive statement about yourself on it. For example,
“I am a kind and helpful person”, “I am worthy”, “I am a great
coworker/boss/friend” and so on. The key is to read them every day. Leave the
cards somewhere where you can see them, so you don’t forget.
Tip 3) An easy way to immediately boost
your self-confidence is to dress smartly. Get your nice clothes out, and feel
fantastic.
Tip 4) Practice speaking out loud. Often
when someone lack confidence they speak very softly and therefor may lose an
audience when they are speaking, which reconfirms unhelpful thoughts such as
“No one is interested to talk to me”. Practice speaking a bit louder in front
of a mirror. Again, don’t do it just once, do it daily, over a few weeks.
Tip 5) focus on your strengths rather than
your shortcomings. This is again related to how you think.
Tip 6) Write down 3 things every day that
you did well, and you are proud of.
Carrying out those steps will require some
perseverance on your part. It’s learning new habits and the best way to learn
new habits is to take one small step at a time and practice that for a while
before you introduce the next step.
And finally, I would like to leave you with
this quote from John Eliot (Overachievement):
“Confidence is not
a guarantee of success, but a pattern of thinking that will improve your
likelihood of success, a tenacious search for ways to make things work.”
If you would like more information or need
help with building your confidence, you can contact me at
http://www.susilodola.com
https://www.facebook.com/Susilodolacounselling/
@susilodola1