How to Grow Confidence in Yourself
The Importance of Self-Confidence
If you feel like you need to learn how to grow in self confidence, you no doubt already understand that it is an extremely helpful and useful aspect of your life to develop. It is associated with better health, a better social life, protection against mental disorders and social problems, healthy coping, and mental well-being
Children with high self-confidence perform better at school and, later in life, have higher job satisfaction in middle age. Self-esteem is also strongly linked to happiness, with higher levels of self-esteem predicting higher levels of happiness. High self-confidence has even been found to increase the chances of survival after a serious surgical procedure!
The success of individuals with high self-esteem lies in these six attributes:
- A greater sense of self-worth.
- Greater enjoyment in life and in activities.
- Freedom from self-doubt.
- Freedom from fear and anxiety, freedom from social anxiety, and less stress.
- More energy and motivation to act.
- More enjoyable time interacting with other people at social gatherings. When you are relaxed and confident others will feel at ease around you.
Lessons for Practicing Self-Confidence
A positive self-image by itself does not produce anything. A sustainable sense of security in oneself arises from positive and productive behavior.
This is not to say that feeling secure and trusting in yourself is not important for well-being.
Many of us would like to have higher self-confidence but struggle to overcome insecurity, fear, and negative self-talk. With some reflection, hard work, and perhaps a shift in perception we can work towards a strong and stable belief in ourselves.
Well-being cannot just exist in our own head. It is a combination of actually having meaning, good relationships, and accomplishment.
1. Stand or Sit in a Posture of Confidence
Look for the sensations of confidence and practice feeling them more in your body. Feel your feet on the ground, keep your body relaxed and open. Think regal.
An individual’s posture does not just reflect the level of confidence or insecurity. Posture sends messages to the brain that can actually change the way you feel. So, if you want to feel more powerful, sit up straight, smile, or stand in a “power pose” – and that message will be sent to your brain.
2. Practice Presence
Mindfulness is proven to have significant benefits for your physical and psychological well-being. You can practice mindfulness anytime, anywhere. You can give try it right now by following these steps:
- Become aware of your awareness; that is, begin to observe yourself and your surroundings.
- Start with your body sensations, feeling your feet and legs, your belly and chest, your arms, neck, and head.
- Notice your breath flowing in and out, the many sensations that you are experiencing.
- Let your eyes notice what is in your visual field, your ears, what they are hearing. Perhaps sensations of smell and taste will come to awareness as well.
- Go beyond these simple sensations to feel the energy, the quiet, or the noises that surround you. Feel your presence.
3. Build Your Capacity for Energy
What does this mean? A bit of stress can be useful to keep us alert and give us the extra energy needed to perform.
Try re-framing your nervous jitters as excitement! Knowing how to engage with these feelings in your body will expand your presence rather than shrinking it down.
4. Exercise Regularly
Exercise has a powerful effect on confidence. Regular exercise releases endorphins which in turn interact with the opiate receptors in the brain, which produces a pleasurable state of mind and in turn, you’ll view yourself in a more positive light.
When you exercise regularly, you will not only get better physically but you will feel more motivated to act in ways that build your self-confidence.
5. Visualise: Imagine Confidence
Close your eyes and relax your body completely. Stay firmly connected to the sensation of relaxation and in your mind’s eye, see yourself speaking on camera or doing whatever activity for which you would like more confidence. Allow the feelings of a comfortable presence to pervade your body and your mind.
6. Give Yourself Permission To Be In The Process, Take Risks and Make Mistakes
From the outside, we often think, “Wow, everybody else is more happy, beautiful, creative, successful, active, etc. than me. I’m just not good enough to be like them…”
What we don’t tend to consider is that failure is inherent in accomplishment, and that in order to pursue our goals we have to work hard and face our weaknesses. Even those who are exceptional in some areas of life are likely struggling in others.
Allow yourself to be a learner, to be a novice. Trust that it’s okay not to be perfect; in fact, you’ll likely provide inspiration to others in similar situations.
When breaking out of your comfort zone and starting something new, you are expanding your own limitations. When you successfully complete something that is out of your confidence zone, you are building confidence in yourself.
7. Clarify Your Goals
The S.M.A.R.T goals system offers a guideline for goal-setting in which goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This system is based on research that suggests that these types of goals lead to greater and more consistent achievement.
When considering what goals you’d like to set for yourself, it may be helpful to start big considering your core values and life goals. Then you can come up with actionable steps to work toward these. Writing a personal mission statement is a great way to give yourself some direction.
8. Speak Well to Yourself
It’s always delightful to get good feedback from others. However, always seeking approval from outside yourself is an easy trap…
Speak to yourself with self-compassion, kindness, and encouragement. After all, the most important relationship you have in your life is with yourself. Make it a good one!
9. Ask For Help and Offer Your Help to Others
Many of us struggle to ask for help due to fear of rejection or being seen as incompetent.
In Western cultures, the high value placed on self-reliance gets in the way of reaching out to others even though this is a necessary part of working toward our goals. However, conversely, a core feature of self-confidence also lies in being valued by others. A sense of belonging within our social system is fundamental to personal well-being.
Collaboration among people creates the most powerful results. When we reach out to others we can see our efforts flourish in ways that we could never achieve on our own.
A Take-Home Message: It’s a Process
The bottom line is that a healthy sense of self-confidence is not something that we achieve once and then just have for the rest of our lives.
Self-confidence waxes and wanes and takes work to build, develop and maintain. We all experience moments which challenge our confidence, however, when we understand the sources of healthy self-confidence we can always work on cultivating it within ourselves.