Most people would like to have more self confidence. When you are more confident in yourself, your life can literally be changed. What is confidence anyway and why do so many people have a lack of it? What can you do to create more confidence in yourself? This article will give you some tips on how you can have more belief and certainty in yourself. Try out different ones and see which ones work best for you. But first, let’s talk a bit about what confidence really is.
If you want to be able to build confidence, you need to be able to recognize exactly what it is. Confidence is basically a mindset. When you are confident, you feel in control. You feel sure of yourself. You are certain about the results you will get. When you don’t have confidence, you will be unsure of yourself. You will be nervous because you won’t know what to expect.
It’s not just a mental thing though because you will be able to see it in the body. However, it starts with the mind. When you see someone who looks confident, how would you describe them? They probably walk tall, perhaps move a bit faster than normal people, and will do things like look you straight in the eye. In other words, confidence is something that you can actually see in a person.
If you can see something, you can copy it. Developing self-confidence can be as simple as acting confident. There is a term, “Fake it ’till you make it.” If you act confident long enough, you will start to actually feel confident. The reason why is because you can get your mind to think a certain way by forcing your body to move a certain way. If I were to ask you to describe to me what a person with low confidence looks like, you would probably be able to tell me. Most likely, you will describe that person’s physical movements and posture or even the way they talk.
The point is that you can learn how to gain more confidence by knowing what specifically to work on. The following are some tips.
1. Practice.
Even someone with low confidence has areas where they feel confident in themselves. Let’s say you don’t have a lot of certainty about yourself when it comes to social situations but put an instrument in your hand and you will be able to perform without a sweat. When you do something enough times, it becomes easy. When it becomes easy, you will become certain that you can do it.
If you have ever danced on the dance floor, most likely, your first time was a bit scary. However, after you went a few dozen times, it wasn’t as scary. This is just an example but you get the point. The more you do something, the more confident you will be at it.
2. Fake It Until You Make It.
Practice can be great but many times, you will be in a situation where you have to be confident on the spot. In this case, you need to act like you have lots of confidence as mentioned earlier. This can come through practice. Remember that when you force your body to move confidently, you will eventually start to feel more confidently.
3. Look Good.
Many times, lack of self confidence can come from worrying about how you look to other people. You can solve this by making sure you look your best. This can mean different things to different people. It may mean having to get some nice clothes or getting a hair cut more often. The point is to eliminate the worry of your appearance by doing whatever it is you need to do to make you feel good about yourself. This can even mean going to the gym more often.
4. Change Your Focus.
Most of the time when we have low confidence, it’s because we are focused on ourselves. We focus on what other’s think of us. Instead of doing that, try focusing on other people and how you can contribute to them. If you have a fear of public speaking for example, one reason could be that you are not focused on benefiting the audience. Rather, you are focusing on how you will do. When you take the focus away from yourself and put it onto others, it will help your fear go away because you won’t be thinking about it.
5. Don’t Take Life Too Seriously.
Learn to laugh at yourself. Realize that you aren’t the only one with confidence issues. Know that anyone, if put in the right circumstances, can have a total lack of self confidence in themselves. If you knew you had 1 day to live, would you be scared of doing things like asking that attractive person out on a date? Would you be scared to speak up? Would you be afraid to tell people your fears? Sometimes, we just have to take life for what it is, an experience and a chance to live it fully.
It’s when you believe that the mistakes you make will last a long time or that people will judge you for a long time or laugh at you for years to come, that you will feel less confident. When you realize that everyone has their own insecurities about themselves, you will realize that life is too short to let your fears stop you from doing the things you really want to do. Self confidence comes down to knowing that no matter how badly you mess up in public, in the whole scheme of life, it won’t even matter.