HOW TO BUILD SELF CONFIDENCE
For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with self confidence. In life, I feel that there are different variations of lack of self confidence. For example, you could have a lack of confidence in the way you look, what you can do, and in your importance. I have been a combination of all three during some point in my life.
HOW HAS THIS AFFECTED MY LIFE?
In middle school, I was chubby kid, which is not uncommon around that age. However, in my eyes it was the worst thing in the world. I remember doing all types of crazy diets to try and lose weight, some of which worked, but ultimately the way I looked at the time didn’t change.
It wasn’t until I reached a growth a spurt where there was a significant change in the way that I looked. At the time, I simply thought all my hard work through crazy diets finally paid off. However, the real change was due to nature just running its course. Nothing I did changed anything at all.
As I have looked back on this time since I have gotten older, I realized something pretty interesting: I never thought anything about the way I looked until someone else pointed it out to me. Then all of a sudden, my entire world collapsed around me.
I will spare you my enormous list of lack of self confidence stories (trust me, there’s a lot), however, I noticed a common theme between them all: My feelings about myself were dictated by the thoughts and words of those around me.
Why is it that we care SO MUCH about what other people think about us, and devalue our own opinions of ourselves? That right there is the million dollar question.
HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO OUR PROBLEMS NOW?
The people around us will never change. People will always have thoughts and opinions and hurtful words. Do you know what we can though? Our thoughts about ourselves. Because at the end of the day, that is all that matters.
People will say all these things about us and go up the yellow brick road never thinking twice. But for some reason, we seem to let it eat us up inside and harbor on those things forever.
Back to my initial point of there being different variations of self confidence, they eventually all tie in together at some point.
For example, I started off being unconfident in the way I looked, then in turned into me thinking I wasn’t good enough to hang around the other kids, which then led for me to believe that no one wanted to be around me. It was an endless cycle.
While this is obviously on a small scale, I believe the process is extremely relevant and applicable to our problems today in our adult lives.
For example, you thinking you are not good enough for a promotion at work can lead to you believing you are a bad employee, which then leads to you telling yourself that your manager must think you are a bad employee.
WHAT IS SELF CONFIDENCE AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
What does it mean to be self confident? According to Vocabulary.com, “To be self-confident is to be secure in yourself and your abilities”. Having self confidence in yourself and in your abilities will overall help you become successful in your personal and professional life.
Self confidence is the backbone to almost everything we do in life. Think about it, every step you take, no matter how small is an act of confidence. We set our alarms in the morning because we are confident that it will go off to wake us up in the morning (most times).
If we can have confidence about the small things, why is it so hard for us to become confident in the “big” things?
WHY DO WE STRUGGLE WITH SELF CONFIDENCE?
Let’s face it, we have all had moments where we have struggled with self confidence at some point in our lives. Struggling with self confidence is commonly due to the fact that we either care too much about what others think about us, or we don’t have faith in our own capabilities.
TIPS TO INCREASE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
Positive self talk
Talking to yourself in a positive way can do wonders for your self esteem. Thoughts become words, your words become your actions, and your actions become your life. When you say positive and uplifting words to yourself, you will trick your brain into thinking in believes those things.
If you believe you are confident, you will start speaking confidently which then turns into you becoming a confident person.
Now with that being said, the degrading self talk has got to go girl. Even if you think you look fat in the picture that your friend posted on instagram, don’t say it. Let it go and let it be.
Also read: 31 Boss Girl Habits To Change Your Life
Put yourself in uncomfortable positions
You will never grow if you do not put yourself into situation to grow. Self confidence is a skill that has to be developed overtime and that skill unfortunately cannot be developed by staying in out comfort zones.
I encourage you to step out and be fearless to become the confident woman that I know you can be.
Reflect on your accomplishments
Remember that time when you did something scary and everything actually being okay? Use those experiences to help push you to continue to go out and do the things that scare you and believe the things that are scary aren’t really that scary. If everything was okay before, why wouldn’t everything be okay now?
Be prepared
There is nothing worse than walking into scary situation unprepared. For example, you wouldn’t take a test without studying would you? In order to good on the test and receive the results you desire you have to prepare beforehand.
The same concept is applicable to walking into giving a presentation for class or work. If you don’t practice beforehand, you won’t be confident in your ability to deliver the material.
I have seen sooo many of my friends fall into this cycle of unpreparedness (myself included at times). My advice would be this: Prepare for the best, expect the best, receive the best.
When you are adequately prepared, you will expect yourself to do as good as you did behind the scenes, which in turn, leads to you actually doing as well as you prepared for.
Also Read: 7 Sunday Habits For a Productive Week
Be present
Often times, I will find myself spending a lot of time worrying about what could happen. Which leads me to become way overstressed about future problems that are more than likely not going to happen. In simple terms: I overthink.
If you are an avid overthinker, I understand. I have let overthinking take over my life at times. And it’s not fun. At all. And you know what makes it even more annoying? Everything almost always ends up being fine.
Being present in the moment is one of the greatest keys to success. If you are present, there is no room to worry because most of the things we are worrying about or feeling unconfident about are in the future. When you are able to keep your thoughts present, you can limit the stress of not being good enough or whatever your thoughts may be due to your lack of self confidence about something.
Acknowledge your strengths
Everyone is good at something. Everyone is also not good at something. That is just how life is. Even though it may seem like the popular girl at your school or the girl who’s the manager favorite or your favorite influencer is perfect in everything that they do, there is a 100% chance there is something they are not good at something else in their life.
It can be easy to harbor on weaknesses and think you are not good enough that you have them. However, I encourage to harbor on your strengths instead. What are you good at? What is something that just comes natural to you?
You might be thinking “Mallory, there is nothing I am good at, I promise you.”
I am here to tell you that THERE IS MOST DEFINITELY WITHOUT A DOUBT SOMETHING YOU ARE GOOD AT.
It just might take a little soul searching to find it. Sometimes the thing you think is normal to you is something that you are actually talented at and would be considered a gift. God has placed gifts inside each and every single one of us and has not left anyone out.
Also Read: Questions to Ask Yourself For Self Reflection
Fix your heart
Most of the time, our self confidence issues come from deep within us. And it is our job to figure out why.
I am sorry to tell you that none of these tips will provide a quick fix to your self esteem issues. It’s just not that simple. When you uncover your underlying insecurities and face them head on, you will have opened the door for self esteem and self confidence to enter your life.
I hope you have enjoyed this post on self confidence and hope I have been able to help at least one of you at least a tiny bit on your journey to self confidence! I am not a very confident person myself, but with practice, soul searching, and utilizing each one of these self confidence tips I have come a long way from where I used to be. And while I am still no where near where I want to be, I just take it each day and opportunity at a time.
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