10 Ways To Boost Your Confidence Today
Here’s How I Learned To Be More Confident…
Hey, buddy! I am very excited about the fact that The Genius Power site is finally up and running! Now, I’d like to welcome you to my very first post, I hope the information you’ll find below can be somehow useful and that you can apply it in your own life.
I’d like to talk a little about self-confidence and how to be a more confident individual, which is something I was really missing most of my life. I was always unable to go after what I wanted, take risks or just speak up for myself. We all know that true confidence is a form of extreme self-love, and a fundamental ingredient to be acquired if we want to is to step up in life and take our existences to the next level, because without confidence in ourselves, we’ll most likely fail and we’ll not be able to have the fulfilled life we deserve.
Below, I will share with you 10 essential habits that I’ve integrated into my life and they have completely transformed the way I think about myself, hence, the way I see the world and approach life with confidence regardless the situation at hand.
1. Learn to say ‘No’ to your inner critic
A good way to increase your self-confidence is to learn to replace the voice of your inner critic. This inner critic tells you only about what you have done wrong and ignores the success you have achieved or the good things you have done. It does not praise you for being kind to someone, for being a good human, or for doing certain tasks well. It only pulls you down and makes you feel bad about yourself thus tearing apart your confidence. It can force you to do things just to gain acceptance from the society, and this can drag down your self-esteem further. This inner voice whispers negative thoughts in your mind such as, “You are so lazy”, or “You can never be good at any job”, “You are worse than your friend/ partner,” and so on.
You must try to minimize the voice of your inner critic and replace it with productive thoughts that will change how you perceive yourself. This will make the voice of the inner critic weaker and encourage you to take positive actions, which will boost your self-esteem.
2. Healthy Motivational Habits
Motivation is what a person needs when faced with a failure and also after achieving success. It allows a person to prepare his mind to accept the situation and take steps to overcome the challenge. It also helps to work harder and achieve the next milestone of success in life. The motivation can come from your near ones, your colleagues, your boss, but more importantly, from yourself.
Motivating yourself is a healthy practice that can help you do better and prevent you from getting commonplace. A simple, yet an effective method to motivate yourself is to note down the benefits you felt deeply in your mind from doing all the hard work and upon reaching a goal.
For example; when you are trying to lose weight, you can imagine all the compliments you will get after you have achieved your target. This will motivate you to stick to your diet and exercise plan and prevent you from falling prey to your lazy habits and cravings. Once you have achieved your target, you automatically feel good about yourself and this helps to boost your self-esteem and self-confidence.
3. Learn to Refocus
Focusing on doing what you like to do can bring in the motivation to do that thing pretty naturally. Most people do not feel motivated enough to do their work simply because it is not what they love to do. They feel an inner resistance that does not allow them to break the barriers of mind and put in more efforts to gain success. This naturally prevents them from attaining success, which leads to low self-confidence.
4. Take Frequent Self-Appreciation Breaks
Spend at least 5 minutes every day on evaluating yourself and taking note of the good things you have done. Try this for a month and you will see a huge positive difference in your attitude.
When you ask yourself what you have done that you really appreciate, you will be surprised at the numbers of things coming up in your mind. Some of them may seem trivial to you, but they might have made a huge difference to others. Maybe you made someone smile or brought a glass of water for someone who was coughing, remember we rise by helping others. You will realize how thoughtful and caring you have been for your family and friends. When put together, these trivial things do make you a better person and help you feel good about yourself.
5. Do what you think is right
Circumstances can force a person to do things that are against his/her beliefs. When you do something that is not in line with your beliefs, you lose your self-esteem. Hence, you must do what you know is right. It can be a very small thing such as taking out time to visit a friend in need or keeping away a pack of chips you feel like munching on. Remember that once you have done what you think was wrong, your thoughts will be burdened with a feeling of guilt causing a low self-esteem. Instead, doing the right thing may cause a bit of inconvenience to you, but it will strengthen your self-esteem.
6. Get Away from Perfectionism
Though perfectionism is a good habit, trying to be perfect at everything can be destructive. It may lead to obsessive behavior and prevent you from taking certain risks due to the fear of not meeting the expectations you have set for yourself. This can also prevent you from achieving success causing your self-esteem to sink. Hence, it is important to get rid of the thinking that anything less than perfection is a failure. You must learn to recognize every little goal you have attained and be satisfied with your achievements.
7. Handle Failures in a Positive Way
Taking risks is a small step you can take to achieve success. Taking risk entails going out of your comfort zone and trying to accomplish something truly meaningful. However, the risk you have taken can sometimes result in a failure too. You must be ready to learn from this failure and not let it affect your self-confidence so that you can work harder to achieve your goals. Instead of cursing yourself for taking the risk, you should pat yourself on your back for trying a less traded path as people who think out-of-box are the ones who make inventions. So, when you stumble, be optimistic and think of what you can learn from it. This will change your viewpoint and prevent you from hitting the same bump further down the road.
8. Be Kind to Others
Being kind to others can boost your self-esteem considerably. Being considerate to others even when the destiny has not been kind to you is the test of your perseverance and determination. Being kind to others allows you to be kind to yourself. So, just be there and listen to your friends when they want to vent out their frustrations. The way you treat others will change the way they treat you. The kinder response you will get in return will improve your self-confidence and self-esteem.
9. Choose Constructive Thoughts
Constructive instead of destructive is the key — thoughts can help you face the adverse situations effectively while dwelling on the past or worrying about the future can only lower your self-confidence and self-esteem. Positive thinking enables you to learn from the past experiences and adjust your actions or take the right decisions.
10. Get Rid of Conflicts in your Personal and Professional Life
Learning to deal with the conflicts at the workplace and home will take you a step ahead towards better self-confidence and self-esteem. When a conflict is mismanaged, it causes a lot of harm to a relationship and your career. Handling your loved ones and colleagues with respect and having a positive approach to the conflict provide an opportunity to strengthen the bond between two people and this can help boost your self-esteem and self-confidence.
As you can see, these are very basic habits that can easily be adopted by anyone. I have incorporated these along an overall positive attitude towards life and it has literally changed my life, everything comes down to the way we perceive our external world which is nothing but a reflection our inner world and the way we see ourselves, and as Aristoteles said: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Now it’s your turn! Take action and stop overthinking about how to be more confident. Start with step one and make your way down the list, and you’ll notice big improvements as time passes.
Until next time!
Your friend,
Felipe
