5 Simple Tips to Become More Self-Confident

A lack of self-confidence is one of the biggest obstacles to reaching your goals and pursuing your passions and purpose. Each time you put yourself out to the world, it feels like a risk. But unless you do take that risk, you don't allow yourself to make your dreams a reality.

Self-confidence is a feeling of trust in your abilities, qualities and judgement. So, how do you build that trust in yourself?

1. Get in touch with how you feel when you're not confident. It can feel like anxiety, nervousness, fearfulness, worry or simply feeling resistant to taking an action.

Once you're clear on how it feels when you lack confidence, you want to shift into a better feeling place. Using our trusty law of attraction processes can come in handy here. Pre-paving is a process that allows you to rehearse a situation before it happens.

Pre-paving is simply feeling and thinking of everything going your way before an event occurs.

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So, before publishing that novel, giving a presentation, going on a job interview or any situation where you want to feel confident, pre-pave by thinking of all the good things that you want to occur. Practice "skipping to the end" and getting in touch with how you expect to feel with everything working out for you. See in your mind's eye the events, people, and outcomes you want. Imagine yourself standing tall, feeling confident. See people smiling and nodding. Imagine yourself very relaxed and clear minded. Imagine the feeling of satisfaction you have with a happy outcome. The idea is to do a mental rehearsal that feels really good to you. Have fun and play with this!

2. Stop comparing yourself to others. You are a unique individual with your own contributions to make and your own timetable. Own that thought! Even if you think others are more accomplished than you, don't sell yourself short. I've been in several situations where I thought I was in over my head and others were better than me only to find out my contributions were deeply appreciated. You have your own style and it will resonate with your "tribe."

3. Pay attention to your thoughts. How much negative self-talk is going in your head? Shift your focus to what you DO like about yourself. What skills, talents or qualities do you have that you are proud of? Make a list of them and refer to it often. Remember you are a work in progress, so forgive any mistakes, look at what you learned from them and be proud of your growth. Related: Increase Productivity: Five Powerful Actions To Boost Up Productivity In Workplace

4. Deliberately shift your thinking away from questions that drain confidence to questions that empower you. Instead of, "Why do I always feel this way?" try "How would I like to feel?" Instead of "Why does this always happen to me?" ask "What do I have to learn from this situation?"

5. Think back to times when you have felt confident. Even if you have to go way back in your history, there is a time when you felt confident. Bring that feeling of confidence into your body and practice it. If you really can't remember a time of feeling confident, imagine what confidence feels like and practice that.

You can train yourself to be more confident. Take small steps that are just outside of your comfort zone. You'll soon get the feedback that you can do and be more than you thought.

What Makes You Confident

Confidence is definitely an important personality trait to have. One of the best steps you can take in developing it is understanding what makes a person confident.

Confidence is an attitude that permits you to have more initiative, take more risks, be more assertive and feel better about yourself. With a good level of confidence, you can improve most areas of your life.

Psychologists have studied this attitude for decades now and have identified various elements that make you confident. Here are the most important ones, which you’ll want to know for your personal development:

1. Your genes. Directly or indirectly, your genes do play a role in determining your level of confidence. Some people have a genetic predisposition for a wider or higher range of confidence than others.

However, this is only a small part of the equation, although it does matter. Most of our confidence is acquired and your social conditioning or self-conditioning play a huge role here. Thus, you have control over a majority of your self-assurance.

2. Your experience. People with more experience tend to be more confident than people with less experience. Having done, seen and tried a lot of things gives a person the perception that they can deal with whatever life throws at them. 

Keep in mind that experience doesn’t mean simply having lived for many years. It’s what you do in those years that matters, and this is why you want to have a rich, diverse life in which you experience many things.

3. Your competence. There is a noteworthy correlation between confidence and competence. The better you become at something and the more aware you are of this, the more assure in that area you will be.

Competence is based on experience, but it is not defined by it. The most important part is going through a quality learning process. You can grow in months as much as others grow in years by using the best personal development tools.

4. Your thinking. This is the crucial element. All your experiences, results and skills are interpreted by your mind and thus, they influence your level of confidence. You can have all the results humanly possible, but if your mind does not acknowledge them, you still won’t be confident.

Related article : SuperCharge Your Strategic Thinking

Ultimately, it is your thinking that plays the biggest role in making you confident. And it is in taking conscious control and changing your thinking that lies the secret to mastering any of your attitudes.

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