No matter what you do for a job, how old you are or what you are trying to achieve, all of us could do with a boost in our confidence levels.
We all know how important it is to appear confident; others will find you more attractive, more trustworthy, and so on. More importantly, by feeling good about ourselves, we can more done than even we thought possible.
An insidious part of our brain, however, likes to convince us that we aren’t worthy of good feelings when thinking about ourselves, undermining our hard work. Here are some tips on how to fight that and build up your confidence.
1. Decide Upon What To Base Your Confidence
Confidence is great, but isn’t built on air. It has to be based on something if you’re going to take yourself seriously. Think of what makes you who you are or what you’re good at and then go from there.
The best way to do this is through meditation. Sit down in a quiet place and breathe deeply while counting your breaths. This should put you in a state of mind in which you can calmly evaluate yourself, and from there work on feeling good about yourself, which is crucial, because if you feel good about yourself, you’ll feel more confident.
In this frame of mind, you’ll also be able to realize something else, and that is that you’re valuable. You, as a person, hold intrinsic value. This should be the first step on the road to self-confidence.
2. Have Your Behavior Reflect Your Confidence
The road to self-confidence is a long one, and the best way to get started is to fake it… Yes, really! Think about how confident people come across to you and then mimic that kind of behavior.
For example, suppose you start asking for advice less from your co-workers and confidently complete your tasks. Rather that fish for compliments about a job well done, let your work speak for itself, and then be gracious and self-effacing when the accolades come in.
These are hallmarks of a confident person happy to be in his or her own skin; the person you’d like to be, so act like it and it will eventually become true.
3. Ban Negativity
As your confidence grows through meditation and better behavior, you will occasionally still be assaulted by negative feelings. Those from without are beyond the scope of this article, but those from within can eat away at you and undermine all the hard work you’ve done to create a more positive self-image.
Try to identify where your bad feelings about yourself come from and combat them or ignore them. Meditation can help with this, as can self-hypnosis. Just know that you’re of value and that it is worth it to change.
Also, make sure that the things that can cause negative feelings or that remind you of an earlier version of yourself are removed from your life. Let old rubbish like that rot far away from you where it belongs.
4. Don’t Compare Yourself To Others
Last but not least, never fall into the trap where you compare yourself to others, either positively or negatively. If you reckon yourself better than others are, for whatever reason, you will probably end up liking yourself less for being arrogant.
Then again, don’t look up too much to people either: There’s always going to be someone who has what you want, be it brains, muscles or money, and that’ll never, ever change. Try to ignore that part of your brain, and you’ll feel happy and content just being who you are.
