If I could only say one thing about confidence, it would be this:
Confidence is learnable.
Confidence and Self-Esteem isn’t something you either have or you don’t. Many people go through their lives thinking that if they have low self-esteem, then they can’t do anything about it.
Low self-confidence isn’t something you are stuck with forever. There are things you can do to improve your confidence.
The thing is, people who are truly confident aren’t that much different from others. There are a few things that they do differently that make them much more confident than the average. The key is to know what those things are and how to apply them to your life.
If you do what confident people do, then you will be confident, it’s as simple as that.
To get you started, here are 3 tips to help you gain greater self-confidence:
1. Remember Your Successes
When you achieve something you feel good about yourself. The time when you feel most confident is straight after you have accomplished something. But the problem is that most of us forget the good things that we have done and when things aren’t going our way, we only recall the bad things.
If you want to be confident, you need to keep fresh in your mind the times when you were successful. It’s much easier to feel successful when you can recall the feeling from earlier.
When you are feeling low on confidence, if you can recall times when you were able to overcome seemingly overwhelming problems, then you it will give you a boost to your confidence.
Sadly, when things get tough that’s often the time when we forget all of our previous successes in life. It’s very easy in the heat of the moment to make a blanket statement like: “I’ve never succeeded in anything in my life!” And the minute you start feeling like that, it can be hard to feel confident.
So instead of trying to think up successes after you feel low on confidence why not write them down ahead of time?
Write down any successes you have achieved in your life. And I mean all of them! Go back to when you were born and work forward!
The aim is to write down so many successes that it becomes overwhelming proof. I’m talking 50-100 successes, but more is ideal. Once you have a nice long list, carry it around with you everywhere. Look at it at least once a day. Re-live and celebrate your successes. It will provide you with “inspiration” when things are going well and “insulation” when things aren’t going so well. Either way, it will drive you on to more success.
2. See Yourself as a Confident Person
What do you see when you picture yourself? A confident person? Or an insecure nervous person?
If you can’t see yourself as a confident person, then you will never be one. We become what we see in our minds. Everything you have ever done in your life, you have on some level pictured it happening beforehand. This is called visualizing and it’s your ticket to confidence.
After you have recalled your successes (from tip 1), use that feeling of confidence to see yourself as the confident secure person you want to be. The more you can see yourself as being confident, eventually you will become that person. It all begins in your mind.
The hard part about visualization is sticking with it. Most people give up after a few tries. But if you can stick with it (using a system like the 30 Day Confidence Builder Program) you can really see the benefits.
3. Keep Promises to Yourself
This is not usually mentioned when people talk about confidence, but in my experience, many people undermine themselves all the time by not keeping promises to themselves.
If I asked you whether you were an honest trustworthy person, you would probably say “Yes, of course!”.
But then how many times have you:
• Said you were going to cut down on eating junk food but then the next day when someone offered you a piece of chocolate cake you had a slice…or two
• Said you would make four more sales calls before leaving work but left after only making two.
• Said you wouldn’t check your Blackberry for the next hour but then couldn’t resist having a “quick look”
Each of these examples point to someone who cannot be trusted to keep their word to .themselves.
It may not seem like much when you press that snooze button after promising to yourself to go for a run on Sunday morning. But in actual fact, each time you say you’ll do something and don’t, you are eroding a bit of trust in yourself.
When you keep breaking your word to yourself, eventually you don’t believe a word you to say yourself:
You say “I’m going on a diet” and your mind says “Yeah right, whatever”.
Self-belief, the confidence in your ability to succeed relies on you being able to “trust” yourself. If you hardly ever do what you say you will do, then you won’t have faith in yourself.
Keep your promises to yourself, even the small ones.
For More Confidence Tips, check out the How to Gain Confidence Blog
For the most complete system for building your confidence see: The 30 Day Confidence Builder Program