Confidence is a valuable tool that helps you feel good about yourself and gives you motivation and strength to go after your goals. As such, its importance can’t be underestimated. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to become more confident. And the best part? They are quite simple to accomplish. So read on to learn more about tactics that can boost your confidence.
7 Things You Can Do to Become More Confident
1. Accept Your Flaws
Being unable to accept your flaws can be one of the most common reasons behind a lack of confidence and insecurity. And the harsher you are on yourself for having imperfections, the more insecure you will become gradually.
What you need to do instead is to embrace your flaws. After all, in order to correct your flaws, you need to accept them first. This will help you become a better version of yourself and boost your confidence as well.
Now, of course there will be some flaws you may not be able to fix. In this case, you have even more reason to embrace them. Why? Because if you don’t, you will never be able to feel comfortable in your skin, which will get in your way of being confident.
2. Make A Positive Self-Talk Your Tradition
Negative self-talk won’t be able to support you in your mission of becoming more confident; only positive self-talk will. As a matter of fact, negative self-talk will try to harmfully reprogram your subconscious. After which your head will be filled with toxic lies that want to discourage you.
If you allow this to happen, your confidence will gradually disappear until it will be as hard to find as the last drop of water in the Sahara desert.
So the next time your subconscious is attacked by one of those lies, don’t let it believe in them. Instead, tell yourself that your thoughts can be deceiving at times and it is exactly one of those times. Then try to turn them around so that the negative can be replaced with the positive.
For example, instead of saying “I should stop because I’m not getting good at this”, tell yourself “I won’t stop until I’m good at it, and I will be because practice makes perfect”.
Remember, your inner thoughts shape the world around you, so the more positive your self-talk will be, the more positive your world will become.
With positive self-talk, the world can become a land of opportunities, while negative self-talk turns it into a barren field with no sign of life.
3. Remind Yourself Your Strengths
Have you ever asked yourself why is it so easy to criticize yourself for your weaknesses but so hard to praise yourself for your strengths? It’s like you would rather scold yourself than compliment yourself.
Now imagine if you decided to celebrate your strengths instead of focusing on your weaknesses; your confidence will grow exponentially.
Here’s a little confidence-booster exercise you can do; try to come up with a list of your strengths and weaknesses. Then every time you feel bad about one of your weaknesses, look at the list and find one of your strengths that makes you feel proud of yourself.
Although you clearly don’t have to carry this list everywhere you go; once you make it, you will likely be able to remember it by heart.
4. Don’t Run Away From Your Fears
Some people have the habit of putting things off til they feel prepared enough. And while there’s nothing wrong with this in certain cases, there can also be times when it can work against you.
For example, you may refuse to go on a date with a really nice person because you feel too nervous. But they take it as a sign of you not being interested in them and decide to stop pursuing you.
Or you may have certain goals you’ve been wanting to accomplish, yet you always postpone them because you fear you’ll fail if you try.
But thinking this way is exactly the very thing you should be afraid of because it can stop you from realizing your full potential. Remember, real confidence is earned and not given at birth.
In other words, you have to put yourself outside of your comfort zone, even if it seems scary, and keep moving forward despite difficulties. This is the only way you can gain hard-earned confidence and become more self-assured.
5. Embrace Growth Mindset
The growth mindset is the type of mindset that encourages constant self-improvement. Whether it’s acquiring new knowledge and skills or boosting already existing ones, you can always find a way to become a better version of yourself one way or the other.
The growth mindset also means being more welcoming of constructive criticism and using it to improve yourself. So rather than seeing it as something to be upset about it, reframe your view and look at it as helpful feedback that leads to self-improvement.
Incorporating a growth mindset will help you gradually grow as a person, which in turn will make you more confident in yourself.
6. Know When to Silence Your Inner Critic and When to Listen to It
Earlier we talked about constructive criticism and why it’s important for personal growth. It’s fair to say that your inner critic does a great job at that as well.
In other words, you don’t always need someone else’s feedback to improve yourself; you can also depend on your inner critic to tell you all about your blind spots or the areas you need to improve in.
However, there can also be times when your inner critic doesn’t provide you with constructive criticism. Rather, it only insults you to discourage you.
Therefore, it’s important to pay attention to which one it is so you can act accordingly. If it’s constructive criticism, act on it as soon as you can. But if it’s a demeaning criticism, brush it off right away because otherwise, it’ll only get in your way.
7. Let Go of Comparisons
Do you know what’s the fastest way to destroy your confidence and self-esteem? It’s to keep comparing yourself to other people on a daily basis. But life shouldn’t be regarded as competition or a ‘you vs. them’ kind of scenario. Such a mindset can make you feel exhausted and demotivated in the long run because the pressure of it will become too burdensome at some point.
Rather, try to see it as ‘the old me vs. the new me’ kind of scenario. This way, you’ll be focusing solely on becoming a better version of yourself instead of constantly competing against others and comparing yourself to them.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, becoming more confident doesn’t have to be as difficult as it may initially seem. All you need to do is integrate these tactics into your daily life and master each so you can watch your confidence grow significantly.
