Building confidence is a life-long process, identifying certain factors can help you understand what you need to work on, and how to move forward in the right direction.
Before we start, you need to adopt a viewpoint of looking at confidence as not just a trait, but as an emotion, a thought, and a state of mind. You become confident when your whole mind and body agrees with it.
Now, let’s look at those essential factors that will help you build confidence.
1- Fake it till you make it
“Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.” – Brian Tracy
This is the first step to start the process of building confidence. You can’t always be prepared for everything and you can’t always have 100% confidence in everything, sometimes you just have to fake it until it actually becomes real.
For example, if you are terrified of hosting a show or giving a speech because you are not confident that you can speak in front of so many people. Then, you just have to fake the confidence for some time. You keep doing it until you are actually on that stage, and this experience of just going to the stage will help you gain real confidence.
2- Understand your core values
Whether you are aware of it or not, your actions will always be influenced by your values and beliefs. Hence, understanding them will help you understand what you are willing to do and what you aren’t. This helps you avoid unnecessary pressure that you put on yourself to do something that you don’t even want to do, and focus all your energy on working on something that you actually believe in. If you don’t know who you really are at heart, then how can you truly build your confidence?
3- Accept yourself
No one can be good at everything in this world and be “perfect”. You have to accept who you are, sure you can improve certain qualities that you don’t like, and keep modifying yourself. But, at the end of the day, you have to accept who you are, your goals and even your mistakes. It’s important because if you don’t truly accept yourself, you would never have confidence that someone else will accept you.
4- Perfecting your skills
So far, we have seen how to manage your thought processes when it comes to confidence. But, an equally important aspect is to improve on your skills every single day.
If you keep perfecting your skills that you would have to use every day or something that you would have to use in your career or your life. It would help you gain true confidence since this aspect is grounded in reality. This means that in order to start building a strong foundation to be confident, you need to put in a lot of hard work and efforts.
5- Don’t stop
While you are building confidence, you can’t stop after one task or one successful event. You need to keep going and push yourself more every time, it is very easy to get stuck in the safe zone, but that won’t help you grow.
So, keep trying out new things and put yourself out there as much as you can. The tasks or goals can be very simple and easy, but the important thing is to not stop this process.
6- Body language
In times of need, assume a powerful body language! This will instantly make you feel confident and lift up your mood. Our body language has an effect on how we feel and how we think. Simply walking tall with your head held high and taking wide steps will make you feel confident. Always keep your back straight, your eyes forward and avoid fidgeting or hiding your hands. These are some of the ways you will feel confident in any situation.
Lastly, you need to remember, building confidence is a lifelong process. These points can help you understand what to focus on and how to move forward, but it requires a lot of hard work and patience from your side. It can become difficult or frustrating, but do not give up because achieving this is truly freeing and exhilarating.
Some books that can help you out:
The Little Book of Confidence by Susan Jeffers
The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown