Life is filled with many challenges that a person must overcome but having low self-esteem shouldn’t be one of them. Having low self-esteem can hinder a person from building strong relationships with family members, friends, and even coworkers. In some professions, it’s also looked down upon if a person is wary of their own abilities to close a sale, take customers’ orders, and manage a desk and a phone. However, there are many techniques to improve your confidence. In fact, all you must do is look inward for the answers. Although, while the process might sound simple for some people it may be more difficult for others. Here are the top eight tips on how to be more confident:
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Understand yourself
It’s essential if you have low self-esteem to understand why you have such little confidence. If you don’t find the root of the cause, then you can’t treat it properly. However, if you understand yourself enough to acknowledge the real problem, then you accept it and work through it. Some people have self-esteem issues because of how their body looks or certain scars or birthmarks that their body displays. Most people find it beneficial to talk their feelings out with a therapist. Sessions not only provide insight on a person but also improve the well-being of oneself. Therefore, it’s crucial to find the underlying issue behind your low self-esteem if you want to boost your confidence in the future.
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Understand where your confidence lies
Finding what gives you confidence is intensely personal. For example, a person might retain confidence from a color, a piece of jewelry or even a pair of shoes. Since confidence is so personal, it will differ from person to person if you want to understand where your confidence lies try thinking about where you were the most confident. What were you wearing? Who were you with? What made the night so special? These questions will help you understand where your confidence lies when you find your confidence wherever it maybe you can use it in different situations to make you feel poised.
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Be yourself
Being yourself in every situation is crucial. The minute you try to be someone you’re not is the moment when you start doubting yourself. The more you try to be someone else the more you lose confidence in who you really are. Don’t be afraid to show the world who you are. You’re amazing! Often people like to try to change others to try and fit in their model of what they believe looks and feels right. But if everyone tries to be themselves the world will be filled with amazing, confident people.
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You’re smart
Often people tend to focus on the negatives in life. Instead of celebrating the success of graduating high school a student, for example, might be disappointed on the one math class he didn’t score well on. Instead of focusing on the negatives you can look at the positives. While the student didn’t score well in a math class, he still graduated high school. Graduating high school is a big success that will continue to follow you in life. Rather than wasting your energy on something you can’t change the look to your accomplishments, abilities, and skills for positives about yourself. You might find you’re smarter than you think.
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Don’t compare yourself
In today’s world, it’s so easy to compare yourself to someone you don’t even know all you have to do is go on social media apps like Instagram or Twitter. But it’s not healthy to compare yourself to another person. Here’s why: when you lack confidence it’s most likely from a divide in where you see yourself now versus where you think you should be. For example, a person might believe that when their twenty-eight he or she will be married and at least have one child. But if that same person is not even in a staple relationship while a friend the same age is married and has two kids he or she might think that they’re the problem and have self-esteem issues. However, everyone lives life; differently, it will only be to your detriment if you compare yourself to other people.
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Tell yourself “I am…”
Some people find positive affirmations cliché, but they work. If you’re in a bad mood or you don’t believe you can do a specific task tell yourself you’re strong, brave, or smart. These words will brighten your mood as you repeat to yourself. In fact, over time you might not have to repeat those phrases over and over because you’ll believe them. Telling yourself what you fear might not be true allows yourself to come to terms that you’re smart, strong, and brave. You’re everything you want to be. You’re enough.
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Try new things
One of the primary ways to build confidence is to try new things. You can do this in various ways, for example, you can volunteer at a local library or shelter, try a new hobby, or even a new daily routine. Confidence is individual to you so finding new ways to build it is also individualistic, however, if you want to try something new try and make sure it involves a social aspect. Socializing aids in boosting confidence too in fact, if you’re around people who support, motivate, and encourage you in your activities and feelings you’re more likely to experience an increase in confidence.
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Change your thinking
Sometimes to be confident all you must do is change your thinking. Instead of having the mindset that you don’t know how to be confident or can’t be confident because of one reason or another, now you can adopt a different philosophy. You can imagine what confidence feels, looks, and sounds like and after a while of imagining what confidence is, you can act confident just on what you believe it would be like, or if you would prefer you can look to your heroes. Everyone has a hero of some kind, and that person may be strong-willed, intelligent, or funny. However, they do not lack confidence. You can model what your hero would act like in certain situations for your confidence to be built.
