We are all born with a blank slate. No one is born with fear or courage. If you have children around you, you must have noticed how fearless they are. They do whatever they want in front of anyone without being mindful.
As children grow up, they start to fear attempting new things or avoiding doing things without the approval of the people around them. This behavior, or learned response, becomes a strong habit in adulthood.
Today, the majority of people are afraid of trying new things due to the fear of failure or lack of approval. These people can’t make decisions on their own until everyone agrees with them. These are the signs of a person with low self-esteem. People with low self-esteem cannot succeed in our competitive world today.
1. Set clear goals. All successful people are confident people. And the majority of them have clearly written goals. Goals give you purpose. They motivate you during the good and bad times. They enable you to visualize where you’ll be in the future.
Remember, you cannot target what you cannot see. The majority of adults today don’t have clear written goals. They float through life, hoping for the unthinkable to happen to them.
When you set goals, you start realizing that the universe is on your side, ready to bring you what you desire. When you achieve your first goal, you’ll be motivated to achieve the next one. Apart from that, you’ll boost your self-confidence in the long run.
So, how do you set goals? First, you have to write down all your goals. Goals that are not in writing are like smoke. They can’t help you in any way. Your goals should also have deadlines. Once you’ve set clear goals, do something that moves you toward your goals every day. Be ready to pay the price.
2. Use Affirmations: Affirmations are strong statements that help you install a set of desired beliefs. You’ll always treat yourself the way you see yourself. If you think of yourself as a happy and important person, you’ll indulge in high-value activities most of the time.
On the other hand, if you see yourself as a less important person, you’ll indulge in low-priority activities. In short, how you see yourself matters a lot. Affirmations are positive and inspiring statements that you say to yourself to improve your self-image. Since we usually believe what we say to ourselves in the long run, affirmations will enable us to make quick progress.
The best way to use affirmations is by repeating the statement aloud in front of a mirror. For instance, if you don’t like your physical appearance, you can look for something that you appreciate when you look at yourself in the mirror.
You can also repeat the statement “I like myself” over and over again throughout the day. Some of the most successful people repeat this statement fifty to one hundred times a day.
3. Stop Postponing: The more you postpone doing the most important tasks and activities, the more you feed your fears and doubts. Postponing important activities weakens you over time until you start thinking of yourself as a loser. In most cases, we postpone high-value activities to indulge in low-value ones.
For instance, we postpone calling new clients and making the sale to chat with our friends or take coffee breaks. We postpone booking a gym membership to rush home and watch our favorite TV show. The more we try to do the right thing, the harder it becomes.
How do you deal with this issue? You have to start procrastinating positively. Postpone chatting with your friends. Postpone watching that TV show. Postpone going for long coffee and lunch breaks. Get into the habit of doing things on the spot. Call your clients now. Book your gym membership now. Approach the love of your life now. Remember, what gets postponed gets lost.
The more you get into the habit of doing important things now, the easier it will be to achieve your goals. Instead of saying, “I should do XYZ,” start saying, “I could do XYZ.” Do you see the difference? In the first statement, you are forcing yourself to do something, while in the second statement, you put yourself in a position of power.
4. Improve Yourself: For your life to change, you have to change. You have to work on yourself daily to become a confident person. To improve your results in any area, be it work, health, finances, or at home; you have to improve yourself. Your outer world will always reflect your inner world.
Therefore, to change your outer world, you’ll have to change your inner world. And you can only change your inner world by improving yourself regularly. How do you improve yourself?
Successful people read books for at least thirty minutes every day. They attend conferences and seminars regularly. They listen to audiobooks while driving around. And they associate with like-minded people most of the time. Reading for the mind is like exercising for the body.
As the saying goes, the more you learn, the more you earn. When everything around you improves but you fail to improve, you’ll get back to where you started. For instance, you’ve seen people win loads of cash in lotteries only to lose it all a few years later.
To become a confident, happy, and cheerful person, you’ll have to improve who you are by reading books on self-confidence, attending seminars, and associating with like-minded people. Success is not an accident, and neither is a failure.
5. Prepare in Advance: Most of the time, we feel insecure due to a lack of preparation. And when you start doubting yourself, you increase your chances of failing. The majority of the most important activities or tasks need adequate preparation.
For instance, doing a presentation or going for a job interview, You’ll feel confident when performing the task, and people around you will sense the confidence you are exuding.
Remember, preparation is all about setting your mind to the task ahead. Don’t fall into the trap of being a perfectionist. There’ll always be room for improvement, no matter how well you prepare or do something. Perfectionism leads to procrastination. And procrastination leads to low self-esteem.
6. Journal regularly: Journaling is all about writing down your thoughts and emotions. Confident people have several journals that they regularly review to see how much they’ve progressed. You need to keep a journal too. Writing down your thoughts and emotions helps you understand yourself better. You also get an opportunity to discover why you feel the way you do.
According to psychologists, the majority of patients recover from stress, anxiety, and frustration by simply writing down their thoughts and emotions daily. You can become a confident and cheerful person by finding time to record your thoughts and emotions.
By doing this, you’ll eliminate the thought processes that create negative emotions such as anger, jealousy, fear, and doubt, to name a few. Also, reviewing your journal regularly will help you see how you’ve progressed, which will motivate you to keep on keeping on.
7. Help Other People: Helping other people will enable you to stop focusing on yourself and show gratitude for what you have. When you listen to and help other people, you’ll quickly realize how much better off you are. The majority of people have gone through worse conditions than you. Some of them grew up without parents. Others were immigrants who started with nothing.
You’ll also feel happy about changing someone else’s life for the better. You should consider volunteering or teaching other people what you know. When you share, your level of self-confidence will automatically grow. Don’t look down on yourself. You are a role model to some people.
8. Care for Yourself: No one will care about you more than they care about themselves. It’s not selfishness but a rule of nature. You can always tell this by looking at the time you spend thinking about yourself. The majority of people spend 90% of their time thinking about themselves and only 10% thinking about others.
To boost your self-esteem, you have to take care of yourself. Exercise regularly, eat nutritious foods, get enough sleep, surround yourself with great people, and take some time off to relax. Remember, your level of self-confidence depends on how you see yourself. When you treat yourself well, your level of self-confidence will automatically rise.
9. Learn to Say No: Do not allow yourself to suffer in silence or become a victim. No one can control your life unless you give them this power. To avoid being the victim or being a slave to another person, learn to say no. It’s not easy, but it will be worthwhile in the long run. Remember, the more control you have over your life, the more confident you’ll become. When you start saying no, other people will respect you and your decisions.
10. Be Yourself: You are a unique and wonderful person. Why would you try to be like someone else? Statistics show that people with low self-esteem see others as better off than themselves. The truth is, no one is smarter or better than you. They are just doing things differently than you. Accept yourself the way you are and start doing what other confident people are doing. As the saying goes, success leaves tracks. By shifting your mentality, you’ll boost your self-confidence.
Final Thoughts on Becoming a Confident Person
No one is born with confidence. In most cases, we have to work at it gradually by changing our thought processes and habits. Now is the time to face your fears and take back control of your life. Set clear goals with deadlines, continuously improve yourself, help others, set clear boundaries, and, most importantly, accept yourself the way you are with all your strengths and limitations. You will not only increase your self-confidence, but you will also achieve 90% of your life goals.
Courtesy: The Strive