1 in 3 people in the UK say that they lack confidence, and this has stopped them from doing things in the past.
A lack of confidence can reduce or diminish your quality of life in many ways. For example, it can cause negative feelings – constant self-criticism can lead to persistent feelings of sadness, depression, anxiety, anger, shame or guilt.
It can also have a dramatic effect on your career, e.g., it can keep you in your comfort zone because you that’s where you feel safe with little risk of failure. It can prevent you from leaving a bad work situation, seeking progression or pushing yourself. You risk losing your motivation and it can undermine your self-esteem over time.
Some proactive things you can do to increase your own self-confidence are as follows:
- Groom yourself, have a shower, do your hair put make-up on – it may sound ridiculous, but if you make an effort, you will feel better about yourself, other people will notice it too and they may comment, which will make you feel good.
- Dress nicely – same as the above, stop keeping clothes for best, if you have something you love, wear it.
- Speak slowly – So simple but it can have a big difference in how others perceive you. A person in authority, with authority, speaks slowly. It shows confidence. A person who feels that he isn’t worth listening to will speak quickly, because he doesn’t want to keep others waiting on something not worthy of listening to. Try it and see how people react.
- Stand tall, – my posture isn’t great however, when I remind myself to stand tall and straight, I feel better about myself. I imagine that a rope is pulling the top of my head toward the sky, and the rest of my body straightens accordingly. Standing tall gives you stature which gives you confidence. Walk like a lion.
- Exercise. It gets the endorphins going which makes you happy and the sense of achievement will have an impact on your confidence.
- Smile – you will feel instantly better when you smile, and it helps you to be kinder to others as well. A little tiny thing that can have a chain reaction. Not a bad investment of your time and energy!
Now some of these might sound familiar:
- Get to know yourself. Start listening to your thoughts. Start writing a journal about yourself, and about the thoughts you have about yourself.
- Stop negative thoughts by switching your perspective to a positive one.
- Think and act positive. More than just thinking positively, you must act. Action is actually the key to developing self-confidence. It’s one thing to learn to think positively, but when you start acting on it, you change yourself, one action at a time. You are what you do, and so if you change what you do, you change what you are.
- Get prepared. It’s hard to be confident in yourself if you don’t think you’ll do well at something. Beat that feeling by preparing yourself as much as possible. Think about taking an exam: if you haven’t studied, you won’t have much confidence in your abilities to do well. But if you studied your butt off, you’re prepared, and you’ll be much more confident. Now think of life as your exam and prepare yourself.
- Know your values and live them. You need to be true to yourself.
- Set a small goal and achieve it. People often make the mistake of shooting for the moon and then, when they fail, they get discouraged. Instead, shoot for something much more achievable. Set a goal you knowyou can achieve, and then achieve it. You’ll feel good about that. Now set another small goal and achieve that. The more you achieve small goals, the better you’ll be at it, and the better you’ll feel. Soon you’ll be setting bigger (but still achievable) goals and achieving those too.
- Do something you’ve been procrastinating on. What’s on your to-do list that’s been sitting there? Do it first thing in the morning and get it out of the way. You’ll feel great about yourself.
- Get into activity. Doing something is almost always better than not doing anything. Just do something. Get active — physically, or actively by taking steps to accomplish something.
But, if you want to increase your confidence quickly, NLP can help. I provide tools and techniques which will enable you to feel confident. I offer a free 30-minute consultation so, if your confidence is lacking, take this one-step and contact me!