Everyone can benefit from a little more confidence. When you think of someone with confidence you may think of a person who is a little loud, who isn’t afraid to stick out, or when they walk into a party they practically shout, “Hey! I’m here!” While this person seems confidence, the reality is that they are probably lacking confidence and need to overcompensate for their insecurity. These tips will help you gain confidence and turn into someone who is quietly confident, who doesn’t need affirmation from anyone in the room, who feels comfortable in their own skin and is easy to be around.
Confidence is built with experience
Trying something you’ve never done before can be scary or nerve wracking, but experience calms your fears. If you try something you’ve never done, at first it may seem scary but once you accomplish it you will have pride that you followed through. Each time you try something new you get a little better, which builds your confidence. Everyone has fear, but in order to overcome it you have to start somewhere. You can’t practice or fix something you haven’t done yet, and with the experience of trying new things you’ll gain confidence in that area.
A great example of what I mean is driving. When you first sat down in the driver’s seat you were probably nervous and had no clue which pedal did what or how to put it in drive. As you practiced, those nerves and that inexperience disappeared and made room for new skills, allowing you to gain more confidence as you went. Now you’ve probably been driving for years and can barely remember those nerves, and that’s what I mean about experience building confidence.
Boost confidence by changing one habit
What we choose to focus on throughout our day affects our confidence. Confidence grows based on what we feed it. An example of this is when I launched my first workout video. At first, all my friends were using it and giving me compliments, but after a little while strangers started to pick it up and some hated it. Those negative comments and reviews really stuck with me despite having thousands of positive reviews. The habit I changed was reading reviews. Now I don’t read them because I can’t let one or two negative reviews affect my confidence.
Boost confidence with exercise
Exercise is like a drug, a healthy but addictive drug. It’s a mood booster, body transformer, and confidence enhancer. Best of all it’s free and you can do it at home. The best way to use exercise to boost confidence is by finding a workout you enjoy and can look forward to. That can be a home video on YouTube or a walk around the neighborhood with your friends or kids. Schedule your workout for 30 minutes to start, and focus on it only it terms of how you feel confidence wise. This exercise isn’t about weight loss, muscle mass, or what the scale says, it’s only about how you feel.
Change your vocabulary
The things you say to yourself in your head are the things you will start to believe. By labeling yourself as shy, not confident, or insecure, you’ll start to emulate those feelings and ideas. We tend to believe what we focus on the most, so it’s important to focus on good things about yourself instead of something more negative. If we want to attract uplifting people, we have to lift ourselves up. Next time you catch yourself thinking something negative, turn it into a positive. Say something like “I’m confident” or if you don’t feel that yet, say, “I’m working on being more confident”. The positive comments will start to stick and you’ll start to believe them about yourself.
Fix yourself up
Look at yourself in the mirror; chances are there’s something about your appearance you can brush up a little. Maybe it’s fixing your hair or your makeup. Perhaps it’s wearing something flattering or your favorite outfit instead of whatever was clean. If you spend as little as ten minutes fixing yourself up, you’ll start to feel more confident. You have to do it for you, and you’ll get some swag in your step. You’ll feel better about yourself, and it can be as simple as taking time to do some self-care from a shower and an outfit instead of workout clothes, or doing your hair and makeup even though you aren’t leaving the house.
Focus on positive qualities
Now that you’ve fixed yourself up a little, you’re probably going to be getting compliments. Whenever you get a compliment make sure to smile and thank them, don’t make excuses. By smiling and accepting those kind words you’ll start telling yourself that you’re confident and you deserve to hear such nice things.
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Chalene.. On July 11. 2015, my son was struck by a car and critically injured.. After 7 surgeries and a lengthy hospital course he finally came home. In October, I needed to find a way to work out my tension, get in shape to care for him, while not leaving my home. I started Piyo, and 7 months later I am still following the schedule by repeating the calendar and by using the slides. My son is healing and so am I!! Thank you for being so inspiring and encouraging.