10 Steps to Greater Self-Confidence
We all want more self-confidence. Self-confidence can mean the difference between enjoying life and being afraid. Not all of the factors that contribute to self-confidence are under your direct control. But enough of them are to make a huge difference. You can develop the habits and skills that make self-confidence automatic.
With greater sel-confidence, you’ll achieve more, too. Self-confidence is personal power.
Become more self-confident and enjoy all that life has to offer:
- Keep track of your successes. Do this all day long. Start each day with a fresh sheet of paper and list your successes. It might be a good performance at a meeting or completing a report on time. This system will change your focus and increase your self-esteem.
- You have plenty of successes each day, but you only notice a few spectacular successes each year. It’s also easy to notice every little failure. Make a list of all your successes, big and small. Avoid thinking about your failures.
- Pay attention to your body language. Strong, confident people stand tall and sit up straight. Maintain good eye contact. Keep your body open. Smile. Pay attention to your surroundings. Imagine the most confident person or movie character you can think of. How do they stand, walk, and move?
- Adopt the physiology of someone confident, and you’ll feel more confident. Try it! Pretend you’re a highly confident person and carry yourself as one.
- Do something that makes you uncomfortable. Having success outside your comfort zone is a fast way to increase your self-confidence. Take a speech class or jump out of an airplane. When you can deal with discomfort and experience success, your self-confidence will grow rapidly. You have countless opportunities to test this theory each day.
- Get rid of the negative voices in your head. Those self-defeating thoughts that never seem to stop can be a major drain on self-confidence. Catch yourself when you’re making negative comments to yourself. Change your self-talk to something more positive.
- Be over prepared. A lack of preparation can sap your self-confidence. Whether you’re unprepared for a speech, a test at school, or a vacation, preparation is the key to confidence.
- Make of list of all the great things about yourself. List them all: your smile, sense of humor, and ability to play the banjo are all fair game. List everything about yourself that’s even slightly positive. Notice how great you already are. Then notice how much more confident you feel after making the list.
- You can probably rattle off all your faults. You’ll probably require more time and thought to make a list of your positive qualities.
- Be assertive. When you ask for what you want, you feel more confident. When you go after the things you want, you feel more confident. Taking control of your life results in greater self-confidence.
- Focus on others. By focusing on making a contribution to others, you don’t have time to worry about your own perceived flaws. One way to stop thinking negatively about yourself is to put your attention on something more important. The positive feelings and respect you’ll receive will also allow your self-confidence to grow.
- Dress for success. I can’t tell you how much this step has made a difference in my life. I live in California and was used to the relaxed way many of us dress on a regular basis. Once I began interacting with business owners and thought leaders in my community and at live events across the country and finally around the world, I had to step up the way I looked. Immediately, I was taken more seriously and my income increased. Looking back, I can’t believe how I used to dress. Look in the mirror and evaluate your appearance before you leave your house each day.
- Engage in positive thinking. I was guilty of negative self-talk during my first year as an online entrepreneur. Within five minutes of waking up in the morning I had convinced myself that what I intended to achieve that day was impossible. Once I came to the realization that this behavior was sabotaging my chances for success, I began engaging in positive thinking which led to greater self-confidence.
Be all that you can be. All you need is a little more self-confidence to kick-start your way to greater accomplishments and more peace of mind. Self-confidence ebbs and flows, depending on the situation, but a healthy level of self-confidence is a powerful trait to possess. If you’re feeling stuck, a little more self-confidence might be the cure.
I’ve written about the importance of self-confidence in the book I co-authored with the late Geoff Hoff. It’s entitled The Inner Game of Internet Marketing.
