Having a healthy amount of confidence is very important for not only ensuring that you enjoy everyday life and generally feel good about things, but also for ensuring that you can do your best in your career, your hobbies, and your interpersonal relationships, too.
There are all kinds of things that people could potentially do to boost their confidence, including things like losing weight and getting a promotion at work.
Here are some slightly more interesting tips and techniques for boosting your confidence, than the ones you might hear about on an everyday basis.
1. Practicing affirmations and positive visualization
Confidence obviously isn’t based solely on your external life accomplishments, your looks, or anything like that. At its heart, confidence has to do with your mindset, with the way you look at the world, and the way you think about and interpret your circumstances.
One consequence of this is that it’s often possible to build your confidence through mental, and even spiritual, exercises of different types.
While something like a Reiki session or a free psychic reading might help you to feel more in tune with yourself, it’s positive affirmations and visualization exercises that have the greatest potential to boost your confidence.
A lot of the reason why people don’t pursue the things in life they might otherwise want to is that they literally can’t imagine themselves being successful in obtaining those things. But if you can’t visualize success, the odds of you actually managing to achieve it are slim at best.
Come up with some affirmations about yourself that feel authentic to you, but that helps you to project a more positive reality for yourself. Something like “every day I am improving and moving close to my goals.” Then, repeat those affirmations to yourself with feeling and purpose, on a regular basis.
The same goes for positive visualization. Picture yourself making progress towards your goals, achieving things in life, and feeling good about the whole process. Don’t let yourself dwell on mental images of failure, defeat, and insecurity.
2. Keeping a log of your accomplishments
A great way to boost confidence is to take a moment to recognize, appreciate, and reflect on your previous successes and accomplishments in life.
Even if, at first glance, you don’t feel like you have any real achievements and accomplishments to celebrate – it’s a good idea to sit down for a while with a pen and paper, and to list out anything that comes to mind, even if it seems like a bit of a stretch initially.
Simply keeping a log of your accomplishments, and taking the time to remind yourself of them periodically, can help you to overcome your worries about your capabilities, and can go a long way towards giving you the motivation you need in order to pursue your dreams going forward.
This is also a great way of battling against the kind of negative self-talk that you will have to deal with from time to time. When you feel those self-defeating thoughts coming, look at your list, and force yourself to shift over to a perspective centered in strength and positivity.
3. Regularly tackling challenges and getting out of your comfort zone, even when you feel you’re not up to the task
Every time you step out of your comfort zone and overcome challenges, you are providing direct evidence to yourself that you actually are capable of more than you might have originally assumed.
On the other hand, every time you shy away from confronting an external challenge out of insecurity and stay firmly and deliberately within your comfort zone, you send a clear signal to your subconscious mind that your original insecurities were correct, and that you just don’t have what it takes to meet the challenges in question head-on.
Stepping out of your comfort zone and tackling different sorts of challenges is a habit that you have to develop and stick with. If you do, you can be quite sure that your confidence will grow systematically over time.
4. Restricting the information you take in (and finding regular moments of silence)
If you’re constantly taking in negative images and forms of information that cause you to feel stressed and insecure, then it goes without saying that your confidence probably isn’t going to be anywhere near as high as you would want it to be.
These days, we are all bombarded with a constant stream of information 24/7, coming from sources ranging from our social media feeds, to our TVs, and even the radio.
Restrict the information you take in – and find periods of time for silence. If you surround yourself with positive and uplifting information and leave time for quiet contemplation, your confidence is very likely to rise.
