Long-term self-confidence building is possible in many ways, but sometimes, a quick boost is all you need. You must refrain from feverishly rereading a self-help guidebook or making a last-minute phone call to your life coach before a crucial job meeting, a college class, or a party full of strangers. Thus, these are ten quick fixes for increasing your self-confidence.
1. Smile
The one-second trick to overcoming anxiety and lack of confidence is just to smile! You can grin to cheer yourself up, not only because it makes you feel good and confident. It is nearly difficult to feel unpleasant when smiling because smiling is tightly connected to happy emotions.
2. Make eye contact
In addition to grinning, look each person in the room in the eye. Smile at them; you’ll probably receive a smile in return, which is a powerful way to increase self-esteem. Maintaining eye contact conveys confidence to others, just like smiling. Your emotions of shyness and self-doubt are exacerbated when you stare at the table or your shoes.
This tip is constructive in work-related situations: look interviewers in the eye or the audience members in your presentation:
3. Change your inner voice
Most of us have a critical inner voice that tells us we’re foolish, unworthy, fat, skinny, loud, or quiet. To feel confident on the inside, which will help you project your confidence to the outside world, you must be able to adjust that inner voice. Transform your inner voice into a helpful companion who encourages you to reach your full potential, acknowledges your abilities and gifts, and knows you completely.
4. Forget other people’s standards
Holding yourself to your standards will help you immensely, no matter what it is that’s causing your lack of confidence. No matter how hard you try, you can never please everyone all the time since other people have values different from yours. You shouldn’t be concerned that others may perceive you as excessively large, underweight, feckless, dull, thrifty, or frivolous. Hold yourself to your standards, not some fictitious benchmarks set by third parties. Additionally, remember that social norms and frequently held beliefs differ from culture to culture, so you don’t have to agree simply because others around you do.
5. Look Your Best
Make sure you look your best by ducking into the bathroom, even if you only have a minute or two. Taking care of your hair, washing your face, touching up your makeup, straightening your collar, and ensuring there’s no parsley stuck between your teeth are small but significant steps that can make the difference between feeling good about how you look and worrying about a perceived flaw.
6. Pray or meditate briefly
Suppose you believe in God, any other spiritual force, or a higher power. In that case, silent prayer can help you feel more confident. (Alternatively, you could pray and practice meditation.) This enables you to stand back from the present, see the bigger picture, and ask for assistance from something or someone bigger than yourself. Although this is a Christian prayer, you may create something comparable that is in line with your own spiritual or religious traditions:
7. Reframe
It’s simple to let an unforeseen event undermine your nascent confidence. Maybe you knock someone over with your drink, get stuck in traffic and miss an important meeting, or someone you want to talk to ignores you. Attempt to “reframe” the situation; present it in the best possible light. The negative connotations we give situations frequently stem from the meaning we assign to them.
8. Find the next step
Maintain your self-assurance by moving forward gradually instead of stopping when presented with what appears to be a giant leap. If you need help figuring out what to do, look for one easy step to move forward. This could be striking up a conversation with a stranger, breaking the ice at a meeting, or asking an insightful question of your interviewers that demonstrates your familiarity with the business and industry.
9. Speak slowly
Speaking slowly can help you come across as more confident and self-assured. You’ll feel worse if you babble since you’ll know you’re confusing your listeners or the person you’re speaking with. Speaking slowly allows you to gather your thoughts for your following sentence. When presenting a talk or presentation, take a moment to reflect on each term and conviction to ensure that your audience has fully understood what you have stated.
10. Contribute something
In any case, you probably didn’t feel very confident or even worse afterward. Regardless of the circumstance, try to contribute. Even if you don’t think you have much to say, your thoughts and perspective are valuable to those around you. Have you ever sat through an entire class at college or a meeting at work without saying a word? Have you ever had an evening out where friends chatted happily while you sat and stared silently at your drink?
Do you occasionally feel like you lack confidence in yourself? How do you handle these circumstances? Leave a comment with your advice.
Know your value. Confidence breeds success. Act like the person you want to become, and people will start seeing you as that person.
