Confidence is defined as “believing in oneself and one’s abilities.” Lacking self-confidence can impede success in many facets of our lives, including work, personal relationships, school, and social situations. Fortunately, there are ways to build confidence in yourself that you may not think of or know about. Being aware of these five proven techniques will help you become more confident tomorrow!

Here’s how to boost your confidence in 5 ways:

1. Increase Your Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is how much value you place on your own self-worth; the higher your self-esteem, the more likely you will be to feel positive about yourself (and thus act confidently). There are three main factors associated with building strong self-esteem: performance accomplishments, global trait ratings, and physical appearance.

2. Improve Your Physical Appearance

How you look does matter! Research shows that your physical appearance is the factor most likely to have an effect on how much confidence you have. If you are handsome or beautiful, well-groomed, and appropriately dressed for the situation, you will be more confident than if these things are not true. Visit your local General Dentist for checkup, pop into the Hair Salon et voilà!

3. Don’t Focus On Being The Best

The best at anything still make mistakes sometimes! While it may seem logical to believe that being the best at something would make you feel confident about yourself, research suggests this is often counterproductive. How can one feel great about their self-worth when they aren’t even perfect? Plus, focusing only on what you cannot do also limits your potential success in life.

Instead of aiming to be the best at something, aim to be as good as you can be.

4. Take Action!

One of the most effective ways to boost your confidence is by actually doing something that makes you feel proud and accomplished. By taking action and completing a task that we know we were able to finish successfully, our brains release chemicals that make us feel good about ourselves. These “feel-good” hormones give us a surge of positive energy, which will increase our self-esteem and confidence levels.

5. Visualize A Successful Outcome

The power of visualization is something most athletes know well. The more you visualize a successful outcome, the more likely it will be for that outcome to occur in real life. Effective visualization can work even better than positive thinking because our brains respond better to visual stimuli.

Here are some tips on how you should visualize:

• Imagine yourself completing the task successfully (while keeping all other aspects of reality in mind; this isn’t magic, just an exercise). Focus only on what it would feel like completing the task successfully and achieving your goal, not about how others may or may not react.
• Try different scenarios, like what obstacles might come up and how you would handle them. You can also try visualizing more than one outcome and decide which you see as most likely.
• Just like with taking action, the more time and effort that goes into the visualization of a successful outcome, the better it will work.

There You Have It!

For many people, these techniques may not feel natural, and thus they do not get used very often; if you keep trying to implement these techniques in your life, though, you will find yourself becoming increasingly confident about the things you need to do on a daily basis. You can even use some of these suggestions for how to be more confident when talking to others!

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Feeling less than our best or insecure is something that we all experience from time to time. However, we don’t have to let these feelings prevent us from leading our lives or becoming the type of person we want to be. If you’re looking for ways to build yourself up, here are 10 quick tips for boosting your confidence so you’re ready to transform into your best self.

1. Look The Part

Whether or not we feel confident can often be associated with what we’re wearing. Clothes that we feel and look great in are naturally going to promote a positive response. If you haven’t updated your wardrobe in a while, consider looking for some new items like dresses that you can wear to the office or out with friends. Bonus if you can make it work for both by swapping your accessories!

2. Take Good Care Of Yourself

Taking good care of yourself is crucial to your physical and mental health. When you’re staying on top of your health, you’re going to feel much better and look your best. You can start doing this by exercising daily, eating healthy, and incorporating supplements into your routine.

3. Try Out Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are an exercise in which you repeat a specific phrase in order to help you focus on positive aspects of yourself or what you wish to achieve. For example, look at yourself in the mirror and repeat, “I am beautiful and confident” a few times to yourself to get into the right headspace before you go forth and conquer the day.

4. Talk It Out

When you’re lacking confidence, sometimes talking about it can make all the difference. Start with some friends or family you trust. If you’re really struggling with confidence, reaching out to a professional who can help you gain some more insight and provide you with the tools you need can be the best way to cope with feelings of inadequacy and move forward. Whether your therapist employs talk therapy or exposure therapy, you can get the help you need to reclaim your positive self-image.

5. Give Yourself A Makeover

Switching up our look and trying out new things can help us discover a new appreciation for ourselves or even transform ourselves into the person we wish to be. Take some time to figure out how you can unlock a new you, no matter how little change or how much change is involved along the way.

6. Find Positive People

We shouldn’t rely solely on external validation to feel good about ourselves. However, hearing about how stunning we look or how awesome we are can feel great coming from another person. Surround yourself with positive people who aren’t afraid to give you a compliment. If you’re single and haven’t dated in a while, dust off your phone and see if you can find someone to connect with who will do exactly this.

7. Change What You Can (And Accept What You Can’t)

Everyone has things that they wish they could change about themselves. That being said, there are things we can change and things we can’t. If you’re experiencing something like hair loss, for example, there are solutions out there that could restore your hair or even make it look like you never lost your hair. However, things like the color of your eyes are permanent. If you can change something, change it. If you can’t, embrace it as one of the things that make you unique!

8. Do Something That Makes You Feel Powerful

When we do something that we’re passionate about, it kicks up our positivity and confidence to the next level. Whether you like helping others, kicking butt in your favorite video game, or hitting that high note, find something that you’re great at and do it to give you that sense of power you’re looking for.

9. Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

The comparison game can be easy to fall into. However, both you and your journey are unique and can’t be compared to anything else. Celebrate your victories and the things that make you special. After all, there’s only one of you!

10. Set Small Goals And Achieve Them

If you’re feeling like you’re just not getting any wins lately, try finding some smaller goals to tackle. This could be something as simple as clearing out a whole room or reorganizing your books by color. When you set these small goals and achieve them, you’ll feel happier and more accomplished. This will then set you up to tackle bigger goals and give you the confidence you need to crush them over time.

You’re The Key To Unlocking Your Confidence

The power to feel great about yourself lies within you. Whenever you start to doubt your personal power or greatness, return to this guide to use these tips and get your self-esteem back in order.

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Everybody wants to gain self-confidence. And for good reason, true confidence allows you to feel good about yourself and your abilities. You smile more and have an upbeat and pleasant demeanour because you genuinely love yourself and your life. As a result, you attract people (and opportunities) to you effortlessly because of the warm vibe of friendliness you exude to the rest of the world. I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t like being around warm hearted and friendly people.

Unfortunately, for much of our society, people are lacking the salutary quality of self-confidence. If you happen to feel like you’re one of the people who fall into this category, don’t sweat it. Because I am going to share 3 powerful ways for you to gain self-confidence in life.

1. Try New Things

It’s impossible for self-confidence to grow within the confines of your comfort zone. You must venture off into the unknown, step beyond where you currently are to expand your confidence. You do this by trying new things. When was the last time you broke out of your usual routine and tried something different? Do you even remember? We can get so caught up in our day-to-day lives that oftentimes we miss the forest for the trees.

It becomes so easy to fall into a rut once we land in a cozy and comfortable position in life. And that’s exactly when your self-confidence will begin to wane and wax. What is it that you’ve been thinking about trying, but have yet to take the plunge? Do you want to try your hand at stand up? Maybe take up a martial art? Or possibly enroll in dance lessons? It’s up to you – what do you want to do?

By trying things that excite, challenge, and even frighten you, you are forcing yourself beyond your current limits of comfortability. And being on the fringes of your comfort zone in this way forces you to adapt and develop traits within yourself that are lying dormant at the moment – and it’s in this “dance” that real growth takes place. And growth, of course, is a huge contributing factor not just to your self-confidence but your overall wellbeing as a person.

2. Get Your Finances In Order

On the surface, this may seem like an arbitrary thing when it comes to confidence. But money plays an inordinate role in all of our lives and can have a tremendous effect on your level of self-confidence. Having money gives you options and freedom. It makes you more confident in job interviews, business negotiations, and makes you feel more stable in life.

Not having money gives way to scarcity, frustration, and despair. And it makes sense, it’s hard to feel confident in yourself when you’re broke, in debt, and living paycheck to paycheck. But it doesn’t have to be this way because, with the right plan and a strong desire, anyone can turn their financial situation around, and as a result, strengthen their ability to stand on their own two feet – which is invaluable for gaining self-confidence.

Boost Self-Confidence Through Your Financial Situation Via These 4 Steps

1. Get on a budget — keep track of all expenses. Every dollar that comes in and every dollar that goes out – make sure it is all accounted for.
2. Live On Less Than You Make — This is simple, if you are constantly spending more money than you’re bringing in, then you’ll never get ahead.
3. Clear All Debts – If you’re in debt, then every dollar above your basic living expenses should be going to pay off your creditors.
4. Build An Emergency Fund – Most financial experts agree; you should have 3 to 6 months worth of expenses saved strictly for emergencies (car repairs, a job loss, illness in the family, etc). Just think of how confident and free you’d feel being debt-free, with $10,000+ in your bank account.

Now, of course, money is not the end-all, be-all for feeling good about yourself. However, there is something to be said about the self-assuredness it affords you. Get this component of your life under control and I promise you, your self-confidence will skyrocket as a result.

“Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.” – Lucille Ball

3. Respect Yourself

There is no bigger confidence killer in life than viewing and treating yourself poorly. That is why it is absolutely essential to respect who you are. Now, I understand that may seem like a bit of a vague statement, what does it mean to “respect yourself” in practical terms?

It’s going to the gym and exercising regularly, it’s eating healthy, it’s following through on commitments you made to yourself (as well as others), it’s spending time with people who love and care about you, it’s working on passions and hobbies that bring you joy and happiness.

It’s setting and enforcing healthy boundaries when people cross the line, it’s not tolerating disrespectful behavior from anyone, without standing up for yourself. Simply put, respecting yourself means doing what’s in your best interest, and not putting up with low-quality behavior from yourself or others. This is how respecting yourself will allow you to gain self-confidence.

3 Ways To Gain Self-Confidence Through Self-Respect

• Speak Your Mind – Say what you’re really thinking or feeling. Too many people censor themselves because they feel their thoughts are not “politically correct”, or they’re afraid they might offend someone. GOOD. By speaking your mind, you will see who really likes you for you, and who you should kick to the curb.
• Stop Giving Up – When you say you will do something, do it. Stop giving up on yourself and your aspirations so easily. Developing persistence is one of the best ways to earn your own self-respect and as a natural byproduct – gain self-confidence.
• Walk Away – Leave any situation (or person) that is not conducive to your growth and development. When you value yourself, you will not stay in an environment where your sense of wellbeing is compromised. This includes jobs, lovers, friends, business associates, etc. Leave them all behind if they are not serving and helping you on your journey.

When you respect and treat yourself as a person of value, you can’t help but gain self-confidence.

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When you are the leader, there will come times where you have to critique the performance of those whom you are leading. Their work is not meeting the standards that have been set and you must confront them. How do you critique but not detract from the confidence of the person you are critiquing? How do you correct his work but have him continue to come to work with a positive attitude?

You may consider thinking about the following five thoughts listed below.

1. Action vs. Person

In their outstanding book, The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson emphasized that you critique the action, not the person. A number of coaches in the athletic arena don’t believe this. They think you criticise both the action and the person. By addressing both you get the attention of the person and he will be motivated to do better.

I played for a coach who believed the person had to be addressed harshly to get the player to improve his performance. I found that to keep my confidence, I literally tuned him out when he was ripping me. The problem, however, was when he was teaching some very important concepts for improvement, I still had him tuned out.

I then played for a coach in college, Gordie Gillespie, who surely corrected poor performance. When he yelled you knew it! However, in the four years I played for him, I never heard him attack the personhood of one of our players. It was always the action.

I think there can be one exception to this philosophy. When you have corrected the action of the person whom you are leading a number of times but he refuses to change, you may have to address the person.

We had an athlete on one of our basketball teams at the University of St. Francis who would go to the end of the bench when we took him out of a game. We wanted all of our players to come to the bench and sit by an assistant coach and talk about the game. He paid no attention to our mandate and continued to not sit by a coach.

The third or fourth time he did this, I told one of our assistant coaches to escort him across the court to the locker room during a time-out. I instructed our coach to inform him that I would ask him one question at half time –  does he want to be part of our team or not.

I was glad his decision was to stay with us because he was a very good player! I hated to embarrass him but he had no right to embarrass our team. He never went to the end of the bench after that incident.

2. Sandwich Theory

The sandwich theory can be a way of getting your critique across to a person without detracting from his confidence or his positive attitude. You sandwich the critique between two positive comments.

I could say something like this to one of our basketball players. “You know you are an excellent player, so why would you make the difficult or fancy pass instead of the easier pass to keep our offense moving? Now get back to the court and show everyone why you are an All-Conference player.”

He hopefully got the point that the fancy pass is often intercepted and we don’t want it in our offensive game. Were he to continue to make the difficult pass, he would be sitting next to us on the bench! In sport, the bench is the great equalizer.

3. Mean What You Say

There is a maxim that states, “Mean what you say and say what you mean.” You don’t want to beat around the bush when you have to deliver criticism; you want to be specific. You want to be straight forward in approaching the problem.

I only participated in one intervention and that was definitely a time to mean what you say. We had to confront a person on alcoholism. We had our team present along with a psychologist who taught us how to conduct the intervention.

We actually integrated the sandwich theory into the intervention because we began the session with three of the team members telling the person how much they sincerely cared for him. Then we addressed how serious his problem was and that we could no longer tolerate his being with us if he would not go to rehab.

We had a car waiting for him right outside the building and a hospital ready to admit him. We also had a facility that would take him in after the detox at the hospital. We finally meant what we were saying by telling him if he did not immediately go to the hospital, he would no longer be with us. He agreed to go. It was critical that we were all on the same page in saying what we meant and meaning what we said.

4. Private

Amy Guettler wrote, “During any critique, do it in person and privately to avoid embarrassing him in front of his coworkers.” I do agree with this with the one exceptional example given above. Embarrassing the person you are critiquing is always the very last resort.

A major league manager once spent three hours with a group of us talking baseball. I had great respect for him because he never criticised his players in the newspaper or broadcast venues. He did tell us, however, there was a time when he was disappointed with his middle infielders.

He called them in privately and simply told them, “There still is a Triple A League!” He didn’t have to say they could be demoted there. They got the point. Joe Nameth, the outstanding NFL quarterback, was actually criticised publicly but he still respected his parents. He said until he was thirteen he thought his name was “Shut up!”

5. Feedback

Geoffrey James wrote, “Threat criticism as a form of feedback.” Ultimately,  the purpose of criticism is for the person you are critiquing to improve his performance. To get improvement from your critique, you may want to consider how Geoffrey James continued, “Listen, acknowledge, and learn. You may think you know what’s going on and why something happened, but you might easily be wrong.”

This can happen in the educational world. We once had a girl at the high school level who was bright but simply did not want to study. When we listened to her, we found out she was in a foster home and in that home she had seen some horrendous things happen to the younger people there. Given what she was experiencing, studying was the last thing on her mind.

There may be merit in what Ian Maclaren wrote, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.”

If your goal is to have criticism lead to improvement and to have the person being critiqued, retain his confidence and positive attitude, you may want to consider these five points prior to the confrontation.

1. Critique the action, not the person.
2. Determine if the Sandwich Theory is applicable.
3. Say what you mean, mean what you say.
4. Critique in private.
5. The goal is feedback, confidence, and improvement.

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