8 years ago · Stuart Downing · 0 comments
Ten Simple Ways To Increase Your Confidence
Confidence brings with it the chance to effectively connect with people, the courage to take on new challenges and most of all the strength to be ourselves.
The ways we can improve our confidence are countless. From new experiences, the delight of working alongside others, learning a new skill to quite simply putting faith in ourselves.
How would becoming more confident help you? Recognising and aiming towards your potential is what allows us to grow and mature as human beings, and we need the confidence to take on the opportunities that allow us to do that.
Working with clients across the globe, I’ve helped many people overcome fears, make hard changes and maintain more active lifestyles. A lack of confidence in themselves is what holds most people back. Why don’t you use some simple steps to become more confident in yourself over the course of then next twelve months?
Decide who you want to become
Increasing your self-awareness and defining what it is you want to achieve is a great way to start to increase your confidence.
Why do you want to increase your confidence? Why aren’t you already confident? What will increasing your confidence allow you to do?
The last question is of particular importance. Giving yourself reason to increase your confidence and attaching your level of confidence to your ability to take on new opportunities and grow your competence to achieve your goals in life.
Unleash your potential
Speaking of goals, what about your potential? The vast amount of hours we spend speaking about potential, which in reality is an imaginative force, the perception we have placed upon ourselves that has ultimately been deemed “the ideal.”
Taking on each day as an opportunity to unleash the potential you have is a good way to start increasing your confidence as it often brings you out of your comfort zone and places you in situations where you need to learn, adapt and grow.
Once you come to realise that you have a huge amount of potential and a unique perspective to offer the world, you tend to work harder to do what you can to ensure that you offer the most of your potential to those around you.
Who have you got the potential to become?
Educate yourself
If you want to become confident in any area, you need to educate yourself sufficiently in that area. To truly have the confidence to speak about a subject, you must first seek to educate yourself and understand it thoroughly yourself.
Read books, listen to audio, watch lectures on YouTube, search the website for useful articles and educational material. There is no reason to believe your ignorance is not wilful, particularly in today’s information age where you have every piece of data available at your fingertips.
Be humble (learn from others)
Another person’s perspective can be of incredible value, and it’s not something you can dismiss lightly. No matter who you are, you can learn from others who have either; more experience, wisdom, knowledge, skills or just another perspective on the situation.
If you want to stay confident in the long-term, don’t become arrogant. Ensure that you listen to others intently, with the attitude and belief that they may actually know something you don’t, and you could learn something from them (and the truth is, you probably can).
Speaking from a personal perspective as a therapist, I learn a tremendous amount from the experiences I share with my clients.
Face your fears
There is no better way to overcome insecurity than to face up to your fears. Is there much more I need to say?
You may have been to therapy, you may have heard this before. Facing up to the thing you fear the most and taking the challenge head-on will be one of the most enlightening moments of your life in regards to your confidence levels.
Be truthful
Base your own life on a foundation of truth. There are two primary elements to this piece of advice.
Be truthful to yourself: don’t deceive yourself. Knowingly or unknowingly we all lie to ourselves, and the less we do of that, the better our frames of minds will be. Don’t distort reality, don’t cover up your inadequacies.
Be truthful with others: working on a foundation of truth and respect, you protect yourself from becoming over-committed to the needs of others or becoming too selfish in your own greed and deceit (which can happen to us all..)
How often do you deceive yourself and those around you? Lying and deception fundamentally distorts the psyche and contributes to stress, anxiety, depression and mental health deterioration.
Set yourself free. Tell the truth.
Develop your courage to say no
Do you often find yourself in situations you’d rather have not been in? Are you struggling to say no to others? Do you take on opportunities at will because they’re handed to you? By accepting every opportunity or giving into every demand of other people, you can build up resentment and anger with the fact that you just cannot say no!
I’ve met many people like this within my work. They’re just far too agreeable.
The fact Is that in life, we are faced with making a decision in the pool of unlimited possibilities. We couldn’t possibly take on every opportunity, nor can we please everyone around us. Sometimes we have to do what is best for ourselves, and without the ability and courage to decline the offer to either party with friends, take on a new job opportunity or relocate with your partner, all against your own best wishes and all because you didn’t tell them how you truly felt.
You would be surprised at how fast your life can spin out of control (and into the control of those around you) if you build up the strength to learn to say no.
Over-agreeable people have a tendency to become anxious and resentful at the fact they cannot stand up for themselves. Don’t let that be you, develop the ability to stand up for yourself.
Be open to new experience
There is nothing in this world that allows you to grow your confidence more than being open to new experiences.
True both in your professional and personal life, you must be open to trying out new things to explore the many conceptions of being within yourself. What are you good at? What do you enjoy? Without exploring new experiences, how would you ever know?
It could be as simple as taking on a new project, or exploring a new hobby. Try something new. Don’t be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone. It will allow you to grow and develop your character and you never know, you might find out more about than you realise.
Be decisive and have a definiteness of purpose
How long does it take you to come a firm decision?
Even more importantly, do you stick to your decisions and allow the results to come to fruition before moving on to something new?
Make sure your long-term aims are well conceived. Create the vision you want to work towards. Take the perspective that each decision you make (however small) leads to (or away) from your purpose.
Don’t be impulsive with your decision making, ensure that each decision you make is a step towards your long-term goals. Ultimately this is what will allow you to move forward with a definiteness of purpose.
Recognise your individual worth
Recognising your own self-worth is a hard one. As human beings we all have an intrinsic value that can never be taken away from us. Only through lack of confidence in ourselves would we have a deflated and distorted value of ourselves.
What are you worth? This applies to both your experience, your knowledge and your perspective within the workplace, but also to your time and energy within your personal relationships.
I bet it’s a hell of a lot more than you think.
You can transform the way you think about yourself. You can develop a new image for your existence. You can bring into fruition your vision for the future.
And when you do? Your personal and professional relationships improve. You grow. You build a life that is based upon truth and you contribute the overall well being of your community and society at large. Confidence breeds confidence. What could you do to improve upon your confidence and get a good streak of fortune come your way over the coming months? Get in touch to speak about the personal and professional coaching I offer, you can call me on
Categories: Self
