6 Easy ways to improve your self-confidence
Improving your self-confidence is essential when it comes to the point of generating a successful life. Not only in your day job and career but in any aspect of your life, self-confidence plays a huge role. No matter what you do, doing it confidently makes it a lot easier to achieve your goals.
Just think about how confident you need to be every time you talk to a stranger, even if it is just the lady working at the bakery around the corner. Now you could think that´s not even a notable example of self-confidence’s importance. You might consider ordering pastries the easiest thing to do on the planet.
But now imagine talking in a language you are not familiar with. A tongue you started to learn one month ago. Suddenly, self-confidence plays a huge role again, whether you´re bold enough to tackle this challenge or if you decide that you could extend that intermittent fasting phase a little longer for today.
This is just one example of how self-confidence drastically changes the situation. And often, the only difference that changes the result is whether we have faith in ourselves if we are crazy and brave enough to take the risk or choose the safe but unsuccessful path.
No matter your point of view regarding self-confidence, the following six easy ways to improve your self-confidence can support you in mastering your life!
1. Accept yourself
Nothing screams more self-confidence than being at peace with yourself.
People will notice very quickly if you´re insecure about yourself or have already crossed the line and accepted yourself the way you are. They will realise your state of mind on certain occasions.
For instance, what is your first reaction if you get a compliment from a stranger?
A more insecure person would say something like: “Oh no, this? That´s nothing, actually! I just did…” and then usually what follows are a bunch of excuses why the given compliment is inappropriate. The insecure person is not capable of realising the strengths she developed. And what´s more critical is that she cannot accept the favourable opinion of someone else because she cannot see it in herself.
In comparison, a self-confident person in the same situation is likelier to say: “Thank you for acknowledging! You´re so kind.” Because she, first and foremost, does not need the appreciation of other people since she already appreciates herself. Therefore, a compliment is a lovely gesture; she can value it without depending on it. Secondly, the self-confident person recognises a compliment as what it is: The appreciation of another being for something you´re sticking out. There is no need for a self-confident person to justify anything around a compliment from another person.
You´re simply standing out with something, and that´s a gift! Appreciate it! If other people can see it, you can accept it since you´re already acting that thing out in your outer world. And by that time, it does not matter whether you´re aware of it. Other people are indeed aware of it. Be thankful for being around people who admire you!
What makes you more self-confident is being aware of your strengths and weaknesses and finally accepting yourself with all of that. And the more you can not only take but appreciate yourself for the being you are with all your outstanding capabilities and talents, the more you can show yourself as the self-confident person you genuinely are within yourself.
But also think about your weaknesses! Everyone has them. And it´s beautiful. This is what makes us all individual and unique. Be aware that having a deficiency is no mistake. It´s just something you are not good at. See it as one part of your life whereby you still have all possibilities to grow. There will always be an area in your life you can do better and improve. Life itself is an improvement. Don´t be too harsh on yourself. You deserve better.
You deserve to be treated with kindness, even if it´s you who interacts with you. Especially if it´s you. Therefore, accepting yourself the way you are, is one significant and effective way to improve your self-confidence.
2. Body language and posture
Suppose you´ve seen a Ted Talk on YouTube or other great speakers on the internet or elsewhere; you might´ve recognised some similarities regarding their body language. Great speakers always have proper posture and use their body language very intentionally.
Because these fantastic people, who are brave enough to share their meaningful messages in the spotlight, know precisely how powerful body language is. Not only for communication, but it can also have significant impacts on how we think, feel, and act. And impacting these three factors can indeed change how we perceive ourselves – less or more self-confident.
Let´s talk about posture:
To see what a proper posture can do for your overall appearance and emotional wealth, it´s best to stand in front of a mirror. Now let´s see what happens when you let your shoulders fall forward, a little hunched. This is the typical posture people have when sitting at their desks, tackling tasks on their computers, or scrolling through social media on their phones. But with your phone, it gets even worse because we also tend to look down for a long time here.
All of this together lets your body form a slumped-down posture. But when thinking about it, doesn´t this posture reminds you of a form of protection? Making one minor, maybe also crossing your arms, taking your head down – all of this protects your most vulnerable body parts – your neck, heart, lungs, and other inner organs.
But being confident equals spreading your energy, claiming your space, and not making yourself small and looking like you need to protect yourself.
Now let´s try a much more supportive posture:
Hold your head up high, putting your shoulders back, hold tension in your body and take a deep breath. This feels a lot more energetic, right?
And the best part of it?
You can train a proper posture
Here is a practical yet accessible way of doing so:
- Stand in front of a wall, with your back against it
- Your heels and your butt should touch the wall
- Rest your head against the wall
- Now try to press your shoulders on the wall – this can be challenging in the beginning, especially if you´ve “trained” a slumped posture in the past
- Do this exercise for a few minutes every day, and you will see improvement in your posture even if you do not take care of it throughout the day
The same goes for body language – it can massively impact your self-confidence, notably if you implemented gestures that do not support a self-confident air in the past. Most of the time, we are unaware of how we gesticulate and communicate with others and how our body language impacts our mood.
A sustainable way of implementing body language that supports your goals of improving your self-confidence is to handle it as children do it.
What do children do?
They mirror other people’s behaviour for several years at the beginning of their lives. Because this way, they can practice learning by doing, which is very effective since it guarantees fast learning and adaptation.
What I mean by this is:
Go on YouTube and find people whom you have the impression that they are very self-confident. And then try to mirror their body language.
What are they doing with their hands and arms?
How do they move their body?
What are they doing with their face?
And then, look at your findings and reflect on your behaviour. What are you used to doing with your hands and arms? How do you usually move your body?
If you struggle to reflect on your behaviour, then a significant tip could be to film yourself. Afterwards, you can analyse your body language and posture perfectly because suddenly, you can watch yourself from the sight of another person.
Another great tip, which helped me a lot with my body language and posture, is to pay attention to your nose.
Does the tip of your nose point downwards?
Then it might be time to raise your head high again. This little trick allows you to align your whole body throughout the day without excessively paying attention if your posture slumps down again.
Implementing and practising these tips above can help you feel more self-confident.
3. Move consciously
Remember the last time you´ve been in a hurry? If your life is hectic and your workload is heavy – you try to work off thousands of tasks at once, and your head wants to explode because it´s so packed with to-do´s – spoiler alert – this is far away from being self-confident.
We´ve all been at this point in our lives. Not only once. Modern life tends to bring us situations where we lose control over our lives and decisions.
But if you think of a self-confident person, does someone like this put themselves in a hurry? Does a person like this put herself in such a stressful situation that she can no longer handle the issue? I don´t think so.
It´s not the case that a self-confident person would never put herself in a situation where she happens to have a heavy workload or an endless to-do list; far from the truth. But what differentiates a self-confident person from a less self-aware one is how she handles stress.
Because a highly self-confident person knows her abilities and qualities, and she acts accordingly. This means that even if her experiences in her outer world seem too stressful to handle, she will not allow those circumstances to affect her inner peace and beliefs about her identity.
She knows where she´s at; therefore, there is no need to “be” stressed. To may have lots of tasks, yes. This can happen. But she knows pretty well how to handle her business.
But how can we be like her?
This incomprehensible self-confident person who seems to master life as if it´s not challenging at all?
The answer: move consciously.
No matter what you do, no matter how many tasks you need to accomplish today, how heavy your workload or how stressful your daily deadlines for your projects are: handle them consciously.
Take your time at any moment of your day. Finish one task after task. Try to multitask as less as possible. Remember that every bullet point on your to-do list deserves your full attention.
Because if you handle every situation consciously and with 100% of your attention, you give this task value, and I believe every task you call yours should be worth 100% of your attention because otherwise, it shouldn´t be part of your to-do list.
If taking every movement in your life consciously, you need to confront yourself with your decisions, and if these decisions support your self-confidence and doing so, this way you will become more self-confident.
4. Speak slowly
What does a self-confident person do whenever they open their mouth?
They take their time. They speak slowly. Why? Because the message they share is essential, this way, they want to ensure that every word is comprehensive.
To not only appear as a self-confident person but also to behave like one, start to speak slowly. Take your time, and take your breath in between your speech. Every word that comes out of your mouth is worth being heard. Therefore, avoid spitting out the words you want to communicate simultaneously. This way, you can also prevent floundering while speaking.
It also does not matter if you have a speech in front of an audience or if you talk to a client, a friend, a family member or a colleague. Even with a random stranger, you meet on your walks, practice speaking slowly.
As recommended above, spy out your favourite speakers online and copy their behaviour. You won´t find one successful speaker who is not paying attention to the speed they are spreading their messages.
Because they know how vital slow speaking is.
But please, hear me out: You should never artificially slow down your speed – this would be counterproductive.
You want to be perceived as more self-confident, so you are here reading this blog post.
Therefore – try your best to avoid swallowing words and take your time pronouncing every word naturally. Like you do when no one is around.
5. Use a deeper voice
Have you ever witnessed a nervous person talking?
Maybe at school or work.
What can happen (besides what we already discussed) is that they start to end every sentence with a higher voice. This lets the meaning behind every sentence sound like a question. And why would the person making the speech want to sound like the one who needs an answer if she is the person who should give answers to her audience? Sounds not very self-confident.
So, what can we do actually to sound self-confident? – control your voice.
The higher your voice gets while talking, the more insecure you are perceived by others. Not only from other people it also means that chances are higher that you feel less self-confident and more nervous if you let your voice get more elevated than it naturally tends to be.
Stay focused on how you pronounce your wordings, and you are likelier to feel more self-confident.
6. Stop multitasking
Multitasking sounds, at first, like a great thing. You can handle lots of tasks simultaneously – this means you can save a lot of your time, right?
Not really.
What happens when we multitask is that we divide our attention. We do not pay 100% of our attention and abilities to one task. Therefore, we need to provide more of our capacities to give our best on every assignment.
Think about it like this:
If you need to accomplish one task, you can be 100% involved in solving the issue. But if, for instance, you suddenly have four duties to be done simultaneously, you can only provide 25% of your attention for one job. This way, mistakes can happen, and you need to invest more of your precious time by undoing the errors caused by multitasking.
But what does this have to do with higher self-confidence?
I´m glad that you asked!
Can you imagine a self-confident person who is multitasking? Mean, a person who knows her values and capabilities, handling hundreds of tasks simultaneously? Being in a rush and stressed all day long?
For my part, no. Never.
Why?
Because a self-confident person truly knows where her strengths are and what tasks are best for her to be entrusted with. Also, a self-confident person knows that she is entitled to do everything she does with 100% attention since she is convinced that everything she does is worthy of her time and energy.
It´s either 100% or zero.
Also, multitasking feels horrible. You have thousands of thoughts at once, and even after completing all your tasks, you still determine if everything went well. Calming down and resting your brain can be a real challenge after a long period of multitasking.
It´s a fight-or-flight response every time. The moment we get stressed is the moment our bodies are in emergency mode. You deserve so much more than that!
Now to the most crucial question:
How can you stop multitasking?
Start to be aware that there are no benefits when it comes to multitasking – You do not win anything by rushing around and trying to get things done.
Start by making plans. Plan your day – task by task.
Get rid of any distractions and start to be focused on what´s important to you. Keep your focus on your goals and on what you want to achieve.
I´ve made an extra blog post on this topic since there is no straightforward answer to this, and to get you covered with a fully detailed guide on how to stop multitasking.
There are millions of ways to improve your self-confidence – some people are natural talents when it comes to being the most confident with themselves. Being the most authentic person, they could be. Because being self-confident and self-aware, is our natural state of mind. You have so much to give to this world; you are the only person holding you down. You are limitless!
Therefore, no matter how you practice being more self-aware, make the decision that you are worthy of being aware of your values. All your potential is already inside you, and the moment you decide to be confident when change is happening, your life can finally improve.
Knowing that you are worthy and that there are ways to improve this awareness will help you to live a much more conscious life and to make it easier for you at the same time. With more self-confidence, you get the ability to choose your battles yourself.
The more self-confident you are, the more you are aware of your capabilities and values, and the better you can make decisions because you will forever have to make decisions in your life. The only difference is if you make them out of a confident or anxious state of mind.
You deserve a life that you can form to your preferences. You are worthy of being responsible for the decisions you make daily.
Start today with your self-love journey
and improve your skills to be more self-confident!
