Ways to be more confident than ever

“When you have confidence, you can do anything.” -Sloane Stevens

Self-confidence is defined as a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment. Research suggests that it is important to your health and psychological well-being.

Confidence can refer to a general sense of belief and trust in your own ability to control your life, or it might be more situation-specific. For example, you might have high self-confidence in an area of expertise but feel less confident in other areas.

Having a healthy level of self-confidence can help you become successful in your personal and professional life. It can play a role in your motivation to pursue your goals and affect how you present yourself to other people. Research has found, for example, that people who are more confident tend to be more academically successful.

Below we’ve discussed some of the benefits of self-confidence and how to be more confident. Whether you lack confidence in one specific area or you struggle to feel confident about anything, these strategies can help.

Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

Whether you compare how you look to your friends on Instagram or you compare your marks to your friend’s, comparisons aren’t healthy. Researchers found that people who compared themselves to others experienced envy. And the more envy they experienced, the worse they felt about themselves.

If you’re feeling envious of someone else’s life, remind yourself of your own strengths and successes. Consider keeping an ongoing gratitude journal to help you focus on your own life and not the lives of others.

Surround Yourself with Positive People

Pay attention to how your friends make you feel. Do your friends lift you up or bring you down? Are they constantly judging you or do they accept you for who you are? Why should you ask this? because the people you spend time with influence your thoughts and attitudes about yourself more than you think. If you feel bad about yourself after hanging out with a particular person, it may be time to say goodbye.

Take Care of Your Body

It’s hard to feel good about yourself if you’re abusing your body. On the other hand, if you practice self-care, you know you’re doing something positive for your mind, body, and spirit and you’ll naturally feel more confident as a result.

Be Kind to Yourself

Self-compassion involves treating yourself with kindness when you make a mistake, fail, or experience a setback. It’s a way of relating to yourself that allows you to become more emotionally flexible and better able to navigate challenging emotions, and enhances your connection to self and others. Research has also linked the ability to relate to ourselves in a compassionate way to self-confidence.

Practice Positive Self-Talk

Using self-talk that is optimistic can help you foster self-compassion, overcome self-doubt, and take on new challenges. On the other hand, negative self-talk can limit your abilities and lessen your confidence by convincing your subconscious that you “can’t handle it” or that something is “too hard” and you “shouldn’t even try.”

Face Your Fears

Stop putting things off just because you fear until you feel more confident. The best way to build your confidence is by facing your fears head-on.

Practice facing some of your fears that stem from a lack of self-confidence. If you’re afraid you’ll embarrass yourself or you think that you’re going to mess up, try it anyway. Tell yourself it’s just an experiment and see what happens. By doing this you might learn that being a little anxious or making a few mistakes isn’t as bad as you thought. And each time you move forward, you can gain more confidence in yourself, which in the end, will help prevent you from taking any risks that will result in any major negative consequences.

So, simply just be confident and conquer the world out there!