10 tips to help with building self-confidence

These practical, no-nonsense building self-confidence tips should really help when you find yourself out of your comfort zone at work or at home.

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1. Remember you’re not unusual

Understand that you’re not unusual. We all struggle with self-confidence on occasions, even people who seem to oose confidence have their ups and downs. They accept this as part of life. An embarrassing situation is an embarrassing situation .. so what? It happened, there’s nothing you can change about it. But what you can though is learn from it. So do exactly that and move on.

2. Know what you look like

Do your best to find out how people perceive you … Y0u might think you know, but you could be wrong! If you look as though you lack self-confidence, people are more likely to treat you as though you lack confidence. In other words, you’re already on the back foot and it’ll be a lot harder to get people to listen to you.

3. Be realistic

Accept that you’re not unlucky. No one was born confident. Self-confidence is a skill you can actually learn. Accept this and start to learn. Just like any other skill, it requires practice and self-discipline to get good at it. We can all do it as long as we accept the challenge.

4. Get your body language right

Like it or not, people suss you out quickly (just like you do them). They do this mostly by taking in your body language and the sound of your voice. So get yourself in front of a mirror and be honest with yourself. Do you look confident? If not, why not? Then practise looking confident. Look at your posture, your facial expression, your clothing … Sounds mad but it works.

5. Don’t say sorry

Are you a serial sorry sayer? A lot of people who lack self-confidence are. They apologise for everything. Well don’t. Only apologise if your actions warrant an apology. Some people prefix everything they say with a ‘sorry’. This is completely unnecessary and suggests you doubt yourself. You might as well hang a sign around your neck saying ‘I lack confidence’.

6. Be positive

Understand your mindset. Try to be honest with yourself … work out if you’re a positive or negative thinker. Are you a pessimist or an optimist? This is important. It’s impossible to feel and look confident if you approach life negatively. A problem is a challenge, a mistake is a lesson to be learnt, a failure is a fact of life.

7. Find some direction

You’ll achieve little, if nothing if you don’t have a focus. So work out what you want to achieve, both at home and at work and, very importantly, write down a plan. Think strategically (say over 2 years) and more tactically (say 6 months). One leads on from the other – think strategically first and then decide what you need to do tactically to achieve this.

8. Know what makes you happy

Think carefully about what makes you happy and, whatever it is, get some of it. It might not be what others need or want. So don’t judge yourself on them. Confident people tend to be happy people – just watch them and you’ll see. That’s because they’ve found a balance between the things they have to do and the things they like doing. They’re also realists. They accept that life is life and there are some things that just have to be done but they don’t let these bog them down.

9. Smile!

Sounds mad but it’s true. Smiling really does help you to feel and look more confident. Someone who walks into a room smiling looks confident. It’s a fact. It’s also true that smiling actually makes you feel happier. It releases endorphins into your system. This even happens when you force yourself to smile … So it’s worth the effort.

10. Control your emotions

Control your emotions but don’t stifle them. Think about how you let them out and don’t make a fool of yourself. Take a deep breath and then explain your feelings in a controlled way. Confident people have the self-control to do this.

Look, feel and be more confident

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Building Self-Confidence