Confidence comes from within, and unfortunately, our inner voice is often our harshest critic. While you may try to calm your inner voice with gentle words, you really need to be proactive in silencing it! Self-confidence can be damaged by the words and actions of others, particularly during childhood and adolescents, but the good news is that you can become more self-confident without being reliant on others.
When you are feeling anxious and worried, and filled with self-doubt, your first response will be to try and stop those feelings. If you are self-medicating with alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate or excessively buying possessions to fill the gap or simply feel that you are not reaching your full potential, you need to spend the time to identify how you can manage these feelings. Here are 3tips to become more confident in yourself.
- Self-care
When you look good, you feel good. It may seem a little shallow to base your self-confidence on how you look, but by dressing and grooming yourself to be the best version of you that you can be, you are showing yourself great respect.
It’samazinghow applying your favorite red lipstick or wearing your beloved denim jacket can transform how you feel. If you feel that you are in a rut, visit a salon and have a stylist transform your tresses so that you have a new spring in your step. Perhaps you have scarring that knocks your confidence; if so, seek advice on treatments – a dermatologist can work their magic, check out grieshaberdermatology.com and see how the experts can help you.
- Use Positive Language
When your inner voice whispers to you a negative thought, train yourself to turn the negative into a positive. Our inner voices are like children: it only hears certain words. If you learn to use positive language, not only internally but to others too, you and they will respond more positively.
An example is if you think about when it is raining, “I hate it when it rains” can be given a positive makeover by stating “It’s raining but isn’t it good for the plants.”You are conveying the same message but without the negative connotations. Try it. It will take time to master, but you will soon feel the benefits.
- Use Positive Body Language
While you may feel that you want to curl up in a ball, to feel confident it requires you to stand tall and proud. You have every right to take up as much space as your body requires, and by standing slouched with a bad posture it shows that you don’t think you should. You will be familiar with the phrase ‘fake it until you make it,’so put this into action. Imagine that there is a string pulling you from the top of your head – your spine will be straightened, and you may even gain a couple of inches – that is how you need to stand. Use your body language to convey self-confidence, even if you feel it is lacking.
Self-esteem and self-confidence are intrinsically linked but slightly different. Self-esteem refers to whether you feel that you are worthy in the eyes of others, and self-confidence is when you believe in yourself. By working on your self-confidence, your self-esteem will increase too – two for the price of one!
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