6 Hacks That Will Boost Your Confidence
Improve the quality of your life today.
Have you ever considered what true confidence stands for?
Is it upright posture, flat abs, and crooked smile?
Sure, the outside appearance can boost your self-esteem, but external fixes won’t give you the internal change.
Confidence is knowing yourself, accepting yourself and taking care of your emotional state.
You can say you are confident when:
- You know your self-worth and respect it,
- You are aware of your feelings,
- You allow your imperfections to shine through,
- You make mistakes and take responsibility for your actions.
Confidence stands for knowing you are enough and not needing external things to exaggerate your persona.
Confidence means being sure of who you are. Self-esteem goes hand in hand with self-belief. It is hard to keep faith in somebody you don’t know.
When you lack confidence, your life sucks.
- Setting boundaries is painful.
- You rarely speak your mind.
- Reaching goals seems impossible.
- You lack purpose and direction.
- Instead of remaining true to your values, you satisfy the expectations of society.
What destroys our confidence?
- People’s expectations (the world expects us to be a certain way, movies and social media dictate trends).
- We build our self-worth on external factors like clothes, things we own, and how we look.
- We feel resentment towards the world and ourselves for not being who we are supposed to be — because of illusions programmed in our minds.
- We fail to accept our quirky side.
Working on self-confidence is one of the best life hacks you can invest in:
The more we accept ourselves, the more comfortable we feel in any situation, no matter how challenging it is.
Here are six easy tricks to boost your self-esteem. They are simple but require consistency.
Confidence is like a muscle. We need to exercise it every day to grow.
Celebrate Your Body.
Develop an intimate and trustworthy relationship with your body.
I am struck by how many women feel discomfort and disgust when looking at their parts of the body.
Stand in front of the mirror, naked, and look at your body. Ask yourself: how do I feel when looking at my body?
What parts do I like about myself? What parts do I dislike? Why is it?
What would I change?
Once you identify parts of your body that you find hard to accept, touch it with grace.
Send love to the parts of your body that you think could be better.
Think of your body as a vehicle that carry you around this planet.
Set time for taking care of your body. It can be 5 minutes in the morning or evening. Only 5 minutes! Those five minutes will make a substantial shift in how you view and treat your body.
Start deriving satisfaction from your body by taking care of it. Invest in movement. Walk daily. Start with yoga, then add some cardio.
Compliment yourself every day. When you learn how to be proud of your body, you develop more respect for it.
Say nice things about your hair, pimples, freckles, and eyebrows.
Greet yourself in the mirror and praise your body as you would celebrate your best friend.
You won’t stumble on confidence unless you learn how to treat yourself right.
Love yourself so much to the point that your energy and aura rejects anyone who doesn’t know your worth.
— Billy Chapata
Prioritize Self-Concept.
Take a blank piece of paper and divide it in two.
On one side, write down who you think you are.
On the other side, write down who you want to be.
Then you have clear-cut differences in what areas of your life you need to think differently to feel comfortable and satisfied with your life.
How you think about yourself determines how you show up in your life.
Working on your self-concept is self-investment.
Once you realize which beliefs sabotage your success, you get to reshape them so that they support your goals, not hinder them.
You create stories in your mind:
- I am scared that…
- I bet they will act like…
- I bet it won’t work.
Your self-concept should reflect the state of mind of a person who has achieved the things you want. Imagine that person in your mind.
How would ‘a confident you’ think?
- I am getting better every day.
- I can manage whatever comes my way.
- I am in control of my responses to people and events.
Change your conception of yourself, and you will automatically change the world in which you live. Do not try to change people; they are only messengers telling you who you are. Revalue yourself and they will confirm the change.
— Neville Goddard
A healthy self-concept creates a successful and stable life. If you can change your beliefs, you can change your life.
Do your beliefs support your goals?
Instead of coming up with excuses, take ownership of your mindset.
How you talk to yourself determines how confident you feel.
Own Your Flaws.
What traits of character would you like to get rid of?
What behaviour or beliefs do you feel ashamed of?
Write them down.
What makes those traits so horrible? Are they bugging you or the people around you?
Write down three small steps on how you can change your behaviour.
For example, I don’t like my judgmental side. Those unnecessary comments only feed my ego, not my soul.
Every time I comment, I pause and ask myself: Why did I feel the urge to make a statement? Who is making the comment? From what place would I like to act?
Questioning my thoughts reminds me that my priority is to act from a place of love and acceptance. Criticism is far from it.
I don’t beat myself up for my human nature. I accept it. Embracing your flaws is a sign of self-confidence.
Self-acceptance is power. It makes your imperfections powerless.
Making an inventory of my autopilot behaviour helps me to tame my ego and become more mindful of who I want to become.
Becoming the best version of yourself is about small but consistent changes in our everyday behaviour.
To change who you are, you have to change what you do.
Whenever I tame my monkey mind, it makes me feel confident in knowing I do have control over my thoughts, thus the quality of my life.
Take a Look at Facts.
Spend two weeks analysing your days.
Focus on facts, not your interpretations of them.
The way we perceive the world is coloured with your memories, hypotheses, and limitations.
Journaling prompts:
- What did you do today?
- What made you feel satisfied and proud?
- Did you avoid doing something unpleasant? If so, make sure you do it tomorrow.
- Who did you meet today, and what did you talk about? How did it make you feel?
We fail to realize that how we perceive the day is made up of our interpretations of facts, not what actually happened.
Somebody honked at you on the street. You immediately took it as an offence, and it made you feel stupid or worthless.
In fact, the driver could have a bad day. He projected his anger onto you.
Another scenario could be that he honked on somebody else. But you took it personally. The reason behind his behaviour is irrelevant. How you interpreted the event influenced your day.
Writing down events of the day offers a clear picture of facts and what became your interpretation.
Your fears and limiting beliefs take control over your day and influence how you feel. When you distinguish facts from illusion, you realize there is no threat or danger to your level of worthiness.
You can only feel worth-less if you give in to the voice of your limiting beliefs.
Rephrase Your Thoughts.
Observe your body throughout the day.
What thoughts caused the tension?
When do you feel confident? What makes you feel powerful? Is it a certain kind of music, people in your environment, or events of the day?
What do you think when you feel confident?
When you recognize which beliefs lead to insecurities, you get to paraphrase them so that they serve you.
You can feel tense around your colleagues. Sabotaging thoughts like ‘I would never be as dedicated to my profession as them’ are the culprits of your low self-worth and lack of motivation at work.
When you observe your thoughts, you get to paraphrase them, so that they serve your goals.
Your reality begins in your mind.
Write down thoughts you don’t like and change them into words that feel more comfortable when thinking about what you want to achieve.
For example, I feel good when working on …, Perhaps, I can discover my passion in new places and new hobbies. I can learn how to set boundaries.
You don’t have to affirm ‘I am a master at setting boundaries’ right away if it is difficult for you to say ‘no’.
Small steps will take you to beautiful places.
Celebrate Boundaries.
You knew this one was coming.
Lack of boundaries is a trademark of people-pleasers. We think standing up for ourselves will make us less likeable.
After all, mummy and daddy taught us to be nice, satisfy others’ needs and act as to not offend anyone even if we end up disappointing ourselves.
Quite the contrary.
Being vocal about our priorities fosters respect.
Saying ‘yes’ to everything that comes your way is not sustainable. It is exhausting.
Agreeing to everything because you fear missing out on opportunities or people’s approval is a scarcity mindset.
Guess what? Confidence thrives on an abundant mindset.
With high self-esteem, you don’t chase. You attract.
Get selective about your tribe. Don’t settle for nice things. Believe you deserve an exceptional life and promote it through your choices.
When was the last time you felt your boundaries has been crossed?
How did you react? Did you speak your mind? How did it make you feel afterwards? Ashamed? Uncomfortable? Angry?
Patience is a virtue, but not when it comes to tolerating the disrespectful behaviour of somebody else.
You don’t have to argue right away. It is usually the fuel for those who mistreat you.
All you need to do is communicate your feelings and boundaries and walk away. No need for confrontation.
True confidence doesn’t need a megaphone.
Confidence is silent. The same with mastering it — practice confidence within, instead of chasing flashy things to prove your worthiness.
When you get the inside right, the outside world falls into place.
Thank you for being here, — Kate
Hungry for more? I have designed a Daily Planner with prompts to boost your confidence.
