9 Simple Ways to Become More Self Confident

Spend 10 minutes a day boosting your confidence

One of the biggest excuses for not working on our mindset is not having the time, which is why I’m sharing 9 exercises you can do to help increase your confidence in 10 minutes.

Each day, you can choose one or two of these confidence boosting activities so that you’ll start to become more confident every day and your self esteem will begin to increase.

1. Dress to Impress

Let’s be clear, this isn’t about impressing other people. This is about dressing to impress yourself. I don’t know about you, but when I’m working from home, I’m a lot less productive if I stay in my pjs and don’t do my hair/makeup. I feel less motivated and inspired and it’s much easier to slump on the sofa in front of the tv.

This has a negative impact on the way I feel about myself and therefore how confident I feel in myself and my ability to achieve the success I desire. When you lack confidence, you struggle to show up as your best self.

So when it comes to dressing to impress yourself, spend a few minutes choosing an outfit you feel good in. Maybe you like to do your makeup or style your hair a certain way. Or maybe wearing a certain perfume helps you feel confident. Whatever you can do to feel comfortable and confident in your own skin so you can show up as your best, most confident self in any situation.

2. Get Yourself Into a High Vibe

This step to help you become more self confident is all about shifting your energy into a state of feeling positive, motivated and inspired — what I like to call High Vibe.

The easiest way to do this is to create a playlist on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music and spend some time dancing around to the songs that make you feel amazing. Sing along, spin around, grab your hairbrush as a microphone and just go for it.

3. Create a Feedback Folder

If you’re a business owner, you can create a folder full of testimonials, positive comments and feedback from your clients as a reminder of how amazing you are. Don’t have a business? Fill your feedback folder full of messages from your favourite people so you can receive that same boost of confidence each time you read through it.

Every morning, as you’re drinking your coffee or sitting on the toilet, open this folder and read through some of the screenshots or messages. Absorb the lovely words that people have said about you, remind yourself of what you’re achieving and of how far you’ve come.

It’s so easy for us to focus on negative comments or the things that aren’t going well which can really knock our confidence. When we actively choose to seek the positive, we reinforce the idea that we are successful which helps us to be more self confident.

4. Write an Empowerment List

This is my favourite type of journaling because it’s easy, quick and leaves you feeling full of self confidence. Empowerment lists work because they prove all your negative thoughts and limiting beliefs wrong. When you look at the list you write about yourself, all you see is positive proof that you can do anything you want.

In terms of how to improve self confidence, one of the best lists you can write is 25 things I love about myself. This may initially be a difficult exercise to do and it may take some time to write out that first list, but you’ll soon notice it’s much easier to find 25 things you love about yourself. This helps to increase your confidence because your mind can’t deny the proof that’s staring back up at you.

5. Power Posture

This is the quickest way to feel more confident. Whether you’re standing up or sitting down reading this, roll your shoulders back, sit up straight and raise your chin so your head’s held high. This is what’s known as a power pose.

It works by instantly shifting the energy in your body and making you appear taller. You take up more space which is like saying ‘I’m happy to be seen’. This will give off an air of confidence so whether you’re about to walk into a meeting, show up on a live video or you simply notice your confidence levels slipping, try this and see the instant impact it has.

6. Repeat Affirmations

Affirmations helped me to completely transform my life and are my go to exercise for more confidence. Affirmations are simply positive statements that you say about yourself to help them form into a new belief. Your thoughts become your beliefs and your beliefs become your reality.

When you first start repeating them, it may feel very uncomfortable because the words you say may be far from your reality. A great tip to make repeating affirmations for confidence feel more comfortable is to add the words “I choose to” at the beginning.

For example, if repeating “I am full of self confidence today” feels too far from the truth, you can repeat “I choose to feel full of self confidence today” instead. Notice the subtle difference?

How you choose to use affirmations is completely down to preference. You may like to repeat them out loud, in your head or in front of the mirror. Or you may prefer to write them down in your journal. You could also download the free ThinkUp app that allows you to record yourself speaking the affirmations and play them back on a loop.

Repeating affirmations for confidence is such a simple, fast way to boost confidence and is also incredibly effective. Here are 31 affirmations for confidence that you can use today.

7. Surround Yourself with Confident People

There’s a famous saying that we are the product of the 5 people we spend the most time with. I feel that in recent years, with the explosion of social media, we’re the product of the content we consume also.

When you surround yourself with people who are always complaining, who judge themselves or put themselves down constantly, you’re likely to replicate those same behaviours. If you’re only ever with people who doubt themselves, who don’t dream big and are stuck in the ‘why me’ mindset, it’ll drag you down.

And when it comes to the content you consume, if you’re spending hours of your life on social media, scrolling aimlessly and feeling envious of other people’s lives, you won’t be focusing on how much you have and celebrating how far you’ve come already. This is one of the reasons I recently decided to quit social media and spend more time on Medium.

Whereas if you surround yourself with people that are always looking on the good side, who are always feeling positive, who are confident and feel confident in themselves, you’re going to start to pick up on that. Their energy will rub off on you and you’ll feel comfortable in your own skin too. This is why it’s also important to curate your social feeds so you only consume content that makes you feel good, that inspires you and lifts you up.

That’s not to say you have to cut every negative person out of your life, because we know that can be tough when some of them are family, but be mindful of how much time you’re spending with them and the impact it has on your mindset.

8. Smile

Smiling — a proper baring teeth, scrunching eyes, cheesy grin — releases positive endorphins that make you feel happy. And when we feel happy, we feel more confident in ourselves. When we’re going through a tough time or we’re feeling sad, it’s important to allow ourselves to process those emotions and not force them away. This is known as toxic positivity.

But if we’re having a normal day, then try smiling more. Smile with intention, notice your mood lift and when you combine it with your power posture, you’ll notice an instant confidence boost.

9. Take Action, Even When It Feels Scary

We’ve saved the hardest, most effective point until last. Saying yes to the things that scare you is how you grow. It’s how you evolve, how you move forward and how you turn your big vision into your reality.

I talked about my journey from being too afraid to leave the house to travelling solo in this podcast episode. When I was nearly fired from my job, I made the commitment to myself to say yes to the things that scared me and in doing so, I was able to completely transform my life. It wasn’t easy, it was uncomfortable but I finally felt like I was actually living.

Since then I’ve backpacked around the world solo, lived for extended periods of time in Thailand, Australia and Honduras and started multiple online businesses. None of those decisions were easy and were all full of fear but confidence comes from taking action.

And those big leaps are where the most growth is. So take that leap.

In conclusion, here are 9 simple ways to become more self confident:

1. Dress to impress yourself
2. Dance around to your high vibe playlist
3. Create a feedback folder
4. Write out an empowerment list
5. Move into a power posture
6. Repeat affirmations for confidence
7. Surround yourself with confident people
8. Smile your biggest smile
9. Say yes to the things that scare you

If you’re looking for more confidence boosting resources, listen to The Confidence Show podcast here and join my free Create Confidence: with Rebecca Hawkes newsletter here.

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