HOW TO INCREASE SELF-CONFIDENCE
There are various definitions of Self – Confidence.
However, I am going to share two with you to enable us to understand what it is
According to the Counseling Center of the University of South Florida, Self Confidence means
” an attitude about your skills and abilities. It means you accept and trust yourself and have a sense of control in your life. You know your strengths and weakness well and have a positive view of yourself. You set realistic expectations and goals, communicate assertively, and can handle criticism.”
Verywellmind.com also defines self-confidence as
” a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment. Self-confidence is important to your health and psychological well-being.”
Self-confidence is different from being arrogance. Many times, people miss the two up. The fact that someone is confident does not mean she is arrogant. However, when you try to show your confidence too pushy, it becomes arrogance.
It went ahead to state the reason why you must have self-confidence
- Optimum performance
- Improvement in your relationship
- Willingness to try new things
- Become more resilient – the ability to rise when you fall.
Dan Lok said, and I quote, you must aim at Financial Confidence (knowing you can make all the money back if you lose it today) and not Financial Freedom.
How To Increase Your Self-Confidence – University of South Florida
- Recognize and emphasize your strengths. Reward and praise yourself for your efforts and progress.
- When you stumble on an obstacle, treat yourself with kindness and compassion. Don’t dwell on failure.
- Set realistic and achievable goals. Do not expect perfection; it is impossible to be perfect in every aspect of life.
- Slow down when you are feeling intense emotions and think logically about the situation.
- Challenge making assumptions about yourself, people, and situations.
- Recognize that past negative life experiences do not dictate your future.
- Express your feelings, beliefs, and needs directly and respectfully
- Learn to say no to unreasonable requests.
I am going to share with you how I built my self-confidence and how I became confident.
There are people who see me today and they are like “…men, I wish I am as confident as you are.” But let me tell you a secret, I have not always been like this. I am naturally an introvert but when it comes to my life, I am as bold as the lion.
But how did I get here? How can you build self – confident? How do you have confidence if you haven’t had any success in the past? How can you stand out in a crowd?
Let me share with you how I built self-confidence:
- Know Yourself – self-confidence is based on self-discovery:
Who are you? What motivates you? What inspires you? What scares you? What are you comfortable with? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?
This is where it all begins. If you do not know about yourself, people will talk to you anyhow and you will look down on yourself and lose confidence.
I started appreciating who I am and listening less to what people tell when immediately I learned this lesson.
2. Improve Yourself – Personal Development:
This is where you begin the process of fine-tuning who you are. You see, each one of us is like an ore of gold or diamonds which are formed about 50 kilometers below the earth and brought on the surface of the earth through volcanoes. It takes about ten years to search for kindle light deposits of diamonds and it could take another ten years to determine whether there are diamonds to be economic.
You are just like that. You need to work on yourself and become better. I have heard people say “focus on your strengths and don’t look at your weaknesses “and that’s true in part. This is because, for you to become successful, their certain skills you must possess and learn. Skills such as communication, emotional intelligence, human psychology, empathy, the right mindset, leadership.
Almost no one is born naturally with these critical skills. You must work on yourself to become the diamond or gold which will be Valuable and regarded in the marketplace.
Therefore, I read and learn every day. I take a lot of online courses, mentorship programs, listen to podcasts, articles, and others.
Personal development is a continuous effort and not a destination. Your confidence goes through the roof if you are skilled in your industry, work, or just good at what you do.
3. Set Goals – Execute – Set Goals
Once you know yourself and identify what your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are, you must start setting goals.
One of the things you need to understand is that you need MOMENTUM. Yes, to become successful, you need momentum. However, the only way you get momentum is through little success over time.
Set goals, but don’t start with small goes such as
- Save $100 this month
- Exercise three times a week
- Lay my bed each morning
- Bath a least twice a day
- Brush my teeth twice a day
And many others. What happens is that, when you achieve these goes and they become part of you, your confidence level rises, and you begin to trust yourself more.
This is what you need to begin your BIG DREAMS. Setting and achieving realistic goals.
Don’t be vague. Specific.
These are some of the “baby-step” goals I started with before now I have a 20 years goal broken down into yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals. But you always have to start with the small baby step goals.
I will be sharing with you sometime later about goal setting.
4. Personal Values:
Knowing yourself means knowing what you are willing to do and what you will never do irrespective of the circumstances or situation. And you can only get to that level by having some personal value or conviction.
Personal values are the things that are important to us, the characteristics and behaviors that motivate us and guide our decisions.- according to https://business.tutsplus.com
It depends on your personality and what you deem important to you.
In my life, I am guided with the following Integrity, Holiness, and Excellence.
Whatever I do is the premise of these three core values. My decisions about business, finance, relationship, and everything is guided by these core values. You cannot become successful without having personal values.
What are your values? What do you stand for? You must stand for something to become successful in life. That also increases your confidence. You know what you want, what you will do, or what you want.
5. Create Your Environment – the people in your innermost circle:
Your environment affects your level of confidence. What you hear consistently and see continuously affects you as an individual. That’s why you must create your own environment. This will be very challenging for many of you. But you must decide on your own volition how your environment must be.
This was one of the hard things for me when I started my journey to become successful.
I consciously created my own environment. I hand-picked the people I want to be around, the music to listen to, the movies to watch, the channels to pay attention to, among others.
This is hard for many of you. BUT if you want to increase self-confidence and become successful, you must decide who to hang around with. This includes your family or relatives.
Your environment can increase you or make you down spirited.
6. Mindset – your perspective (view) about life:
Your perspectives of life affect your confidence level. Why is this important? Because, “.the way a man thinks in his heart, so is he” – Proverbs 23:7
You must renew your mindset. On average, our environment, religion, family, church, and others do not provide us always with the right perspectives about life. Don’t just listen to what people say. Question what you hear, research what people tell you.
I am particular about advice and what people tell me. Throughout my life, people have always told me “Nhyira, you cannot do it “, “Nhyira, you won’t make it”, “Nhyira, nobody will listen to you”, “Nhyira, you cannot influence and have followers”, “Nhyira, you cannot publish a book at this stage of your life”, “Nhyira you cannot become successful “
These are just some of the things I have heard over the last few years.
But I am determined. I know who I am and what exactly I want to do.
Do not allow yourself to be misled with falsehoods, naysayers, and people who tell you negative things.
If you implement these in your life, I can assure you that you will become more confident and increase your success in the next ten to twenty years.