How To Become More Confident

Confident people tend to be happier and live more fulfilling lives. The good news – confidence is a skill that can be learnt. Here are 12 techniques to teach you how to become more confident. But first…

What does it mean to be confident?

Some traits of a confident person include:

Believing in their own abilities
Facing challenges head on
Asking questions of themselves and others
Being curious about the world
Acknowledging their limitations
Learning from setbacks

Confidence is fluid, how confident we feel depends on our state of mind and what’s happening around us.

Example: a person may be confident on a football pitch, at the top of their game. But ask them to speak in front of a crowd and they may struggle.

To be a confident person does not mean being confident all the time, in every situation, it’s knowing that you have the tools to adapt and thrive in any situations.

What causes a lack of confidence?

Life experiences

Such as negative life events, if you crashed your car, your confidence could be knocked.

People around you

Friends, family or partners who are unnecessarily negative and take constant digs at you – for no good reason.

Genetics

The chemicals released in your body, the makeup of your brain or a negative self-image with your physical appearance.

Upbringing

The people you spent time with when you were young can impact how you turn out, and result in you lacking confidence.

Important: A lack of confidence can cause us to miss out on opportunities through underperforming or avoidance behaviour.

Make the most of these techniques by writing down all the situations you struggle, past, present and future. Create a thorough list, then read through the 12 techniques and identify how they could be used to help you become more confident.

#1. Act ‘as if’

This simply means fake it, other people appear confident, but they’re likely faking it.

This technique is used in sport, a sports person will act more confident than they feel, this gives them a psychological advantage, it puts their opponent off, and they’ll feel more confident.

When you’re about to do something that you know will make you nervous, try this:

Visualise the upcoming situation
Imagine someone you admire, someone who would be confident in the situation
How would they behave? Their confident body language, voice and behaviour
Put yourself in the situation, model yourself on them
Rehearse, and you’ll be ready to go

If you don’t have time to prep you can still fake it, be aware of your body language, how you speak and your non-verbal communication.

Example: when meeting new people make eye contact, smile, be relaxed, sit or stand up straight, don’t fold arms and don’t fiddle or fidget.

#2. Identify your positive qualities

We often lack confidence because we don’t believe in our own abilities, a great way to become more confident is to list:

What you’re good at
Your unique abilities, skills or talents
The positive qualities you possess

Free write and be thorough, write down as much as you can. The smallest thing, you might be good at holding your breath, you may be patient – any positive skill or quality you possess.

Think of what you’d put in a CV or say in a job interview, such as: flexible and adaptable person, open minded, good at solving problems and working as part of a team.

#3. Stop making comparisons

Making comparisons is natural, but it can impact your confidence and make you feel like a failure.

People on social media portray themselves in a very generous light, portraying themselves as happy, successful and confident. Don’t fall for it, it’s often false, therefor it’s an unfair comparison. Social media can have a huge impact on confidence.

Also, people have different life opportunities, education, upbringing, and financial resources.

Be alert to comparing yourself with others, question if it’s a fair comparison in the circumstances, be questioning.

#4. Have a conversation

Talk to someone you trust, be open and honest about something you don’t feel confident about.

Example: if you have an upcoming presentation, talk to someone, share how you feel, they’ll likely be supportive and offer advice or comfort.

A supportive person will identify positive things about you, boost your confidence and help you through the up coming situation.

Be sure to listen to what they say, there could be vital information to positively benefit you. When they recognise that you are really listening to them they’ll open up and you’ll get more from the conversation.

#5. Look after yourself

If you treat yourself badly it’s hard to instil confidence in yourself. When you treat your body right it will reward you, you’ll feel better mentally and physically.

Achieve this by:

Being physically active – exercise
Eating right – healthy, nutritional food and reducing the bad stuff
Cutting back or quitting alcohol – it has many negative consequences
Being emotionally aware – positive self-talk and limiting criticism
Reducing your sugar consumption
Getting better quality sleep – it helps your mood and improves your health

#6. Know that you have worth

You have value, and contribute to society. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like that because on social media we see people doing amazing things.

We may feel that we have less value but in reality we are our own worst critics, we’re harder on ourselves than others.

More respect is given to others than we give to ourselves, realise that others have the same doubts about themselves.

What’s important is that we identify when we think negatively about ourselves, and change our thinking. Not to become arrogant and self-absorbed but to realise our own worth – no less than anybody else.

#7. Surround yourself with positive people

Don’t spend time with negative people, they rub off on you. Negative people bring you down to their level, ask yourself – does spending time with this person have a negative or positive impact me? Listening is an essential skill in this situation, being a good listener and knowing what makes a bad listener will help you identify if they’re the right people to spend time with.

Spend time with outgoing, positive and confident people.

They’ll help you be at your best, build you up and boost your confidence.

#8. Know your limitations

Make an effort to identify the situations that reduce your confidence.

This gives you a foundation to work from, if you know your limitations, you know what to work on.

Example: public speaking can cause the most confident people to crumble, knowing this is a weakness enables you to change.

#9. Positive self-talk

Pay attention to the voice in your head and think about doing something that you’re not confident about.

What are the thoughts that come to mind, the little voice in you head that says you struggle to speak to women, you’re rubbish at driving…

Change how you talk to yourself in such situations, be kinder and more positive to yourself.

If you struggle with this, go full circle and think the opposite, a useful tactic for reducing unreasonable negative self-talk.

#10. Don’t fear the consequences

Bad things happen, or they don’t, more often than not – they don’t. But we spend time worrying for no reason, and this damages our confidence. Consider the following:

Making mistakes

We all make mistakes and without mistakes there’s no learning. Small mistakes are common, it’s nearly impossible to do something new without making mistakes.

Embrace mistakes as a learning opportunity and a necessary part of life, mistakes are a powerful tool for lifelong growth.

Catastrophising

This is very common, we all do it. Catastrophising is when we think the worst possible outcome of our actions will happen. The majority of the time the bad thing doesn’t happen, it was just our imagination running wild.

Being aware of this unhelpful thinking error can reduce the impact of these negative thoughts. We can stop, or reassess our worries, and be more realistic.

Important: When you worry about the consequences of your actions, ask yourself - what is the worst outcome and what is the chance of it really happening?

#11. Face your fears

Our confidence takes a bashing when we avoid something we’re worried about doing.

It’s likely our confidence will take more of a hit than if we actually carried out the action and it went wrong.

Don’t put things off that worry or scare you. The regret of not doing something is greater than not succeeding.

Face your fears head on, you will reduce your regret and boost your confidence.

#12. Be realistic

Sometimes there are things that we won’t be able to achieve, no matter how much we practise or how high our confidence is.

Set goals that are realistic and achievable, but still push you beyond your comfort zone.

If you set a goal which is impossible to achieve you lose confidence and motivation. Learn more about goal setting and methods to achieve your goals, this will give you the best opportunity to hit your confidence goals.

Example: if you're in your 50s, never done gymnastics in your life, it's unlikely you’ll ever win an Olympic gold medal in gymnastics – no matter how motivated or determined you were.

When you have realistic and achievable goals break them down into small goals. The more you achieve these small goals the more your confidence is boosted.

In conclusion…

These 12 techniques will help you become more confident.

But they must be used to be effective, make a note of them on your phone or put them somewhere you’ll see them often.

Practice using them in situations that make you uncomfortable, use them individually or combine them to make an unstoppable toolbox of techniques.

As with any self-improvement technique action must be taken to create change. The only limitations are the ones you set for yourself.