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Confidence is one of the greatest things you can learn and practice. But it can be confusing, overwhelming, and hard. It is a skill and it does take practice but by making some things into habits, you can help your confidence blossom.
Confidence is “a belief in one’s own self and one’s ability to succeed.” It is made by a simple process:
First, you have to want to achieve a goal or improve, then you are afraid of the change. But you do it anyway, fail and do it over again over until one day, you aren’t afraid of it anymore. You are confident in your ability to succeed at a task.
Just like learning to ride a bike or any skill really, you took a deep breath and tried, you fell off your bike and cried, but eventually, you got back on.
Until one day, you cycle without even thinking that you are going to fall off. It is the same for any area of your life, if you want to be more self-confident, do more things that scare you and incorporate these 8 essential habits into your daily life.
1. Reminding Yourself of Your Victories
Stop reminding yourself of your failures that you habitually do — putting yourself down, criticizing yourself, and exaggerating your failures. It is time to draw a line in the sand and start letting that old mindset go, it is undermining your confidence.
It’s scary and new and you may feel afraid, but it is the best choice you will make. Instead of reminding yourself of your failures and how you aren’t good enough, remind yourself of your wins, and all you have overcome. Remind yourself of all the good you have done and all the good you can do.
Focus solely on the positive and what you can do and when the hating thoughts come up, just let them pass by or argue with them.
If it says “you aren’t good enough.” You say “actually I am.”
“You aren’t perfect.” You say “No I am not perfect but that is more than good enough, I am enough just as I am, I don’t have to be perfect.”
Your confidence depends on it so get into the habit of reminding yourself that actually, you are pretty great and have a lot of reasons to be confident.
2. Ask Yourself: What Did You Learn?
Moving forward with changing your inner narrative, you have to start to ask the question: What did I learn?
With practicing confidence, you come across a lot of failures. Instead of beating yourself up and going “why me?” Ask yourself:
“What did I learn? How did that not work? What can I do better?”
Nothing undermines your confidence more than you beating yourself up all the time. Instead of focusing on how you have failed and not achieved the result you wanted, make it a habit to ask yourself questions so the next time around, you can try again from a new angle. Ask yourself how you fell off the bike so next time, you can avoid potholes.
By getting in the habit of questioning your failures instead of bullying yourself, your confidence will become unbreakable because failure won’t shatter your confidence. Just keep learning and keep moving forward.
3. Don’t Judge Others
This is such a key habit when it comes to building confidence. When we judge others, especially negatively, we create a negative cycle in our head that encourages insecurity. When you judge someone negatively, it makes you think that someone else is negatively judging you. Breeding this type of insecurity will only ever undermine your self-esteem and confidence.
People are wonderful but they aren’t perfect. It isn’t their job to perfectly adhere to the way you want the world to be. So to put it simply, don’t judge and let people be as they are. Don’t get caught in that negative mental cycle.
On the flip side of this, you have to understand that people are going to judge you and that their opinion of you, is none of your business. You can’t control how other people choose to see you, you can only control how you judge others. Don’t play a game you can’t win by trying to control other people’s thoughts. It’s like trying to play chess underwater at night. If you tried hard, it could be done but what is the point.
4. Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone
If you want to get into a habit that will help you become more confident, this is it. Everything you want is on the other side of your comfort zone; this applies to confidence.
You gain confidence by challenging yourself and overcoming obstacles. Don’t shy away from challenges and things that make you uncomfortable. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Get into the habit of saying “Oh this makes me uncomfortable, better tackle it head on then” and get in the habit of saying Yes and No: Saying Yes to things you would like to do even if it scares you and No to things you would not like to do.
By saying Yes to things you enjoy and challenge you, you grow in confidence as you overcome them. By saying no to things you don’t want to do, things that bring your down or make you feel low, confidence can also bloom. By standing up for yourself, you assert yourself and your self-confidence can blossom.
5. Have the “I Can Handle It” Mindset
This is a beautiful habit to get into in general and it will help your confidence bloom and your anxiety go down.
Get into the habit of having an I Can Handle It Mindset. You have overcome so many things in your life but we still have the overwhelming fear that we can’t handle bad things coming your way.
But you can, you can handle it because you have handled it time and time again. Stop telling yourself that you can’t and start telling yourself that you can. Whatever comes your way, whatever adversity. You Can Handle It. With this habit, confidence can blossom and grow because you are unstoppable.
6. Find Validation From Within
If you rely on other people for constant validation and praise to give you a confidence boost, you will struggle. As soon as they don’t validate you, you will feel less confident than before.
Get in the habit of validating yourself, whatever you want to hear from someone else, say it to yourself. When you accomplish something, pat yourself on the back, don’t go looking for outward validation. This simple change of supporting yourself and searching within for the support you need will help your confidence bloom!
There is one very simple logic to this, your happiness and your confidence are your responsibility. Why would you put your life in the hands of someone else? It isn’t their job to make you happy or validated, it is yours. You also can’t control them at all, which means your confidence and self-worth are completely out of your control.
7. Get Fit
Fitness is the perfect habit to get into if you want to grow confidence because every time you go, you get better. You grow, you learn new things, you fail and then you amaze yourself with what your body can do, over and over again.
Nothing has helped my confidence bloom as much as taking up a sport. There are so many options for you. Running is the perfect example, the first one is awkward, hard, and exhausting. But the next run is a little easier, a week later, you start looking forward to it, and then finally, you are running 5K without stopping.
If you want to get into a habit that reminds you that you are capable, find a sport that interests you and start.
8. Practice Gratitude
Now, this isn’t groundbreaking I know, but gratitude is such an important habit to get into if you want to be more confident.
When you practice gratitude, you put yourself in a much better headspace which will, in turn, help you feel more confident. Most importantly, when your confidence gets knocked by something or someone, you can always come back to gratitude and be happy for all that you have. It helps keep you aligned and focused on all the good and positive in your life, stopping all the negativity from creeping in and keeping you down.
If you practice gratitude once a day, your life will change because it reminds you of the reality that you are good enough as you are — that is never up for debate.
Final Thoughts
These habits might be small but they can create an intense boost to your confidence and your rebound when you have had your confidence knocked. You are exceptional and you should be confident in your ability to do things and in who you are.
If you are still struggling with that, spend some time working out what you’re afraid of and go and do it right now, overcome it and remember that you are unstoppable.
