Building Confidence Step by Step
When you are feeling confident, you can be on top of the world–you command the attention of every room you walk into, you can finish any task with ease and certainty in your skills, and you willingly attack any new challenge that comes your way with vigor.
Who wouldn’t want to feel like that?
But it can be hard to really keep that confidence intact at all times. These are a few tips that will help you build and foster your confidence, so that you never lose sight of how uniquely talented you are and all you have to offer to the world.
Focus on the Small Wins
A lot of people set huge goals for themselves, but it can be hard to stay motivated and on track when it’s taking a long time to achieve that goal. This is where setting small goals for yourself can be handy. In a study conducted on Olympic-bound swimmers, researchers found that a common thread in training was setting smaller goals for the swimmers to achieve, such as improving their time on their backstroke by a few seconds, rather than focusing solely on winning the medal. With this strategy, the swimmers got the surge of confidence by achieving small wins throughout their training, which kept them motivated on achieving even more small wins, and ultimately their long term goal. Try setting smaller goals for yourself to achieve over a shorter period of time so you can feel the similar effect.
Write Down Your Affirmations
Keeping a mantra in mind when you are feeling down in the dumps can really help pick you back up. Write down an affirmation on a notecard that you can put on your bathroom mirror, so you can say it to yourself every morning. Take it even further and make multiple notecards to put in your wallet, jacket pocket, car—wherever you can! Pull one out when you feel like you need a midday pick-me-up.
Change Your Language
The way you speak or think can have a strong impact on your confidence. Why tell yourself that you’ll try to do something or can’t complete the task when you can tell yourself that you will and can? The change may seem minor, but using more confident language can have an impact on your confidence, as well as how others perceive you. Don’t allow words like “try” or “can’t” limit your self-esteem. Bring awareness to your language, and anytime you find yourself using confidence-reducing language, find a way to spin it in a more positive way.
Do Something You’re Good At
It can be easy to lose sight of how awesome you really are, especially when you are in a rut. However, when it comes down to it, there are probably a lot of things that you are good at–you just need a little nudge to remind yourself. Dedicate some time every week to allow yourself to do something that you’re good at, whether it be landscape painting, baking the world’s best chocolate chip cookie, or showing off your pop-culture knowledge at a local trivia night.
Taking these tips to heart and doing these activities can be a great reminder to yourself about how talented you really are, and can help to boost self-esteem and help you feel ready to leap to any challenge or tall building in sight.
