It’s a shame that you can’t pay for your self-confidence per kilo in the supermarket. Self-confidence gives you the feeling that you can handle things – even if they are mega-exciting. And it helps you not to just go with the flow, but to do what feels right for you with both feet on the ground. Unfortunately, self-confidence is not for sale for a euro per kilo. Fortunately, you can work on it yourself. These are 7 tips for building self-confidence step by step.
Building self-confidence – could it use a little more?
Self-confidence is like the foundation of a house. Without a solid foundation, you run the risk of your home sinking due to external influences. With a good foundation, your home will remain upright during every storm or rain shower.
Self-confidence, like a foundation, ensures that you don’t completely sink through the ground when someone criticizes you, something goes wrong or you have to deal with a disappointment. There will always be storms and rain showers, but you will remain standing firm. That is exactly what self-confidence can do for you.
Fortunately, you can build self-confidence. Just like that much-needed foundation under your home. Every stone counts. Maybe these 7 tips for working on self-confidence will help you lay those stones.
1. Know what you can do
Modesty adorns a person. That is one of the sayings that the mother of a friend used to have hanging on an ugly tile in the toilet. And indeed, it is nice if you do not shout from the rooftops how terribly good you are. But if you are convinced out of modesty (or rather insecurity?) that you cannot do anything really well, then it is a different story.
To build self-confidence, it is useful to know what you are good at. This does not have to be a long list; knowing three important qualities of yourself will get you a long way . It helps you to know what you have in yourself in tense situations. For example, if perseverance is a strength of yours, you can use that to start something new with extra self-confidence.
Suppose you have just graduated and are looking for work. Then you know that perseverance can take you far to find a job one way or another, even if there are few vacancies and you receive one rejection after another.
Are you thinking “Qualities, what qualities?”? Perhaps you can find out your qualities with these 3 steps.
- Think of 3 things you have accomplished that you are proud of.
- Ask yourself what qualities or characteristics helped you achieve those things. For example, creativity, perseverance or being a good listener.
- From this, select 3 characteristics that you consider to be your most important qualities.
2. Step over the edge of your comfort zone
It is quite exciting there, outside of those safe tasks that you know you can do. But that step outside of that safe haven is precisely where you can often work best on your self-confidence. Maybe with shaking knees, your heart in my throat and a lump in my stomach – yes. But only by trying those things can you experience that you have more in you than your critical voices tell you.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you should immediately throw yourself in front of a room of a hundred people if you normally find a presentation in front of your two colleagues exciting. But see if there are things that are just over the edge of your safe haven.
This could be something very simple:
- Say “no” to something you would normally always say “yes” to.
- Take a course in something you currently don’t know anything about.
- Start your own blog or business.
- Make an appointment with someone you don’t know very well and experience that you are not as awkward with strangers as you might think.
- Wear a striking outfit that you normally wouldn’t dare to wear.
- Ask that critical question during a lecture or presentation.
- For once, sit at the front of a meeting instead of hiding away.
3. Allow yourself to do something very wrong
If you don’t allow yourself to make mistakes, growing becomes difficult. Because with every step you take forward, there is the risk that you will break your ankle, trip over a threshold or fall to the ground for whatever reason. But is that a reason not to do it? No. Staying where you are is not a nice life goal either.
Rather accept that you cannot do everything flawlessly. Allow yourself the chance of a misstep (and therefore also the chance of a lack thereof) and do not immediately blame yourself if you make a mistake. Regret does not help you . Learning from what you experience and growing from it does.
And one more thing: don’t get stuck in (wrong?) choices you made before. You don’t have to be who you always were . The thing is: we all make mistakes. Added together over the past ten years, there will be a lot of them. If you still carry all those mistakes with you, then it will indeed seem like you are doing everything wrong. But how many points to be proud of will there have been in the past ten years? Aren’t there ten or even a hundred times as many?
4. Draw a line
The past few months I struggled a bit with saying ‘no’ and perfectionism. Perfectionism is a “good” friend that has kept me company since my primary school days. Suddenly it reared its ugly head again. I took on too many assignments, twisted myself into all sorts of knots and filled my agenda because I didn’t want to disappoint . Deliver ten more texts within two days? Sure, bring it on! Until I realised that it hadn’t done my self-confidence much good, because I kept giving myself the signal that my agenda didn’t matter. And that it didn’t count at all whether I was happy about something.
Luckily, there was my wonderful business coach and my even better friend who held up a mirror to me. I started drawing boundaries, defining my time and giving myself a higher place on the priority list. Within a week I felt a lot lighter and more confident.
So a tip based on my experiences: set boundaries (preferably before they are crossed) and stand up for yourself . Don’t immediately shout a full-throated ‘yes’ to requests (unless your partner finally asks you to marry him in the most romantic way ever of course), but think about things for a while. Say it if something doesn’t work out. Stand up for yourself if you are hurt or if you don’t feel heard. Even if it is only as a self-confidence signal to yourself.
5. Look back regularly
We – including me – often tend to measure our success by the successes of others. Which is actually quite strange, because there will always be people who can do something better than you. And of all those people, there will be no one whose situation is exactly comparable to yours.
Three years ago I gave a lecture at my community youth event . My very first lecture ever. Shaking knees at the ready. My talk came after a flashy presentation by Edward Kingston, presenter at a local TV station. Very naturally, without a cheat sheet and with a supersonic PowerPoint, he told his story. “Here I come,” I thought. For a moment I felt as if the book ‘Presenting for Dummies’ had been written for me.
To call myself to order a moment later: can I only be proud if I present better than the person in front of me? Is my situation comparable to his? No. Duh. Moreover: do I have to be as good as someone who has made presenting his profession when I do it for the first time? And should I ever want to be that good at it? No, not necessarily.
What makes more sense than comparing yourself to others is comparing yourself to your former self . Where were you one, two or five years ago? How have you grown compared to then? Only when you reflect on your process will you notice that you are already doing very well – even without completely excelling in something.
6. Accept the body you have
Building self-confidence is about more than just finding yourself beautiful (or no: just okay). Still, I can’t help but mention this point. From experience, I know that insecurity about your body can be a determining factor in your overall self-confidence. If you literally feel better about yourself (not by exhausting yourself until your six-pack takes on serious proportions, but by simply taking good care of the killer body you have), you will also radiate more self-confidence.
Therefore, try to take small steps forward to become more okay with the body you have been given. Take good care of it: with good nutrition, exercise, sometimes a nice cream and the moments of rest you need. Wear clothes that make you feel good and try to focus on the positive things your body offers you. You don’t have to find it beautiful and look in the mirror with a smile. Accepting that this is the shell you have been given and that you better make the best of it together is already a step in the right direction.
7. Building self-confidence? Follow your own path.
Nice words and pats on the back are always welcome. But make sure that your self-esteem is not dependent on them. If you need approval, you will do things to please others . Accept that one urgent assignment because they will then consider you “a guardian angel”. Jump in the car head over heels because then you will be “the best friend ever”. Apply for that one meh job, because that will at least make you look good at the next family birthday.
Realize that if you are living the life that others expect of you, you are not really living your own life. Furthermore, if your self-confidence depends on what others say about you, then a single comment is enough to make it crumble completely.
In my opinion, working on self-confidence is mainly about focusing more on yourself. Learning what you have to offer, what you have in yourself and what your talents are. And letting yourself be guided less by what anyone around you thinks about it. Being okay with your idiosyncrasies, ignoring advice if it doesn’t suit you at all and accepting that all of this can sometimes lead to a big headwind.
The more often you do what you think is best, the more you will experience that you can rely on yourself.
It’s a beautiful subject, self-confidence. And as you can see: building self-confidence is perfectly possible without completely changing course and turning into that arrogant CEO who refuses to pour himself coffee.
