3 Secrets To Boost Self Confidence

It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures. – Oprah Winfrey.

You are a work in progress: Shine on!

Self confidence is how you live within your ‘self’. It is your belief and understanding about your own capabilities, strengths, and limitations. How you perceive yourself determines how you live your life and what challenges you take. Being confident is a positive feeling that let’s you live your life to the fullest potential. While we all have self confidence to some extent, a lack of it can at times hinder our progress in life.

What actually stops us from being confident is the fear of failure. It is this dreadful thought of failing that overpowers our desire to take up a task at hand. We do not even try doing certain things because we are certain of failing. The question is, however, unless we try how can we be sure of failing? Is not trying equal to not failing? Is trying and failing better than not trying and never knowing?

3 Secrets To Boost Self Confidence

Are you low on your self-confidence? Know that you are a work in progress, therefore, banish that sinking feeling of self-doubt and start right now to work on your confidence levels. Provided below are the 3 secrets to boost your self confidence, read on to learn more:

1. Meet: Your Body is your temple.

• Exercise the endorphins:
  The first and most important aspect of building your self confidence is to start an exercise plan. Get moving to release the endorphins (the ‘feel good’ neurotransmitters released by the brain). Exercise sculpts your body and shapes your mind. It helps reduce the stress levels and gives an overall feeling of well-being. Exercise makes you appear attractive and boosts confidence and self worth.
  
  Do you hate to exercise or go to the gym? Just try out any form of activity which makes you burn some calories. It could be as simple as a brisk walk or jogging on the track, cycling at home or on the road. You could join a swimming class or have fun through various dance workouts. The options are endless, so remember to enjoy and have some fun too!
  
  
• Indulge in self-care:
  Take the time to groom yourself to boost your confidence levels. Get a new haircut to flaunt your looks. Trim those nails and paint them pretty. Groom your beard. Install a few habits around your mornings and before you go to bed to care for your skin, eyes, hands and feet!
  
  Dress to impress yourself before you impress others. What it means is to dress in clothes that fit you properly and make you feel comfortable. Your dressing style is your statement to the world and should reflect your personality. Always be presentable whether you are at home, on a holiday, or at work. Just by starting this habit, you will notice how much more confident you become.
  
  
• Speak through posture:
  Be aware of how you sit and stand. A good posture makes you more attractive and thereby gives a boost to your self confidence. Practise standing tall and sitting erect, relax your shoulders and just be yourself. A good posture leaves a lasting impression about you in the mind of others. A bad posture on the other hand reveals a weak personality.
  
  An effective way to improve your posture is to observe yourself in the mirror. Notice the way you stand and sit. Do your shoulders slouch unknowingly? How do your hands behave? At the initial stages, you can also involve a friend or family member to let you know if you unknowingly slip into a bad posture.
  
  
• Smile often:
  The more we say about a smile is actually less! Smile often to know the benefits yourself. Smiling makes us feel positive and relaxed. Similar to exercise, when you smile, your body releases endorphins that make you feel good immediately. Even when you feel low or stressed, just by smiling you can relax your whole body.
  
  A warm smile makes you appear relaxed and therefore more confident and in control. It makes you more attractive to others. A smile is contagious and therefore when you smile the whole world smiles with you.
  
  
• Nourish right:
  How does food fit in with self confidence? Well, the foods we eat play an important role in our well being. Food provides nutrition to our body through which comes energy to help us undertake all actions in our day to day life. Fitness both physical and mental is dependent to a great extent on the choice of our foods.
  
  Make it a point to take your meals at the right time and in correct proportions. Focus on including superfoods which will help nourish your body. Include a hearty breakfast to kickstart your day. Work towards eliminating junk foods from your life.
  

2. Greet: Your Mind is your divinity.

• Be a student for life:
  Learning is a great tool to build your self confidence. Invest some time out of your daily schedule to learn about a new skill or increase knowledge about your own craft. Read a book, listen to a podcast, join a webinar to keep yourself updated. No matter how busy you are, you have to continue with your learning everyday. The more knowledge you gain, the more confident you will feel.
  
  Learning new things and increasing your knowledge also sharpens your intellect. Your thoughts get more clarity and you are better equipped to take decisions in life, thereby making you more confident.
  
  
• Challenge your beliefs:
  Your beliefs condition your outlook to life and impact on your confidence levels. Challenge your beliefs by proving it otherwise. Pick up one activity or skill you doubt yourself about and learn it to conquer your fears. Join a class to learn to bake or volunteer to host the next meet at your office.
  
  Remember there is only one ‘first time’ for everything. By the ‘second time’ you are already experienced to tackle the situation better. As you push yourself to test out newer territories, learn new skills and take up newer challenges, you continue to build a more confident you.
  
  
• Assert positivity:
  A positive attitude increases your levels of confidence. It makes you believe in yourself and your capabilities. Thinking positively allows you to be the best version of yourself. Therefore, become aware of your negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. Tweak the ‘I can’t’ to ‘I can’ whenever you come across this in your self-talk.
  
  You can also try doing affirmations to channel your thoughts with positivity. Affirmations are positive statements about yourself and your capabilities which work on the laws of attraction. You can say the affirmations aloud or pin them up in places where you can read them often.
  
  
• Write your thoughts:
  Journaling is a great way to eliminate negative thoughts and reinforce positive ones. Use your journal to write down about the achievements of your previous day. When you focus on your achievements no matter how big or small they are, you actually focus on the positive aspects of your life. The more you acknowledge your wins, the more positivity comes to play.
  
  Journaling can also help you know yourself better. It is a deeply reflective process that makes you think deeper about your strengths and limitations. It is one of the best tools to analyse your limitations and work upon them.
  
  
• Make time for your hobbies:
  Being busy is a mantra that we all fall prey to. As we go through each day completing our daily routines, there is little time for play or to pursue our hobbies. However, setting aside some time to play an instrument, sing a song, go cycling or dig our hands in dirt and nurture a few plants gives a break from routine.
  
  These activities are our gifts and talents that help us to enjoy and relax. At the same time, they boost our confidence levels as the mind relates to these are our personal accomplishments.
  
  
• Observe and learn:
  Be open to learning from others’ success stories to boost your self confidence. Success in anything does not happen overnight. Every successful person has a long journey prior to achieving their success story. Reading about famous people and the hardships they endured, learning their methods, and most importantly imbibing their habits of perseverance can be a great start to boost your confidence levels.
  
  Coming closer, focus on the good qualities in the people around you and start adding them to yours. The more you accomplish these goals, the more confident you become to take on newer ones.
  

3. Connect: Your Soul is your limitless source of energy.

• Meditate to connect:
  There’s no better way to boost your self confidence than with meditation. Practising mediation helps clear the mental clutter, makes us feel calm and composed, and brings on a positive outlook in our life. A calm, collected and rested mind is so much more powerful to take on all the challenges of the day. It is one of the deepest practices that lets you connect to your true self.
  
  Start with meditating by just sitting quietly for few minutes, focus on your breath, do not chase thoughts, instead acknowledge the thoughts as they pass by. The moments of calm and stillness work wonders to help achieve deeper thinking, better planning and strategise priorities in our never ending to-do lists. For additional reading, check out the article by New York Times on How to Meditate.
  
  
• Express gratitude:
  Gratitude makes you aware of all the good things in your life. Expressing gratitude is like holding a light over everything that you are thankful for. It boosts your self confidence and self esteem. Often we get stuck over the ‘have nots’ in our life, we keep beating ourselves over the things that we have not accomplished. This impacts negatively on our confidence to pursue our dreams and inspire ourselves to complete our goals.
  
  Try this out, keep a gratitude journal by noting down 3 things that you are grateful for each day. List out 3 new things the next day and so on. This exercise will make you increase your self awareness and help you reach out for newer goals.
  
  
• Listen to your inner voice:
  We all have a guiding voice or intuition that lends a different perspective to life. Learn to tap into this inner wisdom. This inner voice gets smaller over time since we choose to ignore it so much. However, with a regular meditation practice we can bring the voice back louder and clearer. This is because when you meditate, you calm your mind and rest your soul. It also makes you look within and connect to your core.
  
  Start by asking questions to yourself. Whenever you find yourself unable to take decisions, do not rush. Sit by yourself in a quiet place which is devoid of distractions, and ask yourself on how to proceed. Wait for an answer and it will come to you for sure. You will find your voice getting clearer each time you do it.
  
  
• Practice self-compassion:
  Be kind to yourself by practising self-compassion. When we are overly critical of our flaws and shortcomings, it is difficult to become a confident person. Self-compassion improves happiness and lets us accept ourselves in times of setbacks and failures.
  
  Feeling bad over a failure? Tell yourself it is okay to fail and that you have done the best you could do. Strive to do even better with the lessons learned from the failure. Life is not perfect and has its ups and downs. Every day is not a good day but there is goodness in every day, identify these moments to love yourself.
  
  
• Stop comparison:
  Comparing yourself to others can take a toll on your self confidence levels. Any comparison involves pitching yourself against anyone and everyone in the world, which is unfair and baseless. At times, you may feel good by comparing yourself to someone but most times it is the opposite that will happen. Moreover, when you compare yourself to others, you actually give away the power to factors outside your control.
  
  The only comparison if at all that you should be doing is to track your own progress towards the goals in your life. Small improvements done consistently over time gives you an edge over others who are perhaps busy comparing themselves to you.