Boost Your Self Confidence With These 5 Techniques

How can you tell if someone is truly confident? Are they hiding insecurities and overcompensating? Are the most quiet ones truly the most confident or is it vice-versa? It’s hard to tell sometimes…

The term self-esteem by definition is ‘confidence in one’s own worth or abilities.’ Self-esteem is made up of ones beliefs in areas such as appearance, emotions, and behaviors. All in all, self-esteem is your overall feeling about yourself and your relationship to the world.

When negative thoughts enter our heads it can hijack our brain. Sometimes so much so that the thoughts develop into actual insecurities which affect your daily life. If not corrected or stopped, these thoughts can get worse and can tend to stay longer than you’d like.

Over time, this ill-feeling can creep into other areas of our lives. It becomes very hard at this point to pin-point where certain feelings originate and why you react in certain ways to certain situations.

Here are five ways to help boost your self confidence and leave your insecurities behind.

1. Stop comparing yourself to others

It is easier for a person with low self-worth to feel even lower than it is for a person with high self-worth to feel lower. In other words, it helps to start with self-esteem that is rooted and grounded.

When entering social settings, we end up getting into this habit of recognizing how good people are at things, and how we don’t match up. “Wow that person is much better at speaking than me,” “That person exudes way more confidence,” “That leader has so much more charisma and influence,” etc.

Over time, this process literally trains your brain to disregard your strengths, and it puts you into a reactive mental state which in the end causes stress and wreaks havoc on your performance.

It’s important to appreciate others’ strengths. Instead of looking at others’ skills as competition start looking at them as an opportunity to learn from them and improve your skill set. This new perspective will change your demeanor, relax your mind and help regulate your emotions. Your brain learns from repetition, so begin doing this immediately and over time it will become second nature.

Always remember the saying: “If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.”

2. Insecurities are your advantage.

If you experience an insecurity, acknowledge it as a clue. Yes, they are usually not pleasant to experience but they are there for a reason. By being more aware of where your thoughts and feelings are coming from and where they intersect you can get down to the root cause of issues.

Ask yourself — how do you know when you’re doing a good job? What has to happen in order for you to feel accomplished, happy or loved? Are these things happening in your life?

3. Care about what people think about you but don’t worry about what they think.

In social settings we often begin feeling emotions based on how we are treated by others and this is a very limiting situation to be in. Relying on others to determine our self-worth is no good and limits our control.

To eliminate this, first realize that, in the moment, there really isn’t anything other to do than treat people with respect and be interested in what they are saying if you are truly interested. Be confident that your intentions are solid and good and if people aren’t reciprocating then politely move on.

4. People know and notice less than you think they do.

If there is something that is bothering you or making you insecure it consumes you and it can be overwhelming. You may even think that people can literally see how you are feeling. This is not true.

Understand that your mind is on high alert when you are feeling insecure because it is trying to protect you. This heightened awareness can sometimes bring on cues that may be completely irrelevant and are most likely not as serious as you may feel it to be. Just remember that people are thinking their own thoughts and have their own insecurities that they are going through just as you are.

5. Act confident, don’t expect it to just happen

Awareness is paramount. Once you are aware of these thought patterns, you can separate them and begin to take action. Be confident in the moment and don’t expect outcomes of situations to determine your level of confidence.

Train your brain, be aware, and live confidently in the moment. The brain responds to repetition in a positive or negative fashion, let’s go the positive route so we can help others and help ourselves.