Confidence : it's something most of us are in pursuit of. The rise of social media and comparisonitis hasn't helped many of us with our confidence: as we compare ourselves to others we deem to be more “successful” we can feel less self assured.
What can you do?
There isn’t a magic wand that can bestow you with ultimate and unshakeable confidence, but there are things you can start implementing into your life to promote self-belief and gently nurture your confidence levels.
- Visualise a future, confident you
Did you know visualisation helps you achieve your goals? Imagine you're at a 10/10 in terms of your confidence : you're brimming with self belief and now answer these prompts:
- What other emotions are you feeling?
- What is going on in your body?
- What are you thinking?
- What are you doing?
- How does your life look?
When you're answering these questions focus on the details. You can reflect on where you are on your confidence scale and identify one thing you can do to bring you closer to that 10.
When you visualise that confident version of you then you can imagine how they would act in situations and start to step into that behaviour. As James Clear says "you're being before you're becoming"
- Visualise a past, confident you
If you struggle to look at the future you might want to go back to your past and identify a time when you were at your peak level of confidence. Perhaps, you nailed a job interview, or delivered an amazing presentation or maybe you had that summer feeling and felt happy in your skin. When you've identified a memory reflect on what else was going on for you in your life, how did you build that feeling of confidence?
Now imagine you're feeling that way now : what would you be doing differently? how can you borrow that past confidence to bring into your current life?
- Journaling
Another popular way of increasing confidence is to get clear on what you're thinking and feeling. Journalling can help you to get clarity on your thoughts and emotions so you can decide what you want to do next.
Some prompts which can help:
What is it about the situation that makes you lack confidence?
What could you do to change your feelings?
What can you do to increase your confidence?
Who can help you?
Through really understanding what your feelings are and where they come from, you might discover simple solutions. Perhaps, you discover you’re nervous about a networking event because you won’t know anyone there an easy thing to do is to connect with one or two people before the event. I'm a big fan of taking the small steps as these lead into the compound gains.
- Embody confidence
The way you hold yourself and the way you dress can all have an impact on your confidence. Harvard Professor and Researcher Amy Cuddy tells us how posture and the use of ‘power poses’ (think a Wonder Woman pose), can change how we feel: in a meta-analysis of studies published in 2022 the power poses were seen to increase feelings of confidence and may be why Beyonce is such a fan!
Equally, you can look at people around you who you perceive as being confident: what behaviours can you model from them? You might also want to go back to your 10/10 in confidence and ask yourself how you can start acting in a way that is congruent with this right now?
- Value yourself
This sounds cheesy, but it’s important. Recognise your strengths and positive traits: you may want to do a simple strengths test online if you're not sure what yours are or you can ask 3-5 people who are close to you to share what they think your top 3 strengths are. Start to see yourself as others do and celebrate what you have achieved (when we celebrate our achievements it can also help enhance our well-being).
Equally, practice self care and ensure you get your own needs met : when you show yourself compassion and love it will help you build your confidence.
Remember everyone has confidence wobbles: this doesn't mean you're more or less than anyone else: accept these as part of life and focus on how you can build up to that 10/10 and achieve all the things you want to achieve.
What does confidence mean to you?
What would your life be like if you could be more confident?
Most of us find ourselves battling with a lack of confidence at times in our lives. Even the most confident among us have our moments.
In today’s episode, Ruth reveals how we can self-coach ourselves to raise our confidence levels. She’ll be exploring evidence-based ways you can boost your self-belief and get closer to reaching your goals!
For a multitude of practical techniques,
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