We all lack confidence sometimes but individuals with low levels of self-confidence often appear unhappy or unsatisfied with themselves most of the time. Self-confidence is an important aspect of wellness, yet so many people struggle with it. Confidence often comes from feelings of wellbeing, acceptance of your body and mind and belief in your own ability, skills and experience. Confident people often inspire confidence in others and gaining the confidence of others is one of the key ways in which a self-confident person finds success.
Self-confidence takes training and practice to be built and developed effectively. How do you then assess your level of confidence? High level of self-confidence in an individual often displays in the way they handle conversations, the way they speak their mind and through their behaviours. Some of the indicators displayed by confident individuals include:
- Believe in what you do and do what you believe to be right, despite what others think or criticise you for it
- Admit your mistakes and learn from them
- Accept compliments and congratulations on your achievement
- Be willing to take risks to achieve better things
- Extremely critical of themselves
- Ignore their positive qualities, achievements or strengths
- Have negative mindset and use negative vocabulary to describe themselves
- Employ negative self-talk and blame themselves when things go wrong
- Refuse to believe others when they receive compliments about their achievements
Building self-confidence involves a process of continuous practice of different skill sets, in order to increase and maintain individual competence and positive mindset. The following strategies might be helpful for your plan on improving self-confidence.
Plan and prepare
Goal setting helps you achieve targets and measure your success in hitting of those targets.
Set goals that exploit your strengths and allow you to improve your opportunities while reducing weakness and threats.
Negative self-talks do not provide you with any benefits. Instead, learn to recognise these moments and employ strategies to overcome such manipulative behaviour.
If you start finding doubts, challenge them with rational and practical evidence, both for and against them.
Improve your knowledge and skill sets
Identify the gaps in your skills and knowledge. Acquire these areas and continuously develop yourself both personally and professionally so that you constantly equip yourself to achieve your goals and hence, your confidence in such achievement.
Make sure to keep them simple and practical. Avoid stretching yourself with risk-taking behaviours to make sure you master these areas of development.
- Talk to others (family members, loved ones, close friends) about your strengths. See what others around you have to say
- Have a look through self-development books, workshops and reputable sources of information
- Seek professional support (psychologist, counsellor, coach) to have neutral and helpful information on practical strategies
