How to increase your confidence and boost your results

Confidence is an essential ingredient for achieving great things in life. Furthermore, it is helpful for seizing opportunities in all areas of life. Whether it’s saying yes to a job opportunity, yes to a date, or yes to a scary yet potentially lucrative business opportunity. However, a lack of confidence can close the door to opportunities. It can also lead to negative self talk and feelings of anxiety, worry and doubt. All of these further erode confidence. Having a variety of skills and tools for building confidence is therefore key to getting even more out of life.

A definition of confidence taken from the Cambridge Dictionary is:

“The quality of being certain of your abilities or of having trust in people, plans, or the future.”

Accordingly, building your confidence and self-belief is the first step.

Seven simple steps to build confidence

Breathe

Yes, sounds silly doesn’t it? When you lack confidence, it usually means you are feeling anything less than supremely confident. Anxious, worried or doubting means your body will be stressed. And when your body becomes stressed, stress chemicals are released which influence both thought and behaviour. The shallow breathing bought on by stress means less oxygen goes to the brain, so your ability to think clearly is diminished. Chronic stress can destroy self-confidence and lead to feeling unable to take action. A simple way to calm down and release stress chemicals is to consciously breathe. Practice stopping and breathing for two minutes, or as long as it takes to feel calmer.

Focus all of your attention towards your breath. When a negative thought or doubt pops in, simply steer your mind back towards listening or feeling your breathe. Focusing on a word such as calm is helpful. Be conscious of listening to the sound of inhaling and exhaling. Consequently, your nervous system will take a short break, thus ensuring you gain back a semblance of control and take the next action with a higher state of awareness and certainty.

Setting yourself a challenge helps increase feelings of confidence

Physical challenges are a great way to build confidence. When you test yourself and push yourself harder than you imagined possible, you build confidence. If physical challenges really aren’t your thing, simply change some of your daily routines and habits. Practice cleaning your teeth with the other hand. Wait five minutes before eating another piece of chocolate, or commit to doing one squat when you get up from your chair. When we take action, we show to ourselves we do have discipline and when we stick with it, we build our muscle of self-control. Proving to ourselves we can change and we do have discipline builds confidence.

Learn something new

When you take the time to read, you are broadening your horizons, opening up possibilities and learning. Make a clear habit of learning something new everyday. Moreover, consider a short course, learning a skill, artistic craft or knowledge to increase your career. Not only does this keep your brain active and healthy, it ensures you are staying open to growth. Furthermore, when you share your learnings you embody them so they become wisdom not just knowledge. You are instructing your powerful subconscious mind that you are focused on learning and growth.

Use mental rehearsal to build confidence

Athletes use mental rehearsal to boost their performances, build belief and expectation. If you have a situation coming up where you desire more confidence, imagine yourself performing in the situation. Get clear on what you will be saying, feeling, thinking and doing. The more you practice this skill precisely and purposefully the greater your belief and confidence. Furthermore when the day arrives to perform your chances of success are greater. And there is no better way to feel inspired and confident that achieving a success because of a successful performance.

Guard your thoughts and ensure they are kind and positive

Do you ever compare yourself to someone else? If so, how does it make you feel? While we like to grow and emulate success, too often we compare ourselves to the successes of other people. Most of the time it only diminishes our sense of self-worth and erodes confidence. Certainly emulate a few of their values and behaviours and disciplines, but please champion yourself. Talk kindly, acknowledge your successes daily and be thankful or appreciative of the small things you do well. Furthermore, I believe  this has the potential to profoundly boost your confidence and radically transform your life. It’s a critical skill taught in Mindset Coaching.

Doing the things you say you will do is a guaranteed way to build confidence

How often do you set out with a great intention to complete a project, call a friend or eat healthily for the day? Then, something happens, perhaps you feel tired, or you have something else on or you get offered a piece of cake, and hey presto you go back on your word? One of our greatest gifts and way to build our own confidence is to trust ourselves. This means doing the things we say we will. More often we are out of alignment with our subconscious mind. The part that runs our life. This is one of the major reasons why we don’t do the things we know we should. Moreover it will make you feel proud, boost your self-worth and ultimately confidence.

Give graciously and receive equally

Giving to others, whether donating to a charity or helping a neighbour, you will feel better about yourself. Equally important is to remember to be open to receive, whether it be a compliment, an offer of assistance or an unexpected gift. Accept it graciously. If you aren’t open to receive you are cutting yourself off from the natural flow of abundance in the universe. Give yourself the gift of complimenting yourself. Talk to yourself as you would your best friend. Furthermore, negative talk creates stress, and stress erodes confidence and performance.