Would you say that you normally lack confidence? Do you struggle to build or improve your confidence? Maybe you fear being judged by others so you try not to be the center of attention etc? Many of us find it hard to build our confidence, in many different areas in our lives, but there are things that you can do to make it easier.
Sometimes, little setbacks can keep us from building our self-confidence. Maybe your boss made a harsh comment about your work, for example, and you can’t seem to forget that comment which makes it harder for you to improve your confidence. As well as having negative feedback from others, we can often be the hardest critic of ourselves.
Our inner critic can tell us we aren’t good enough and make us feel self-conscious. These negative comments we tell ourselves can have a big impact on our confidence and even our mental health.
Why Confidence Is Important
When you are confident you are more likely to have less fear and less anxiety. Having confidence doesn’t mean that you will never face anxiety and fear, but you should find that you are able to deal with it a lot better. Another important benefit of having more confidence is that you should also experience greater motivation - this could be with your work, hobby, or just motivation for life in general.
Confidence can be very important as it can help you to develop greater self-worth. You should find that you begin to ignore the self-doubt you have and start to value yourself more. This can really help you to build higher self-esteem. Which, in turn, will help you to experience more enjoyment and happiness in your life.
As you can see, there are many benefits that you can achieve once you have built your confidence. All of these benefits can help to improve your work, personal life, and even your mental health.
7 Ways To Start Building your Confidence
Now that you know how important it is to have some confidence, I want to share the different ways that you can build confidence. There are many things that you can change in order to build confidence and most are quite simple changes.
If you can learn to make these positive changes and maintain them, it can really help you to build your confidence and stay feeling confident. Here are 7 ways to build confidence.
1. Replace Your Negative Thoughts
Sometimes, we can be our own worst enemy when it comes to losing our confidence. We can be our worst critic and constant negative thinking can have a very bad impact on our confidence, especially if you believe your own negative thinking.
If you can learn to replace your negative thoughts with positive ones, this can really help you to build your confidence. For example, you may find yourself thinking ‘You won’t get promoted and you’re going to be a failure’, but try to replace it or question it. You could change that negative thought to ‘If I keep up my hard work I may get promoted and if I don’t get the promotion, that doesn’t mean I am a failure - I can improve from it.’
Once you begin to replace these negative thoughts you should start to feel more positive and confident in your abilities. We sometimes get stuck when we start believing our inner critic - so it’s important to recognize when you are thinking negatively and actively try to replace these thoughts with positive ones.
(If you need help with this, check out our hypnosis on Building Confidence, where you can learn how to replace negative thinking).
2. Stop Caring About What Others Think
Another thing that can have a negative impact on our confidence and self-esteem is when we care too much about what others might think of us. This could be related to your job, a hobby, or even just from a fear of being judged by others.
The chances of people actually judging one another are quite slim, however, when we keep repeating this same negative thought to ourselves over and over again, the fear can become more prominent. This can hinder your confidence and make you feel low and anxious.
When you stop caring about what others might think of you, you should feel more confident and motivated to try new things and get out of your comfort zone. Maybe you don’t wear particular clothes because you fear being judged? Well, when you stop caring about what others think, you’ll feel more confident in yourself and you’ll be able to express yourself freely.
3. Start To Love Yourself More
When you begin to focus on your positive attributes and the things you like about yourself, you should start to feel more confident. Sometimes we can focus on the negatives and put ourselves down, especially if we are already lacking in self-confidence.
When you start to look after yourself more and take care of your basic needs, you are telling yourself that you are worthy of love and taking time out for yourself. All of this can only build your confidence. Some ways that you can practice self-love include taking care of your appearance, exercising regularly, and sleeping well too.
Try to stop the negative thinking and self-doubt and instead start to love yourself more and believe in yourself - this will help you to build your confidence.
4. Do Things That Make You Happy
Try and think about what things you can do that make you happy - maybe it's painting, singing, writing, or even playing an instrument. Whatever it is, try and make time for yourself so that you are able to do more of those things.
When you start to take part in things that you enjoy, not only can you meet like-minded people, but you should also build your confidence. When you do things that make you happy, you should feel positive and be able to dismiss your negative thinking by replacing them with positive ones.
Once you start trying new things and enjoying your new hobbies, it can help you build your self-worth and self-confidence. This can also be something that keeps you motivated and inspired to do more - which, again, can only help to build your confidence.
5. Self-Hypnosis
Another way that you can build your confidence is through the help of self-hypnosis. Self-hypnosis can help you to replace your negative or limiting beliefs with positive ones. This can help to improve your self-esteem and eliminate self-doubt.
Self-hypnosis tracks dedicated to building confidence can help you to feel more relaxed in trying new things and actually take action without feeling anxious about it. Using self-hypnosis can also help to reduce stress and anxiety - especially when it comes to things that impact your confidence.
Self-hypnosis is a natural and safe way to make positive changes in your life. Our ‘Build Confidence’ hypnosis track can guide you in gaining more self-confidence and improving your life through the new positive beliefs you will eventually have.
Click here to find out more about our ‘Build Confidence’ hypnosis track.
6. Learn From Your Mistakes
One thing that can really make us lose confidence is when we make a mistake or fail at something. We are often so hard on ourselves that the slightest mistake can make us give up on a dream or goal altogether.
However, that doesn’t have to be the case. If you can learn to see mistakes as lessons and not failures, it can really help to build confidence. When you make a mistake, try and see it as a lesson that you can learn from next time. If you can stop and think about the mistake you’ve made, you should hopefully be able to find where you went wrong and how you could improve.
Then, you can try again. This time you might succeed or something else happens and another mistake is made - so you repeat the process again. If you can do this every time you face obstacles or challenges in life it can really help you to keep your motivation up and have confidence in yourself and your abilities.
7. Practice Gratitude
Do you ever sit down and just think about everything you are thankful for in your life? Or the things you are thankful for with regards to yourself and your abilities? Most of us don’t do this, or if we do, we don’t do it enough.
Often we focus on the negative things that are going on in our lives or with ourselves and forget about all of the positives around us. If you can stop and think about your positive attributes and things that you are thankful for in your life, it can really help to build your confidence.
Practicing gratitude can help you to feel more fulfilled and complete with regards to yourself and what you have achieved in your life. All of this can then help you to build your confidence and self-esteem. When you feel thankful, positive and fulfilled this can motivate you to keep reaching higher and have confidence in yourself when you take action.
Build Your Confidence With Self-Hypnosis
Hopefully, by now you will have some ideas on how to build your confidence and why it’s important. There are various different things you can do, as you now know, even if you try one or two ways to build your confidence from our list, you should still see the results.
One of the powerful tools you can use that we mentioned in this article was self-hypnosis. It is a great way to naturally make changes within your subconscious to help you feel more confident and recognize your own abilities.
If you want to find out more about how self-hypnosis can help you, click here.
