“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
– E.E. Cummings
Self confidence is defined as a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment.
Simply put, it’s about how much trust and faith you have in yourself.
Faith and confidence in yourself are two very important ingredients for success as both will be tested constantly.
Self confidence can make you happy as well. By being confident in yourself, your abilities and your work you are able to approach each day with action and enough motivation to achieve your goals.
50% of self-confidence is genetic (which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your parents). Luckily, you’ve got the other 50% to create for yourself. So how does one create or increase their level of self confidence?
According to psychologists, the individuals with a high level of self confidence have built their self confidence by following 7 daily thought habits.
I’m not the first to tell you the importance of a healthy mindset, consistent routine, and peaceful morning habits on a daily basis, and how important these three daily practices are to staying sane and focused. Building self confidence also requires effort (consistent effort, of course) and practice.
So what are these powerful thought habits?
1. Be easy on yourself: no one is confident all the time.
Approaching your work with a combination of self confidence and self
doubt is the best thing you can do. Your confidence will keep you motivated enough to do your best work and fired up to show the world who you are. The (little bit) of self doubt will keep you humble enough to remember you have room to grow and learn in addition to questioning yourself so you continue to push yourself and work harder.
2. Watch your self talk.
For some reason, as humans we tend to be the hardest on ourselves. This is usually proven by listening to your self talk. Being aware of how you speak to yourself on a daily basis can be a game changer. When you are going through the inevitable ‘dark times’ having a healthy self talk could very well be what keeps you going. Supporting yourself and stick to your goals and remember that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD MAKES MISTAKES (like all the time). After all, you are only human but you can be a badass, get things done, kind of human.
If you can learn to coach yourself through your mistakes and hard times, you will be able to remain more consistent both in life and for business, because it won’t be as easy to knock you off course. In addition, you will boost your motivation and self control. WATCH YOUR THOUGHTS.
3. Be nice to your future self.
Exercise when you want to go home, for the future you.
Go to that networking event, for the future you.
Stop and get gas the night before a busy day, for the future you.
Recently a close friend of mine who is a badass life coach made me do an exercise to imagine the person I want to be in a few years and describe her, in detail. Her habits, a typical day in her life, what type of person is she?
After writing in extreme detail who I will be in a few years, I wrote another list about what I can do now to slowly become that person.
If you want to be someone who works out every morning, start exercising each week.
If you want to have an incredible partner, start to do the things you would do in that situation now.
If you want to cook every night, start to research easy recipes and make a promise to yourself to cook once a week.
You will have to make changes eventually to become that person, so why not start slowly now?
4. Setbacks are lessons — learn from them.
Remove the word ‘fail’ from your vocabulary and replace it with ‘challenge’. Doing this will change your entire world.
Instead of dwelling and replaying ‘failure’ in your head over and over again, train your brain to analyze the ‘challenge’ you just incurred. According to multiple studies, referring to failures as challenges activates your brain to start coming up with problem solving solutions, instead of the pity party we tend to create when we feel like we just failed.
By doing this, and really making an effort to change the way your brain encounters setbacks will help you develop a ‘growth’ mindset and let’s face it, we all want to learn and grow from setbacks so we don’t find ourselves in the same situations again.
5. Don’t assume everyone knows what you do.
This one is my favorite and wish I knew this years ago.
Not everyone thinks the way you do, so what may be simple and common sense to you is actually extremely intricate and complicated for someone else. Make sure the people you interact with are on the same page and don’t be afraid to ask more questions when necessary.
6. Know your strengths.
I have always hated when people ask ‘what are your strengths’? I HAVE NO IDEA MAN. Recently I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what my strengths are so I could figure out a way to put these to use and open other avenues for myself. While trying to figure out what I am good at, I figured out how to identify your own strengths.
Think about compliments your good friends have given you after you helped them or showed them something. Wow, I wish I could organize my closet like that. I would have never added that to my resume as a skill. I wish I could build something like that. Our friends aren’t distracted by the negative narratives we tell ourselves so they are usually GREAT at helping us identify strengths and skills we otherwise wouldn’t even consider.
Think about the past when you have contributed to a situation that turned out to be successful. Start paying attention to the praises you receive from those closest to you.
7. Stay true to your values and remember your goals.
This is why a morning routine is so vital to your day. Put the phone on silent and spend the first hour of your day getting your mind in the right place so you can be productive and motivated. This also helps to remind yourself of the goals you need to accomplish that day that get you to achieve your big goals. Your values are your own personal compass that continues to remind you of who you are and where you are going.
The most important thing you can ever do to gain self confidence is to make time for yourself, especially when you are experiencing challenges or feelings of doubt. Taking time for yourself to get your head in a healthy, positive mindset will make a world of a difference when it comes to going after your long term goals and overall success.
Want to test your self confidence?
Try this test: http://fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/Self_Measures_for_Self-Esteem_ROSENBERG_SELF-ESTEEM.pdf
Jessica Burns
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