To build self confidence is to lay the foundation for a fulfilling and successful life. Simple, yet profound. This statement underscores a fundamental truth: the way you perceive and treat yourself dictates how the world perceives and treats you. It’s not just about achieving your goals, but also about enjoying the journey and growing as a person.

“Think highly of yourself for the world takes you at your own estimate.” – Kurt Hahn Quote’s

What is Self Confidence?

Self Confidence has multiple characteristics which has as an extreme substantial impact of our lives. Self Confidence is nothing but having complete faith in your own abilities, decision making, judgement and overall being. It’s identified with your understanding and accepting your assets and shortcomings. It also calls for being secure in your own skin.

This intense yet important sense of self-assurance is simply the result of internal faith, hence stop look for the validation from outside world. The moment you reach this profound self-assurance, you believe in your choices and capacities, you allow yourself to explore life, regardless of any difficulties, you sail through flexibly and effortlessly.

The Core of Self-Confidence

Self-confidence isn’t just surface-level feeling; it is intensely rooted in our perceptions of who we are and our capabilities. Any confident individual you meet will be the one who doesn’t seek constant approvals or validations from external world, it’s just because they are aware of their worth and validate themselves, within.

This compass that guides their decisions or actions or interactions, develop stability of self-regard, which is without a doubt, unshakable by external circumstances or opinions.

Trust in Abilities

Anyone who know that believing in your own abilities is the foundation of self-confidence, is bound to be successful. Don’t mistake this ability to be righteous at all times or being perfect at everything they do, but rather accepting that you can handle anything that may come your way. It’s the proof that you have resourcefulness, knowledge and skills to achieving your goals.

This faith, this trust is built over the period of time, involving numerous experiences, phases of learning and personal growth. When you trust yourself, you’re more inclined towards taking risks, trying new thing, stepping out of your comfort zone, which is extremely crucial for your growth, be it personal or professional. So don’t shy away from whatever may come your way, be ready, be prepared. You’ve got it!

Judgement and Decision-Making

Self-confidence encourages trust in your judgement and decision making capacities. When you are a confident individual, you make decisions based out of your values, intuitions & knowledge. You understand that being human involves making mistakes and these mistakes are rather opportunities to learn and grow instead of reflecting on your self-worth.

This trust reduces the fear of failure in one’s judgement and encourages proactive approach to lie. This doesn’t indicate disregarding other’s efforts but rather adding it into your decision making process to keep things balanced. This also highly indicates valuing your own perspective and not being influenced by other’s opinions.

Accepting Strengths and Weaknesses

Self-confidence makes a person aware of their actual strengths and weaknesses. These people rejoice their strengths and use them for their advantages, wherein they are also aware of their weaknesses and don’t let them define their individuality. This immaculate balance helps them in their personal growth and self-improvement.

They evaluate their own areas of improvement and these people keep their mind open to learning and growing. For them weaknesses are not failures, they are rather opportunities for development. This simplicity at accepting the strengths and weaknesses develop growth mindset, which proves that intelligence and abilities, are achievable through consistent efforts and persistence.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Why Self Confidence Matters?

Well, there are various reasons to have Self Confidence. First and foremost, it impacts our lives, starting from personal relationships to professional achievements, self-confidence is required in every aspect of your life. Self Confidence makes you capable of taking risks, seizing opportunities, speaking your mind, standing for yourself. You become tough in the face of difficulties, you are able to handle any setbacks with grace.

Key Benefits of Self-Confidence:

• Better Performance – Confidence helps you in performing exceptionally in every aspect of your life. Be it work, social meetings, personal endeavors or anything else, confident individuals approach anything with positive mind-set.
• Improved Relationships: With self confidence, you are destined to make healthier, beautiful relationships. You very well know you boundaries and set them rightly, express your likes or dislikes, or needs, and you show respect towards others without feeling inferior.
• Resilience: Confident people are better at handling setbacks. Their view towards failures or opportunities is more of a learning and growing, they don’t waste their energy in reflecting their self-worth in the process.

Let’s move on to How to Build Self Confidence in 7 Easy Steps:

Building self confidence won’t happen overnight, so stop beating yourself up. This is a continuous process and it requires dedication and practice. How to build Self confidence for better life in 7 simple steps:

 1. Embrace Your Uniqueness

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde

Every individual is exceptional, irreplaceable, we have our own talents, perceptions and experiences. Accepting our uniqueness is the primary step towards building self-confidence. Identify what makes you different is the first step in this section of how to build self confidence.

Once you have it, start using it o your advantage, for example, you are good at painting, showcase your quality to people surrounding you, you do not need their validation to be a good painter but putting yourself out in public will fill you up with certainty.

Remember, there is nobody like you in the world, some may look like you, some may talk like you, but you as an individual, are just one that world has, you are unique.

 2. Positive Self-Talk using Self Confidence Affirmations

Anything and everything that happens in your life is solely dependent on your thoughts.

Your thoughts create your habits and you habit create your life. You have the power to condition your mind in the way you want your life to turn out to be. Remember your subconscious mind has infinite powers and you can make great use of it.

All you have to do is keep telling yourself that you are powerful, you are good enough all the time; you have to replace your negative self-talk into positive ones and you will see how your life changes beautifully.

Let’s look at some of the Powerful Self Confidence Affirmations to get you started:  

Examples of Positive Self Confidence Affirmations:

3. Set Achievable Goals

When you set goals which are difficult to achieve, which are time and energy consuming, it is quite natural to withdraw from your objective. So start smartly; set small, achievable goals. When you start achieving these, you’ll be pumped to achieve bigger goals as the momentum will be set. Every time, you win, no matter big or small, your confidence sky-rockets, this is another how to build self confidence secret.

Set goals which are time bound, such as weekly, or even daily if need be. Keep them realistic and measurable. For instance, if you want to start your bakery, start by cooking small batches, give them to your known people for tastings, take feedback and slowly gradually increase the batch size to not be overwhelmed with orders when you do open your bakery, plus you’ll be expert at it by then.

Remember Self-Discipline is the key.

4. Face Your Fears

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

How to build self confidence is incomplete if you don’t know that Fear is the major obstacle when it comes to building Self Confidence. Fear is a hurdle to everything anyway but here it plays a crucial role. Identify what makes you want to take a back seat, check your energy when you get uncomfortable with something, and then face it head on.

Be it cooking, public-speaking, performing on stages, participating in activities, standing up for yourself, speaking up against wrong, don’t sit back, challenge your fear, speak up, confront, doing this will eliminate your fears, fill you up with more confidence and make you feel powerful. Make a list of fears that intimidate you, tackle them one by one and keep going on. Start with the least one on the list and then conquer all of them gradually.

5. Practice Self-Care

Everything starts with yourself. You have to put yourself first in order to achieving anything you need in your life. Self-care is the most important aspect of anyone’s life, but it is often overlooked. Take care of yourself first before you want to be able to do that for others.

Physically, emotionally and mentally, you have to be in great shape to offer support to others. When you start taking care of yourself, it boosts your self confidence. You feel much aligned overall.

Few things that you have to ensure to incorporate in your daily life in order to practice self-care; Exercise daily, or at least take a walk in the park, eat healthy (more of greens and fruits), get enough sleep (at least 7-8hrs). Enroll yourself in activities that make you feel happy and relaxed.

Go swimming, trekking, biking, dancing, painting, music anything that your heart gets pumped with, do it, and do it regularly.

You may want to check the Self Care Planner, designed by me for those who’d like to keep track of their daily activities, writing notes, journaling or goal setting

 6. Learn New Skills

Albert Einstein said, ‘once you stop learning, you start dying’

One needs to keep on learning new things throughout their lifetime. This helps in building Self Confidence. There are various ways one can start learning new things, some take new hobbies, some take learning a new language, some try to advance their skills to enhance their careers and so on.

Gaining knowledge about anything, no matter how small, enhances your self-worth. Enroll yourself in some course you’ve been wanting to cover, read books you’ve always wanted to, attend workshops-seminars, all these things help you expand your skill set.

7. Surround Yourself with Positive People

People around you play an important role in your life. Imaging someone who keeps nagging or whining all the time, what will it do to your mental state? You will be dreading going back to that place again, be it your home or office.

It is vital that people around you are uplifting. Cut out energy vampires as you may not even realize how they affect your mood. Surround yourself with people that encourage you, uplift your mood, help you make right choices.

Distancing yourself from negative people doesn’t make you a bad person, self care comes first remember?!

Any relationship that boosts your confidence, morale, energy is the right kind of relation that you should entertain. Relationships are supposed to add value to your life, hence choose carefully.

Here are some Self Confidence Quotes to Inspire You:

Quotes have a beautiful way of reaching our hearts, they provide us the necessary perspective, motivation and confidence.

• “ Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”  – Theodore Roosevelt
• “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”  – Eleanor Roosevelt
• “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” – Buddha
• “Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” – Peter T. McIntyre

Practical Exercises to Boost Self Confidence

Daily Affirmations

Ensure to start each day with Affirmations. Try this exercise of speaking in front of the mirror. Use positive, uplifting words to encourage yourself. Try affirming multiple times a day, in quite place, where no one will disturb you for few minutes. Few examples of positive affirmations are as mentioned:

• I am confident
• I am enough
• I am a powerful soul
• All I need to succeed is within me
• I am growing and learning everyday
• I have the power to create my own happiness, success & prosperity
• I am worthy of what I desire
• I am happy & grateful for everything I have
• It is right to be happy, healthy and wealthy everyday
• I am living with abundance
• Happiness is a choice, and today I choose to be happy
• Wealth and abundance flow to me
• I attract money easily and effortlessly

Keeping Journal

Make it a habit of writing journals daily. Writing journals helps you reflect on your day. Helps you being grateful for all that you have and achieved so far. It helps you track your progress and keep the momentum going. Celebrate your wins by writing them down and feeling them in your heart.

Visualization

It is believed that anything you visualize while soaking in the feeling you can reach closer to your success. Every day, spend some time in quite place, preferably when you wake up or going to bed in the night. Picture yourself with your achievements, feel it in your heart, smile at your wins.

Take this mental picture, create a mental movie, this is help increase your confidence and will motivate your further. Imagine every minute details such as the things you are seeing, how they look, how you feel, touch them, feel them, how others are reacting to your wins, how blessed you are. So on and so forth.

Gratitude Practice

When you practice Gratefulness, your mind shifts from lack to abundance. Everyone has something or the other to be grateful for; clean water to drink, healthy food, home to live in, job to pay the bills, loving spouse, healthy children, etc.

Focus on everything that you are grateful for each day. This practice helps in appreciating everything that you have and boosts your self-esteem.

Setbacks are Learning Opportunities

Don’t be discouraged by the setback, as every setback in an opportunity to do better. Instead of looking at the negative aspects, try to look at the experience it brought you and learn from them. These are valuable lessons that bring you even closer to achieving your goals than before. Spend your energy on went what wrong only to figure what not to do next time when you re-attempt.

As we discussed in the beginning, building self confidence is a consistent process, hence don’t overwhelm yourself. Be confident persistent, practice positive self talk. Remember, self confidence is not about being perfect, it’s about believing in your abilities and improving.

Self Confidence gives you freedom from external validation. When you know your power and capabilities, you don’t settle for less and that’s why you must always have power over your skills and emotions.

I talk about it exclusively in my eBook & Journals which are linked right here, click to find which one serves your purpose and do let me know how it helped change your life.