Tips for Building Your Self-Confidence

Confidence can be defined as the feeling of trust in something. Self confidence is the belief that you can trust in yourself, your abilities and your knowledge. Being self-confident can help you in many aspects of your life ,such as helping you to feel happier and providing other benefits for your mental health. People who are more confident are more likely to be successful because it helps you think that you are able to achieve the goal that you are pursuing. Listed below are some tips on how to improve your self confidence.

Practice Self-Care

Practicing self care can help build self confidence because taking time out of your day to work on and take care of yourself will increase overall how you feel about yourself. When you feel good about yourself it will lead to higher confidence. Some ways to make you feel better about yourself is eating well, getting enough sleep at night and exercising regularly. Taking time to assess your needs can help you identify what makes you feel good about yourself. Practicing things like mindfulness and gratitude can help reduce stress and improve emotional regulation. All of this makes you feel better about yourself and therefore can boost your confidence.

Build and Maintain Positive Relationships

Keeping people in your life who make you feel good about yourself and who are constantly trying to lift you up is a great way to maintain self confidence. If you constantly surround yourself with people who are negative and try to tear you down it can drain your confidence. It is ok to remove yourself from people who have a negative impact on your mental health. Spending time with people who appreciate you will help you build and maintain confidence.

Work on a Growth Mindset

People who have a growth mindset believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. This creates not only confidence but also a love of learning and resilience. This is essential to building your confidence because not everything will come easy to everyone. Something that is easy for one person will be very difficult for another. With a growth mindset you know that not everything will come easy and right away. You are willing to work and learn to achieve the desired outcome, and you believe that it is possible if you work hard enough. 

Develop Your Independence 

Being able to do things on your own will open more doors and will also allow you to meet new people and have new experiences. This will help to increase your confidence, however trying to do things by yourself can be scary for some people but if you break it down into small steps it can be achievable. Just looking for a job can help you to develop your independence. The first way is by going around your neighborhood and seeing if anyone needs yard work done, it can be easier asking people you know for a job rather than strangers. Once you have some experience asking people for a job you could go someplace like an animal shelter and volunteer. This way it is like you have a job but it is a little less formal than a job that you get paid to do. Finally, once you have gained the confidence and experience from those two opportunities it will feel easier to make and hand out resumes to places you would like to work. 

Practice Self Affirmation

It can sometimes feel silly and weird to talk to yourself however it has been shown that doing affirmations can help boost your confidence. By telling yourself about your strengths and how confident you are, you can reinforce these positive thoughts and feelings. It is kind of like a “fake it until you make it” mindset. Even if you aren’t feeling super confident that day, take some time to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself all of your strengths. Some examples of positive affirmations are “I am confident and I value myself”, “I am capable of achieving my goals”, “I am resilient and can handle any challenges that come my way” and, “I am proud of my accomplishments and growth”. Saying these everyday in front of a mirror will help you believe what you are saying,

Building your confidence will not happen overnight. It will take time and effort and it probably won’t be linear. There will be things that might delay your progress and that's ok. You will probably always be working to build your confidence and there will be some days where your confidence will be through the roof and others where you will not have any at all. All of this is normal and trying to do some of the things on this list everyday will help to keep up your confidence. 

-Hannah Brown, Co-op Student