What makes people confident? It seems so natural to some people but I don’t think all people were born with confidence, I think it’s actually something that you develop.
I believe that confidence is something that is so important to our daily lives and our happiness, that it is something that we must be mindful of every day and continuously work on.
To build my own confidence, I have found that it has been an ongoing process that I have to work at.
You don’t just become confident one day and then stay that way forever, you have to work at it. It took a while to get to a point where I am very confident in myself, but I think that it could have been fast tracked if I had accepted and worked at certain aspects of confidence building a bit sooner.
I have found that there are 5 key rules that you should continuously remind yourself of, in order to reach and maintain a level of confidence that will make you feel happy and also bring benefits into all areas of your life.
The 5 rules are:
- Learn that nobody is perfect.
- Look at all of your mistakes as lessons.
- Push yourself everyday.
- Overcome your fears and limiting beliefs.
- Believe in yourself.
Learning that nobody is perfect (including you!)
It is very well known that nobody is perfect.
Even people that you think are perfect are not perfect.
But in our society, we are so conditioned to be perfect. In every movie we see or show we watch there are people that just seem to be perfect, or the people who are not perfect or looked up on as being lesser than the perfect people.
At school or work, you have to do everything right or else you’ll get a bad grade or you’ll get in trouble or you’ll be worried that you might be fired.
Don’t even get me started on social media that is just a constant parade of seemingly perfect people.
We then compare ourselves to everyone and believe somehow that we are the only ones that are not perfect, but we forget that everyone has the same worries that you do and they are really only showing the world a small portion of themselves.
Even at school or your job, you have to remember – and I cannot stress this enough – that even the people demanding your perfection ARE NOT PERFECT.
We have to remind ourselves sometimes that everyone is vulnerable and that everyone has insecurities and can make mistakes.
We have to treat ourselves in kind and respectful way and remember that we are just humans and we really can’t be perfect all the time.
AND if you look at the most confident people (the ones who are truly confident – not the ones who just put on a big show) are well aware that they make mistakes, but they know that they are still doing to best they can.
This brings us to the next point:
Looking at all of your mistakes as lessons.
A lot of the time, our confidence takes a bit of a dip because we keep reminding ourselves of all of our faults and all of our mistakes.
Push yourself
So yes, you do need to give yourself a break and forgive yourself for your mistakes, but it is still extremely important to push yourself.
I strongly believe that we can always improve ourselves and we can always get better.
It doesn’t mean that we have to think that we are inferior if we if we can’t reach this level we are hoping for right away, but it is always important to keep striving for it and believing in yourself that you can reach it.
And when I say pushing yourself, I don’t mean too hard that you end up sacrificing your well-being or you’re happiness in a unhealthy way, but it’s always healthy to push your limits a little bit to keep reaching for better.
When you do push yourself in a healthy way, you will start noticing that you are more capable than you might have thought you were. And if you keep pushing yourself over time, you will start accomplishing more and then you will realize really just how capable you are.
Once you start to realize your capabilities and your true potential, you will naturally become more confident.
You need to overcome your fears and re-frame you’re limiting beliefs of yourself
I have talked a lot about limiting beliefs on this blog already because it is just so important!
IF you believe that you are not worthy, or not strong, or bad at something etc. then there is no way that you will be confident.
On the same note, if you are scared of people or coming out of your shell and being yourself, then you will also never create the space for yourself to grow and become the confident person that you want to be.
So basically, you need to stop getting in your own way with your thoughts and just start believing in yourself.
And you won’t always succeed even if you do believe in yourself, but you just need to remember that that is all part of the process.
If you remember step two, you just need to forgive yourself for your mistakes, learn from them, and move on. If you have the confidence (or you’re still developing it), then you can start to breeze past any small failures and realize that they are just speed bumps.
It all comes down to believing in yourself.
That brings us to our last rule…
Believing in yourself
Believing in yourself is by far the most important part of this.
And the base to believing in yourself is LOVING YOURSELF.
I cannot stress this enough, loving yourself is the key to being happy, confident, and having a truly great life.
Basically though, you need to start just accepting yourself for the flawed individual that you are. You need to laugh at the stupid things you do, send love to the broken parts of yourself, and praise all of the great parts of yourself!
Now it can be hard to really believe in yourself and love yourself if you cannot see your great qualities. They are there, believe me, but you might need some glasses (positivity glasses) to see them.
That’s why I will write another post soon with some journaling exercises to help you see all your amazing qualities and start building your confidence.
Remember: you are an amazing, unique individual and no body brings what you do to the world. You need to start reminding yourself of that.
If you are looking for a little extra confidence building tips and motivation, you should check out my 10 Day Mind, Body, Spirit Reboot. There are tons of confidence tips and a lot of focus on overcoming your fears! Plus it will help remind you of why you want to improve your confidence and how good it will feel when you get there!
