Everyone has times when they don’t feel like their best, most attractive or confident selves. Working through difficult times like these can actually make you stronger and more confident in the long run. When you’re in the middle of one of these stretches, it can be difficult to know how to work your way out of it. If this sounds familiar to you, try some of these tips to boost your confidence:
Change Your Appearance
Looking good can greatly increase your confidence. While you don’t need to drastically alter your appearance, simply taking a shower, shaving, putting on makeup and dressing nicely can help you feel ready to start that day. Again, this doesn’t mean you need to buy designer or expensive clothing, it just means dress for the situation (or even overdress a little) to help you feel special.
Another idea is to change up your style. If you’ve had the same hair color for ages, try changing it (you can do it yourself at home). Try some new up-do’s. Even just changing your makeup routine (hello, red lipstick!) or your shoe choice can give you a little boost.
Stop Reading Print Magazines
Studies show that women feel crummy about themselves, and their long-term self-esteem suffers, when they read print magazines. Looking at Photoshopped photos of models gets even models feeling less attractive, because even though we may consciously know that the images are fantasy, our subconscious brain still picks up on the harmful messaging; that we must look flawless, skinny and sultry if we expect to be loveable and sexy. And it’s all in an effort to sell us more products we really don’t need.
So don’t listen. Better yet — don’t expose your brain to that messaging at all; read online blogs or indie magazines, like Urbanette, instead.
Be Grateful
It’s easy to get fixated on the things you want rather than being thankful for what you already have. This often leads you to focus on your weaknesses as a person rather than your strengths.
One way to reorganize your thought process is to write down three things you are grateful for and why each day. These things don’t need to be groundbreaking gratitudes, but rather small victories such as the sunny sky overhead or the cup of coffee you grabbed with a friend. Remembering to focus on the positive things in your life helps you rediscover your confidence in a real way.
Try Meditation
This might seem a little too new age for some people, but true self-confidence is all about self-awareness. If you become more aware of your feelings and why you are having those specific feelings, it is easier to accept the things you cannot change and be confident to affect the things you can.
One of the objectives during meditation is to observe yourself and surroundings without judgement. You can’t avoid or make something happen during meditation, nor are you trying to. Just sit quietly and observe (and let go of) your thoughts as a third party. Through a more thorough understanding of yourself, you can acknowledge both your strengths and weaknesses, without judgement. This eventually leads to inner calm and confidence — I promise!
Exercise
Physical activity can burn off some of your pent up emotions. Going to the gym, joining a sports team or doing any sort of regular exercise can get your body in shape and improve your mental health. Getting in a rhythm of working out also creates positive momentum and something for you to build on. The more you work out, the more you’ll want to work out. And you just might make some new friends while you’re at it.
Where meditation is all about internal and mental results, working out is all about the external, something you can see in the mirror as well as feel in your energy levels.
Think Positive
When it comes to self-confidence, your thoughts can be your best friends or your worst enemies. It’s important to remember that your emotions mirror your thoughts. So, if you are focusing on negative thoughts, you’re more likely to feel sad or angry.
It is up to you to decide which thoughts are helpful, positive ones, and which are harmful. By discarding the negative thoughts, you will be able to focus on being productive and feeling confident.
What do you do when you’re feeling down, to make yourself feel better?
Nice article. We’ve all been there, feeling low and negative about everything. This helps a lot. Thanks Urbanette. ?
I usually do the stuff I’ve been procrastinating on, hahahaha. It works!??
It’s been a week and I’ve been feeling off the rails for reasons I don’t know. I’m glad I read this article because I didn’t know what to do anymore.
Learn how to get out of the negative situation that’s making you feel down. I don’t know why, but my life is full of drama and I’m a magnet for it. The only lesson I’ve learned that really made an impact on my entire mental and physical health is that I get out of it as soon as I see red flags. Whether it’s in relationships, friendships, family or even work, if I no longer see the benefit it’s giving me and the cons weigh more than the cons, I get out of it. I don’t plan on drowning in the negativity that the people around me inflict.
When I’m feeling down I tend to not groom myself properly. Like I’d go out without a wash of makeup or dressing up properly. But the problem with that is that you just feel worse than you already do and that’s not the goal here.
It’s a great idea to clear your head because when you’re feeling lost, it’s mostly because your thoughts are very cluttered!
I never thought of this!
Sometimes I get frustrated with my progress in life and my confidence shatters alsmot instantly. What I usually do is set smaller goals that are easier to achieve, but in the end gets me closer to my bigger goal.
I try to always be proud of myself no matter what the outcome is. Like for certain decisions that I made and sometimes it doesn’t turn out to be the best decision I’ve done, I still give myself a tap on the shoulder because I was brave enough to go through it.
It’s good to reward yourself.
Whenever I don’t feel motivated, I switch up my to-do list and go for tasks that I can finish easily. I don’t want to force myself to do something that I’m not 100% motivated for because I’ll just end up disappointed with the outcome. Feeling disappointed could just lead to more negative feelings. So it’s best to just stick with easy tasks that once you’re finished doing it, you’ll know that you were still productive and that you’ve accomplished something. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you changed your schedule just because you weren’t feeling it. It’s called self-care.
Just be kind to yourself even for a little while! ❤️
This is a great trick, honestly. We forget this a lot.