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?
Act in a positive way, take action instead of telling yourself you can’t, be positive. Talk to people in positive way, put energy into your actions, and you’ll soon start to notice a difference.
More than just thinking positive, you have to put it in action. Action, actually is the key to developing self-confidence. It’s one thing to learn to think positive, but when you start acting on it, you change yourself, one action at a time. You are what you do, and so if you change what you do, you change what you are.
I love this, you said it all.
You can’t defeat the enemy without knowing them. Get to know yourself. When you’re trying to overcome a negatove self-image, and replace it with self-confidence, your enemy is yourself. Get to know yourself well. Start listening to your thoughts. Start writing a journal about yourself, and about the thoughts you have about yourself and analyzing why you have such negative thoughts.
Think positive. Replace negative thoughts with positive ones. You have to learn to be aware of your self -talk, the thoughts you have about yourself and what you’re doing.
This may sound weird but it sometimes feels good and adds confidence. Photoshop your self-image. Our seld-image means so much to us, more than we often realize. We have a mental picture of ourselves, and it determines how confident we are in ourselves. But this picture isn’t fixed, you can change it, Figure out why you see yourself that way and find a way to fix it.
Once in a while, dress nicely. If you dress nicely you’ll feel good about yourself . You’ll feel successful and presentable and ready to tackle the world. Doesn’t have to be expensive, you can wear casual clothes that are nice looking and presentable. ?
Groom yourself. It’s amazing how much of a difference a shower and a shave can make in your feelings of self-confidence and of self-image. There have been days when I turned my mood around completely with this one little thing. ?
Simple yet effective, I totally agree.
You can become someone worthy of respect, and someone who can pursue what he wants despite the naysaying of others.
You can do things to increase your self-confidence. It’s not genetic, and you don’t have to be reliant on others to increase your self-confidence. ?
It’s only you who can actually help yourself.
It’s something we all face, to some degree, I think.