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?
If you want to be successful, self-belief is more important than intelligence , talent, background, or just about anything else. And people who have self-confidence and believe in themselves are healthier, happier , have better relationships and are more motivated and resilient. ?
I couldn’t agree more. ?
When I’m feeling down I listen to happy songs. You might wanna try making a happy playlist. Music can physiologically change your brain and body. It can make you breathe faster, increase your pulse, and make you smile.
Nice article! Just want to share that it’s also good to seek positive feedback from others. Ask the people closest to you to tell you about your positive traits, talents and skills. Since we tend to be extremely critical of ourselves, get positive feedback from others who are better able to see yor virtues. ☺️
Women with low self-esteem, would rather “fix” a guy to make themselves feel better, instead of dealing with the reality that they need to work on themselves first. I have many friends who would fit into this category.
Try to do something regularly that you enjoy, even if it’s just a walk around the block or to the mall. It’s amazing how different you’ll feel afterwards.
There are other symbols of worth, like wealth, property , luxury brands and so on. Depending on the symbol of worth relevant to you, you can acquire it increase your self-confidence.
But you can’t just use your material possessions to boost your self-confidence. No mater how many expensive things you have if you lack self-belief and has the negatives vibes all over, it won’t help.
Many of us look too far into the future and forget that a journey starts with a first step . When we take tiny steps and take small changes in our lives, we slowly start to believe in our ability to take action. When you do this, you start to realize that you are capable and begin to bolster self-confidence. ?
Because you decided to do something about it! And I think that’s important. You can expect other people to do this for you.
Make the effort to improve your skills through constant learning. We should always be learning and improving our skills and competences. The mere act of doing so helps to build confidence. ?
There are many factors that affect our self-confidence, including our parents, our upbringing, our environment, our beliefs, past failures and successes, society, how other people treat us, the media and our experiences at large.
Mix with positive people, positivity is infectious. So if you want to catch it, spend more time with positive people. They can help boost your self-confidence. Negativity is infectious too, so try to avoid pessimists or whingers.