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?
Great article and I’m definitely sharing this!
One of the things I constantly remind my daughters: “Be skeptical of the media.” I don’t like them to be feeling “less” because media portrayal of the body made them feel bad about themselves (advertising!).
I want them to appreciate and be happy with what they have, focus on their strengths and not on their weaknesses as a person.
“What do you do when you’re feeling down, to make yourself feel better?” YOGA!!!
It helps me relax and eliminate all the negative thoughts I have. After doing yoga sessions, I feel like I’m “reborn,” more confident and ready to face my detractors. LOL!
In relation to your advice to meditate: When I was a teenager (14 to 18 years of age), I used to maintain a journal where I would write when I feel more or less confident with the way I look, what I’ve accomplished for the day and whom I talked to. Then I would read my entries after a week and see if there’s a pattern of why I felt more confident or insecure.
Thank you for this empowering piece! More often than not, I try NOT to look at myself in the mirror, probably because I’m afraid that I might not like what I’ll see… Now you made me think, it’s time for me to change / improve my appearance!
Well, I would suggest you make it a habit to look at yourself in the mirror and evaluate thoughts you might have as you’re looking at yourself! If you think mostly of your negative attributes, then meditate about them and try your best to improve (or better eliminate)!
I enjoyed this article on how to boost self confidence as it outlines the steps that are required to steadily build confidence. This is such a great time of the year to think about self confidence. I think that self-discipline is also important to boost self-confidence. If you know that you’re constantly not being disciplined it erodes your self-esteem which in turn influences your self-confidence. Hope you don’t mind if i will print this out, to read it over and over.
Awesome article. Just laid so simply, yet so brilliantly. This is exactly what I needed to hear because I have been struggling with this for some time now. You got to face your fear, and do the thing you fear first, before we can get rid of the fear. I just meditated this morning and was feeling very good and very inspired. 🙂
I enjoyed your article very much. It covers many real-life situations and it gives one a good positive feeling about everyday occurrences.
I can’t tell you how much this article resonated with me. You have set me on my mission to always stay optimistic and confident. This is why i read blogs because it really does make a difference in how one looks at life in general. I do practice many of your personal suggestions and they work. Keep up the good work!
This is a great read. It all depends on what you want to be confident about. I really want to say thank you and appreciate you for your inspiring articles. Your posts put me in a better path. They really helped me, to fight the devil inside me which is overthinking and stress.
Your posts are high points for me. Confidence is key when it comes to accomplishing your heart’s desire. Deep breathing and meditating are the most effective way to shift yourself from stress to calm and confident, it’s what i’m doing. These are necessary reminders for everyone. Your advice is always so measured, sensible and incredibly loving.