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?
This is a great list! I really like the idea of changing the appearance to boost self esteem. I will try that. I think, not comparing yourself to others is really important. Always thinking someone else is better than you can be so destructive to your self-esteem. Thanks for a very helpful post!
Well said Hilary, thank you for this message. It brought me back to myself. I was struggling badly with this disconnect as I was attaching myself to external factors. Self esteem is something we all have to be aware of and practice every day. Good for the soul.
Awesome! I seldom express this reaction to the hundreds of tips and articles I’ve read. Yours really deserve it. It is written in simple language from one who has seen the practical side of thing, unlike those who look at like under the microscope and is really hard to understand. Your post confirmed everything I already knew. Thank you Hilary, this will be my morning intention. 🙂
Motivating piece! In order for me to maintain my high level of self-confidence, I always make sure to look my best! I take care of my appearance and I dress nicely (and elegantly). I get my hair styled, I put light make up. Looking at my best makes me feel perfect! All those negative vibes away…
Let me share my secret (in addition to the tips mentioned) — “creating boundaries!”
*** Low self-confidence goes hand-in-hand with trying to please people. I always ask myself how am I allowing someone to control my behavior and decisions?
*** Low self-confidence is often caused by the people around you. So I eliminate those who cause my negative thoughts.
Just wanted to share, I feel more confident when I decided and slowly achieving my vegan goals! Having that “sense of responsibility” (for the animals, for the earth and for myself) makes me realize I’m worthy.
This is a perfect article for me! I feel “less” most of the time! I’ll do these tips with high hopes that I’ll be more confident. I guess, my first step is to “meditate.”
I totally agree that exercise helps boost self-confidence! Exercise and fitness make me feel confident of myself. Whenever I exercise I feel like I improve my physical appearance (your advice number 1), I become more energetic and forget about stress (your advice number 4).
Yeah, they all add up and improve my life 🙂
Oh yes, THINK POSITIVELY! As a school psychologist, this is a reminder I always give students.
Ralph Marston said, “You’ve done it before and you can do it now. See the positive possibilities. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.”
It’s essential to learn how to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. This will cause significant change on life’s perspectives and will help in boosting confidence!
I agree with advice number 2! It’s on top of my list! GRATITUDE! It’s important that we don’t dwell on our shortcomings for if we do, we’ll never pick up ourselves and look to a brighter and better future.
What I usually do is give gratitude to myself and think about my success and accomplishments! This fuels my self confidence and helps me face challenges 🙂