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?
Excercise really does wonders for your physical health and even your mental health. I do feel like it cures stress and all the negative feelings but it usually resorts in overworking myself, which I don’t think is always healthy. So it’s always better to just sit down and analyze what you feel before you do something about it. Meditation can be a form of exercise too, like yoga and it works better for me than anything else. Yoga makes me feel relaxed and there’s very little possibility that I’d overwork myself.
I reward myself when I’m feeling down. If I can also take a break from work, I do it.
When I’m having issues with my self-esteem, I usually try to be kind to myself. I try to accept the fact that I’m not capable of everything even though I can do a lot of things. Sometimes when we have problems with confidence it’s mostly because we’re too hard on ourselves.?
It’s not included in this list but you should also stay away from people who mess with your self-confidence. I mean, some of us have that ‘friend’ wherein they just glide through life like a breeze, and all they do is brag about it. Stay away from people that make you feel worse and surround yourself with humble ones that don’t make it seem like your life isn’t as good as theirs. I’m not an envious person but when someone can’t stop blabbering about how they were born with a silver spoon pisses me off and makes me think about my life in general.?
Self-awareness is very helpful sometimes. We go to work, go home, sleep, go to work, go home, sleep and it all goes on repeat everyday. Ask yourself when was the last time you thought about the things you emotionally need?
I rest it out whenever I’m feeling down. Mine is usually an outcome of stress and tiredness.
Experiencing a moment of serenity really helps in re-booting your confidence. We live in such a fast-paced life that we sometimes forget that we need alone time to replenish our energy.
This is so accurate. We live so fast and we no longer slow down to appreciate the little things in life.
It’s true that when you read print magazines you’ll feel worse about yourself. But sometimes, Instagram makes me feel that way too. I think you should just stay away from anything that can rattle your self-confidence. I turn off my phone and stay away from social media. I honestly stay away from IG whenever I can because for some reason, I just really get frustrated with how I can’t keep my feed harmonious while others do it so effortlessly. Not only do I see that other people can look beautiful without so much filter and I’d look crappy without it.
Taking the time to think about why you’re feeling that way is a very important step. You can’t really find answers if you don’t know the questions.
Shopping! It’s an amazing cure-all, LOL.?
Ooooh, shopping. Sounds amazing haha!