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?
I usually remind myself that life isn’t always about success. It can have failures but you don’t have to stay on that negative side. Everyone experiences failures. I remind myself that the failures are lessons and that I should just keep moving forward and set myself up to win. I think your mindset has a big effect on your confidence. I mean, you can always just keep looking ahead instead of looking back, since you’re not going that way. It’s also great to remove anything from your life that doesn’t help you grow as a person.
I tried volunteering before when I was feeling depressed. I wanted to focus my energy elsewhere. It was the best decision I’ve ever done and it was very selfless of me to help others when I felt like I was the one who needed help.
I just try to be as positive as I can even when I’m really feeling low. It helps a lot because you know for yourself that you have high hopes on feeling better soon and that it’s just a feeling that will pass soon enough.
I’m not sure how I could even feel positive when I’m already feeling dreadful. I can’t just switch my thoughts to something else and just choose not to be affected by negative emotions. If that was even possible, everyone would have been always feeling their best and never their worst. Maybe the rest of the tips here could help, but the think positive one is a little too general and there isn’t a way to just do this without any sorcery… Not being negative here but it’s the truth.
When I’m feeling blue, I try to help someone else. I find that when I’m focused on doing something for someone, it takes my mind off the negative feelings I have. Not only that, but it feels amazing that you’ve helped someone in need.
This is an awesome quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I keep this in mind and it helps me think positively because it’s always a choice to feel good.
That’s a great quote.
I put a lot of positive and motivational quotes everywhere in my apartment when I’m feeling down. It’s a great reminder especially because I live alone and I’m single.
I just recently started journaling because I wanted to teach myself to be more positive just like what the article suggested. What I did was jot down my daily blessings or things that I have to be thankful for. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, it can be as simple as being grateful for being able to catch the bus when you were seconds late. When I’m journaling, it also serves as my quiet time or meditation time wherein I think of how great my day has been despite a couple of mishaps. It becomes some sort of ‘Happy Journal’ that doesn’t have any negative things inside it. ?
The only time that I feel really down is whenever I succumb to the same habits everyday. So I try to list down my daily habits and insert a couple of random things that I can do. It feels unfulfilling for me to be doing the same thing everyday…
Change how you view yourself. Sometimes what we think about ourselves manifests, so it’s better to just think of yourself in a more positive light than to think you’re no good. That usually does the trick for me. I focus on what I can do best.
Yes, mind over matter!