Self-confidence, things that chip it away, and things that lift it up!

Self-confidence is not just about your body language or your speech or how you present yourself in front of people, its deeper concept lies in trusting in your abilities and feeling like a boss in yourself.

If you feel overly overwhelmed with happiness when things are going well in your life and when things aren’t if you feel like ‘everything has been lost’..well, that’s not confidence. The graph of confidence should be constant or upward but never down.

The things that chip away your self-confidence:

• Being a perfectionist: zooming over minor flaws and criticizing yourself for not following everything written in your weekly routine, and procrastinating, instead of continuing to follow it, is one example of perfectionism. It not only holds you back from success but shatters your confidence.
  
• Being lazy for self-care: ever skipped brushing your teeth for consecutive days? Or just one day? Just cause you’re lazy? It may seem normal to do sometimes. But we often do it at the time of stress or when we feel low. It’s disrespectful to your body and mind. Loving yourself, treating yourself, and providing care to your body and mind not only clears your mental blocks but also makes you feel confident.
  
• Overly apologetic: Being overly apologetic goes hand in hand with lower self-esteem and poor boundaries. It could be due to insecurities but it only reflects a lack of self-esteem.
  
• Comparing yourself to others: It’s human to compare yourself to others. Positive comparison with people who are acquiring the same goals as you but are slightly forward than you is good while trying to acquire what others have that you don’t and feeling jealousy, envy, guilt, regret, and trying to defend yourself lowers confidence because you will never feel enough with yourself.
  
• People pleasing: People pleaser is someone that undermines his/her own needs but never forgets to accommodate everyone’s needs, takes the blame even if it’s not their fault, and seeks approval and validation from others. This impacts on your confidence and leaves you feeling incapable of creating a life of your design
  

How can you work on self-confidence?

• Cut off toxic people: It's easy to spot them. You feel like your energy is being sucked up from inside and you feel like a negative virus inside you.
  
• Listen to powerful music that fills you up with unbreakable power within yourself.
  
• Be selective of the information you consume. There’s negativity everywhere.
  
• There’s a difference between I can’t do public speaking because I'm not good enough and I can’t do public speaking because I've not learned this skill because I've never done it many times to gain that skill. So, don’t criticize yourself till you do public speaking at least 50 times. Don’t expect yourself to be amazing on the first few attempts.
  
• Have a workout plan: Exercising not only helps improve your health but also boosts your self-confidence. 5 minutes every day is better than 1 hour never.
  
• Stand up for something: Expressing your opinion regardless of what people think of you and standing up for your beliefs and your core values brings positive psychological experience and it can make you feel more confident.
  
• Stop being too secretive: Stop hiding everything. Confident people are comfortable about their past, what they have been up to and their plans for the future. I’m not saying to mic it all but the more you hide something the more it will make you feel insecure and you will start thinking there’s something wrong with it. And that is not good food for your confidence.
  
• If you have nothing to do, just put on some music and clean your room, organize your books and clothes. This not only helps you feel less stressed and less distracted but also gets you organized and increases your productivity which in turn builds confidence.

4 simple exercises that will lift your self-confidence!

• You probably have some skills that most people don't. Think of one skill you think you’re good at (you feel confident about). It may be cooking, singing, painting, making new friends, your focus power, your confidence when you speak or your memory that remembers details. It could be anything. It could be more than one.

Exercise 1: Take a pen and paper and list them down. (remember every tiny thing and list them all).

There are infinite skills you are not good at. The first thing is to focus on the half glass that is full. Remember the things you have mastered already so just a few more things to work on.

• Get something done: It's important for you to realize that you can achieve anything you want. It's important to build that trust within yourself. You must feel the power of “I CAN!”

Exercise 2: Set tiny and small goals and grab the accomplishment medal.

(It could be cleaning your room twice a week, taking a shower every other day,, or learning your guitar for just 5 minutes every single day, or practicing English just for 10 minutes a day).

Caution: only one goal for a week to complete it. And then you can add another the next week and complete them for the next two weeks.......and so on. Do not start with 3-4 goals at once.

• Do you say “yes” to requests you don’t want to do simply just to please them? This completely destroys your self-confidence. On top of that, the self-loathing you give to yourself afterward ruins it all.

Exercise 3: Say “No” often and don’t feel bad about it.

It seems hard right? I got you! The key is simple. Start with tiny things. If your friend asks you to go out with him but you have a pile of work to do, simply say “No” and don’t feel bad about it. You will end up feeling proud of yourself which in return will build your self-confidence. Try that!

• When was the last time you celebrated your win? Giving yourself a reward for the things you accomplished after procrastinating for so long is the simplest way of boosting your self-confidence!

Exercise 4: Celebrate tiny wins!

Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated! So, if you gotta do something every day and you did it after 3 days of procrastination then go celebrate it. No, I’m not saying throw a party or go to the Maldives but you can punch the air or have a little dance with yourself or get yourself an ice cream.

• Do you have a habit of quitting when things get challenging or boring? Quitting is directly connected to your self-confidence. Every time you quit, quitting becomes a lot easier the next time. And you know how that feels right? The self-talk that triggers after quitting! …not the best feeling, is it?

On the contrary, pushing through the time you feel like quitting levels up your self-confidence and unlike quitting, it feels amazing!