Confidence - 7 Smart Ways to Enhance it

Do you feel like you can’t do anything right? Do you find it difficult to complete simple tasks? Do you move through your day with a positive purpose?
Are you experiencing consistent negative thoughts? Are you often overcome with self doubt?

Part of the problem with a lack of confidence or consistent feelings of self-doubt - is, that you begin to lose your real self and you may even start to doubt the core of who you are. You may reach a stage, whereby you have lost some of the values that used to inspire you or your everyday decision making has become blurred. Maybe you're experiencing negative self-talk, or your self belief has become compromised.

What is Self-Confidence?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines self-confidence - as, 'confidence in oneself and in one’s powers and abilities'. Confidence is defined as, 'a quality or state of being certain or believing in yourself, feeling comfortable in your true-self, knowing you have some worth'.

Why is confidence so important?  If you are confident, people believe in you and it brings success. Confidence also makes you attractive to others, and it helps you to connect well with others. In addition, it can help you to generally feel happier and more content.

However, its important to understand the other side of the coin, so to speak.

What I am referring to here, is a lack of confidence. Some of the key signals of a lack of confidence are that you may become sensitive to criticism, or you may withdraw from social activity. Similarly, you may become excessively per-occupied with your own personal problems, and subsequently suffer from low self esteem. Additionally, there can also be physical symptoms that surface - such as, fatigue, sleeping disturbance or headaches.

Confidence - What are the Benefits?

Truly confident people tend to be on the quiet side and are generally unassuming.

Other traits of confident people, are that they also have a strong and positive way of thinking; plus, they have a strong desire to learn new things. But, most of all they are good listeners, and tend to listen more than they speak.

Its hard to ignore a variety of major benefits of being self confident. One major benefit - is, that other people are attracted to self-confident people. It can also become lucrative in terms of being the prime candidate or becoming hired for a particular job, or landing a business client. You may even become more positive in relation to following your dreams - to, assisting you to make the right decisions.

Confidence - 7 Smart Ways to Enhance it

It may be easy, by saying if you wish to enhance your confidence, then just hang around people who are self-confident. However, real self-confidence comes from having a strong self-awareness and an understanding your strengths and weaknesses. The following 'self help strategies' can also help you.

1] Practice positive thinking

Feeling confident starts from within with positive thinking. When you’re building confidence, learn how to re-frame your mindset to start thinking more positively and feel more self-assured as a result.

2] Stop Beating Yourself up and Accept Yourself

Whatever emotional state you find yourself in, try to look at your inner feelings in an objective way.
Teach yourself that its acceptable to be up one day and down the other - lets face it, life is a roller-coaster ride.

3] Treat Yourself

It's easy to get tangled up in the routine of the mind. Therefore, try to take time to pamper yourself often.
By this, I mean take some personal time to do things that bring you some joy. This may be something simple as taking some time aside to pamper yourself, or going out and buying some nice clothes or those shoes you've always wanted to wear.

4] Celebrate Accomplishment

Maybe you did something incredible at work, or you recently helped a family member. It can be as straightforward as helping someone lift a box or as intricate as solving a complex problem on an important project. Whatever it is, it’s something you did, and no one else. That’s worth celebrating

5] Keep Calm and Be Assertive

Calmness is often associated with confidence - plus, it has the added advantage of helping to diffuse stress or nervousness. Being assertive means standing up for what you believe in and sticking to your principles.

6] Visualize yourself as you want to be

Visualization can be an effective way to boost your self confidence. Strive not to allow negative beliefs to permeate through your daily life, as it only robs you of your  creativity. You can start to help yourself by thinking or surfacing your inner feelings or desires that relate more to achievement, progress, or success.
Start painting your own picture of success

7] Have FAITH in Yourself

Yes, I know it can be easy to lose hope and this may happen due to a number of everyday life reasons. I think this Bible verse says it all.

Images Sources ; 1. Gustavo-Fring-Pexels, 2. Andrea Piacquadio-Pexels, 3. Moose-photo's