11 TIPS FOR BEING CONFIDENT FROM WITHIN
Does it sometimes seem like everyone around you is confident and sure of themselves? Chances are, they have doubts just like you. So what’s the secret they’ve discovered about how to be confident? They know that confidence is not something you have, it’s something you create. Being confident is nothing more than a belief in yourself. It’s the feeling of certainty that you can accomplish whatever you set your mind to. Confidence comes from within, and you can find ways to be more confident at any time.
That’s not to say learning how to be more confident will solve all your problems. Everyone has bad days or moments that upset them. Being confident also doesn’t mean you’re completely sure of yourself at all times. Creating confidence is not about knowing it all; it’s about trusting that no matter what happens in a particular situation, you’ll be able to handle it and learn from the outcome.
WHY IS CONFIDENCE IMPORTANT?
Learning how to become more confident is important in every part of your life, but there are some instances where it’s crucial, especially at times where you feel like giving up. If you are a leader and in a position that requires being convincing and trustworthy, being confident is non-negotiable. No one will follow a leader who appears unsure of themselves. Lack of confidence can seriously impact your ability to put together a winning team and guide them to achieving your shared goals.
Even if you’re not in a leadership role, confidence is vital to being a team player in many situations – whether you’re in a sales position or need to present a confident face during frequent client interactions. Being confident helps you make instant connections and build relationships that will help you and your company succeed.
Knowing how to be confident in yourself is important beyond the workplace, too. Learning how to be more confident can help you attract a partner you can build a healthy relationship with. It can also help you effectively handle conflict and seek out new opportunities that will foster your personal growth.
THE PRINCIPLES OF HOW TO BE CONFIDENT
If you want to learn how to be more confident, you must be willing to change your state. Your state is essentially your mood at any given time of day. Your mood is influenced by how you feel about yourself at that point in time. The good news is you can change your state at any time – no matter what’s going on around you – as long as you know how to do it. Here are three principles of confidence that anyone can use to their advantage – and some real-life examples to help you apply them in any area of your life.
BODY LANGUAGE
Want to know how to become more confident? Just act like it! Physiology is key when learning how to be confident and mastering the body language of confidence can put you on the path to success. Think about someone you know whom you consider extremely confident. When you first met them, you probably knew they were confident before they even started speaking. You knew they were self-assured because of the way they carried themselves and moved. They made eye contact, shook your hand firmly and stood up straight. Now do a quick inventory of your body. What’s your posture like? How are you breathing? We all get in negative states, which can lead to slouching, shallow breathing or hanging your head. You have the power to change how you’re feeling by controlling the way your body moves and the way you present yourself.
POSITIVITY
Thinking positive can manifest itself in several ways. First, change your focus – because “Where focus goes, energy flows,” as Tony says. Instead of getting hung up on all the ways something could go wrong, focus on all the ways it could go right. Think about how you’re going to nail your presentation and how pleased your coworkers will be to hear it. What you focus on becomes your reality – and that includes what you focus on within your own mind. Replace negative words with positive ones and start seeing the bright side of situations. By changing your focus, internally and externally, you’re changing your state. And by changing your state, you’ll change your life.
A GROWTH MINDSET
What do you think being confident entails? You may have some idea that confidence only stems from prior success – that you can only know how to be confident in yourself after you’ve become wildly successful. This sort of core belief severely limits you. Confidence doesn’t come from your outward achievements – it comes from within. Being confident means that if you do fail, you can pick yourself back up and try again instead of throwing in the towel. Once you start taking actionable steps toward your goal of being confident, your beliefs will gradually start to solidify. It’s time to adopt a growth mindset and start believing that you can learn how to be more confident.
HOW TO BE MORE CONFIDENT
What do those principles have in common? They are all about becoming the master of your emotions. You must change your perspective and your mindset, and choose to be confident. That can sometimes be easier said than done – but there are specific actions you can take that will help you apply these principles to being confident.
1. OVERCOME YOUR LIMITING BELIEFS
To truly learn how to be confident, you need to love yourself first. When you practice self-love, you’ll have confidence no matter what happens in life, because that confidence will come from within. Yet many people never learn how to fall in love with themselves and instead develop a lack of confidence early in life. They unconsciously adopt limiting beliefs about what they are capable of or what type of relationship they deserve. This leads to self-sabotage and reinforcement of these beliefs – and overcoming them is the first step to total confidence.
2. DETERMINE WHAT MATTERS TO YOU
Just as adjusting your body language can make you feel confident even when you’re not, speaking up for yourself even when you don’t feel you deserve it can also have that effect. Confident people may make more money in the workplace due to one straightforward reason: they take credit for their achievements – and they do it when it matters most. If you made a contribution that accomplished a goal for the company or led to a positive outcome, it isn’t bragging to point it out to your manager or CEO – it’s a fact. As long as you state it in a matter-of-fact way, it won’t just make you look good – it will make you feel good, too.
3. ASSESS YOUR TOP HUMAN NEED
Another vital step toward knowing how to be confident in yourself is to determine what drives your decisions. We all have Six Human Needs: certainty, significance, variety, love/connection, growth and contribution. We value one of these needs more than the others, and it affects every decision we make in life. It can even affect our confidence. If your top need is certainty, you may feel unsure in unfamiliar situations. If your top need is significance, you’ll start feeling insecure if you don’t get the recognition you need. Take Tony’s Driving Force Quiz to determine your top need and start thinking about how it could be affecting your confidence levels.
4. IMPROVE YOUR SELF-TALK
Our words create our emotions, and our emotions create our world. If we’re not feeling confident, it’s a result of the stories we tell ourselves – and the words we use to tell them. How do you talk to yourself in your own mind? The self-talk you use, otherwise known as your inner monologue, has an important effect on your confidence. Catch yourself when you are thinking negatively about your body and replace the thought with something you like about yourself.
5. PRACTICE GRATITUDE
Practicing gratitude is key to living a happy life. Tony says, “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” Stop thinking of your body as existing only to look at – or worse, for others to look at. Your body is more than a vessel or a painting to be admired. Think about all the things your body does for you. When you take a minute to appreciate all the things your body lets you do, it will start to feel more like a gift than a burden.
6. CHANGE YOUR PHYSIOLOGY
The fastest way to become more confident is to radically change your physiology. Stand up straight. Square your shoulders and open up your chest. Breathe deeply. Maintain brisk, purposeful strides when you walk to cover more ground. Maintaining a posture like this makes you feel stronger and where your body goes, your mind follows. You can also observe others’ physiology to learn more about them and gain an edge in negotiations. Certain signs, such as body angle and amount of physical space they take up, can clue you in on how a person perceives a situation – and how they can be persuaded.
7. PRACTICE POWER POSES
One of the deepest ways to increase confidence is to connect to your inner power. All of us have strength within us, but when we’re feeling low it can be difficult to remember it’s there. Consider developing your own personal power pose and breathing deeply to reconnect to your strong core. Your pose can be a yoga pose – warrior is an especially empowering one – standing with your hands on your hips and your feet shoulder width apart or standing with your head held high and your back straight. The important thing is that your pose achieves the goals of awakening your inner strength and carrying that strength and confidence into every interaction.
8. THINK OF PAST SUCCESSES
Just as adjusting your body language can make you feel confident even when you’re not, speaking up for yourself even when you don’t feel you deserve it can also have that effect. Confident people may make more money in the workplace due to one straightforward reason: they take credit for their achievements – and they do it when it matters most. If you made a contribution that accomplished a goal for the company or led to a positive outcome, it isn’t bragging to point it out to your manager or CEO – it’s a fact. As long as you state it in a matter-of-fact way, it won’t just make you look good – it will make you feel good, too.
Even the least confident among us have plenty of achievements under our belts. If you’re nervous or feeling unsure about an upcoming situation, picture a recent accomplishment or a time where you successfully handled a similar situation. Maybe you’ve never given a company-wide presentation, but you have confidently presented to clients on calls. Those who want to learn how to be more confident often forget they’ve had plenty of times where they’ve exuded confidence in the past, and reliving these moments can help them unlock their potential.
9. USE GOAL VISUALIZATION
Positive visualization is a powerful tool to wield on the road to understanding how to become more confident. When you visualize something over and over again, your mind begins to believe that it has already happened. When the situation finally arises – you’re making that presentation, asking for a raise or confronting a coworker – your brain thinks, “I got this.” That’s confidence. Visualize a specific situation at work. Think of yourself succeeding and do your best to minimize any thoughts of failure. Remember that you get what you focus on.
10. MAKE EYE CONTACT
For those who aren’t sure how to be confident, making eye contact can be uncomfortable at first. But like changing your physiology, you need to just do it – confidence will follow after you take the action. Connecting with people and showing confidence through eye contact is one of the quickest ways to exude confidence when you meet new people and can strengthen relationships long-term. Use the 80/20 rule of meeting someone’s eyes 80% of the time and focusing on something else the other 20% so you don’t appear too intense or make the other person uncomfortable.
11. LIVE IN THE PRESENT
Confidence in relationships can be one of the most challenging areas. If you’ve been wronged in a previous relationship – or your current one – it can be hard to let go of the past and forgive. We want to avoid pain and fulfill our need for certainty, but this prevents us from living in the present. Learn to appreciate what you have right now, without worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow – or what happened yesterday. Free your mind, be here now and confidence will follow.
