5 STRATEGIES TO BUILD SELF-CONFIDENCE
What does it feel like to be confident? A lot of people have no idea…they’ve never experienced self-confidence, and the idea of being confident is nearly unimaginable.
When you struggle to trust your abilities or your judgment, it’s easy for anxiety and depression to creep in.
But having a healthy dose of self-confidence can help you develop skills for handling stress, setbacks, and even failure.
So in this week’s article, I’m bringing you 5 strategies to begin building self-confidence.
HOW TO BUILD SELF-CONFIDENCE
1. Set Realistic Expectations
One of the biggest threats to self-confidence is perfectionism.
We set extraordinarily high standards for ourselves — standards we’d never expect anyone else to meet.
Things like “I should never offend anyone” or “I need to look smart at all times.”
When we make a mistake, especially in a social situation, it then becomes a major hit to our self-confidence.
Start building self-confidence by setting healthy standards for yourself and having healthy expectations.
I previously wrote an article all about how to change your unhealthy standards into healthier alternatives, so check out that article and grab the free PDF download to set yourself up for success.
2. See Challenges as Opportunities for Growth
Consider someone you know who seems confident.
Now, ask yourself how they handle mistakes and setbacks.
Recognize that confidence doesn’t come from perfection – it comes from navigating through your mistakes with compassion.
Situations where we feel the least confident are often the ones where we’re being challenged the most.
And challenges are opportunities for growth.
As long as you stay comfortable, you will stay the same, and so will your level of self-confidence.
Building self-confidence requires discomfort.
When you see that discomfort as an indication of the growth you’re making, it’s easier to navigate.
Adopt a growth mindset by prioritizing learning over people-pleasing and by thinking of the process as an opportunity to train your brain to think in a new and unfamiliar way.
3. Challenge Unhelpful Thoughts
The thoughts we have play a major role in how confident we feel.
Thoughts like
- “I can’t do this,”
- “Other people can do this better,”
- “I’m not good enough,”
- “I’m afraid of making mistakes,”
- “I need to be perfect,”
- “I’m not smart/pretty/skinny/talented enough”
can all perpetuate low self-confidence.
When our brains are stuck in a place of low self-confidence, they pay extra attention to information that supports that low self-confidence (like mistakes) and ignore information that would support improved self-confidence (like compliments).
So it’s important to train your brain to see all the information.
In prior articles, I taught you skills for how to do this and gave you worksheets for practicing how to retrain your brain.
Dive in deeper into these skills with
- this article on how to challenge your unhelpful thoughts and its free worksheet
- this article on how to rewire your anxious brain and its free worksheet
- and this article on how to stop overthinking and its free worksheet
4. Identify Positive Qualities
While you’re retraining your brain to notice all about you — the good and the bad — it’s important to help your brain see not just your mistakes and flaws and weaknesses but also all the good qualities about you.
I’m talking about your strengths, assets, successes, talents, aptitudes, and gifts.
People with low self-confidence often find a way to make these positive qualities not “count.”
It’s like as long as there’s even one tiny flaw, we can’t accept that we have attributes of any kind.
To build self-confidence, practice identifying your positive qualities by keeping a daily journal of positive things about yourself.
This may feel really uncomfortable and even artificial at first, but remember that discomfort indicates you’re growing.
Another resource is this article I wrote about how to become the type of person you want to be.
If you want to be a self-confident person, then use the techniques in this article and its free worksheet to take action and become that person.
5. DO Things Differently
I’ve mentioned a few times by now that if you want to change something about yourself (like how confident you feel), then you’ll have to do certain things differently, like allow yourself to be imperfect or find the flaws in how you’re talking to yourself.
When we lack self-confidence, we often withdraw or isolate ourselves — we want to hide how terrible we think we are, so we retreat.
In fact, we adopt a ton of coping mechanisms that seem logical but actually keep us stuck.
While this feels more comfortable than exposing ourselves and risking making mistakes or being embarrassed, it keeps us stuck in a cycle of low self-confidence.
By isolating ourselves, we deprive ourselves of any opportunity to do anything that would build self-confidence.
There’s nothing that’s going to happen alone in your bedroom that’s going to suddenly make you feel confident.
Instead, we have to get out and engage.
This means we have to be prepared to tackle some anxiety.
Any time you leave the comfort zone of isolation, you’re guaranteed to feel some anxiety.
Ultimately, there will be a payoff because you’ll have opportunities to build self-confidence.
But until then, you’ll need some good healthy strategies for managing the anxiety that comes along with making changes.
Check out my 9 ways to manage anxiety without medication for some tips and strategies.
Coming Up Next: Self-Care
This year has definitely been a strange one, and self-care is more important than ever.
Whether
- you’re a teacher headed back to school soon, or
- you’ve been working from home and you’re transitioning back to the office, or
- you’re a stay-at-home mom who’s juggling tons of responsibilities, or
- you’re a student whose classes are starting back up, or
- you’ve been stuck inside your house for 5 months and you’re getting sick of it,
self-care is an essential element of mastering your mental health overall.
So next week, I’ve got 8 (non-cliche) ways to practice self-care.
If you’re tired of face masks and bubble baths and all the other cliche self-care activities, check back next week for some fresh ideas that actually make a difference in your overall wellbeing. Don’t miss it.
Talk to you soon,
Dr. Finch
P.S. Remember, this is education, not treatment. Always consult with a psychologist or therapist about your mental health to determine what information and interventions are best for you. See the disclaimer for more details.
Hayden C. Finch, PhD, is a practicing psychologist based in Des Moines, Iowa, and Little Rock, Arkansas, dedicated to helping you master your mental health.
