How Do I Boost My Self Confidence?

How do you view yourself? How do you think others view you?

Having good self-esteem is something that many of us hear about and the goal in life that will seemingly make you happy.  We all have our moments when we feel great, on top of the world and able to conquer anything that comes our way.  Then there are the times when we judge our self-value and what we are contributing towards our own happiness and the long term goals we have in life.  Having a balance where we have more times when we feel good about ourselves is great and something to work toward, however it is also good to have those moments of reflection.

Good self-evaluation keeps things real and even though all the self-help books in the world will tell you that accomplishing anything is possible, it is good to have a sense of realism too. The key is to challenge your self – limiting beliefs and work out if they are reality or your negative self-image talking.  The example is ‘I want to be the next gold medal swimming champion’  If you have never swum a lap of the pool in your life and are totally unfit, the reality is that maybe reaching this goal is going to be a very difficult task (not impossible but not easy either.)

If you are already a champion swimmer but just have not quite reached the time targets for joining the Olympic team then it is self-limiting assertions that are creating the barriers to your success. In this case, it is useful to think of all the achievements you have made already towards this goal and use this to boost your confidence and overall self-worth.  Be careful in basing your self-worth on specific achievements though as outcomes to specific events do not make an entire person. 

The first thing to think about is our level of self-confidence. This is different to self-esteem in that it is the knowing you can achieve and accomplish a given task. Some people are self-confident when public speaking or are great at sports. Having the skills to know you can reach your goals and be successful gives the confidence to not only take upon the tasks they know they will succeed with, but also provides the ability to take more chances on the things they are not so confident with. These people have a level of personal self confidence that they can support the risk of failure at a particular task as their sense of self-esteem overall allows for failure at a particular task which they may not have self-confidence with. Challenging yourself and taking chances and not being self-judgmental upon the outcome assists in the process of achieving self-esteem. IF you complete the task successfully it turns the self-confidence you had in trying the task to a sense of achievement and overall positivity.  

Others struggle with being able to label things they are self-confident with, but we all have abilities, even if it is that you are confident to be able to dress yourself or make a cup of tea, it is something that you can use to boost yourself into that feeling of success.

Self-esteem, on the other hand is something that is a personality trait and something we often wish we had more of. We see people who we believe are confident and wish we were more like them.  Little do we know how often those people also question themselves and have moments of doubt, as no one is happy and self-confident all of the time.  Some people have the ability to manage their fears and anxieties and turn them into positives. The rock star who changes performance anxiety into adrenaline which they harness into an energy they present on stage is a perfect example.

Building self-esteem can be a tricky and a long process. If you have had many years of self-doubt and negative thoughts it is hard to break the habit.  We need to have a look at our values and work out what is important to us and what we would like to achieve. Have a think about how you are doing this now. It may help to write these things down so you have a list you can reflect upon. From here you can think of the things you would like to make better from this list, and the things you can do to achieve the goals you have set yourself. Every time you do something towards these goals, values and passions in your life it will build your self-esteem.

By working with the things you want to achieve and your personal values, even the small achievements will have a huge impact as they are adding towards something that is meaningful to you.  It is nice to have someone tell you that you have a lovely top on today or they like your new hairstyle, but the positive vibe we get from holding the door open for someone or helping an old lady in the street may to make us feel better for a more significant and ongoing reason.

We have probably all seen the recent viral Facebook post asking us to post a one word description of our FB buddies. So let’s now do this for ourselves. Post below two things. The first is something that you are proud of, something about yourself that makes you feel good and something that you feel boosts your own self esteem. Don’t be modest – this is time to share some self-loving. Second, post something positive that someone else would say about you if they were sharing. Don’t be shy – let’s all take a moment to bask in what we feel – there are no right or wrong answers.