How to Achieve 100% Confidence
“The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others”- Hasidic proverb
Is this you?
Or do you lack confidence in yourself? In what you do or say? Is your lack of confidence causing trouble in your life, personal and professional?
Then it is high time you get off your cosy little chair and take charge of your life.
First Step: Introspection
Are you a person with low confidence?
People with low confidence or low self-esteem have one or more of the following attributes:
- anxiety/ emotional turmoil/ depression
- eating disorder
- social withdrawal/ decreased social conformity/ lack of social skills
- reluctance to put you first/ self-neglect
- bothered about others’ opinion of you
- reluctance to take on new challenges
- accentuating the negative
- expecting little out of life for yourself
- cannot accept a compliment
- reluctance to trust your own opinion
If you have any of the above characteristics, read on further to find a solution.
Figure out when you feel less confident- is it in all situations or specific ones?
A proper understanding of the fields/ areas that make you nervous or anxious is helpful in getting rid of these fears and the accompanying negativity.
Following are few ways of raising your self-confidence.
Conditioning
This is a quick-fix and works temporarily to give your confidence the much-needed boost. For this to work, you would have to focus on conditioning the following:
- Mental: Positive thinking is what works wonders, be it to elevate your confidence level or to enhance your overall well-being. Focus on the positives, not negatives (except if you are a photographer who has to work with film rolls). Cultivate your strengths instead of wallowing in self-pity over your weaknesses. Envision positive situation, imagine happy ending scenarios for you.
- Body language: Always maintain a calm composure and good posture. Keep your head held high and smile. Walk and talk confidently. Your exterior needs to match your interior. Exuding confidence will help you to feel more confident.
- Dress: Always dress smart and clean. You look good, you feel good.
- Others: Listen to music with a high tempo, exercise, do what gets your adrenaline flowing.
As mentioned before, this is a temporary boost in confidence and can be useful when people lack confidence in certain situations. For an overall boost in confidence, we need to dig deeper.
Symbol of Self-Worth
There may be several symbols achieving which may elevate your sense of self-worth. It may be a number of successes you have achieved, your material possessions, various characteristics or competencies you wish you had, or it may be status symbols. But this again is a temporary solution. You lose confidence as soon as you lose the symbol.
The Permanent Solution
Figure out why the above-mentioned symbol is so important to you and condition your way of thinking. If you do not let something or someone represent your value, it would not. Do not let anything become your rate limiting factor. You are a force to reckon with.
Things you can do
1. If you have a mindset of only 100%= success, everything else = failure, it is time to change that outlook. 0% = failure. If you even achieve 10%, give yourself credit for that 10% achievement and thrive to make it better to achieve your goal of the ever-alluring 100%. The better you do, the more confident you become.
2. When you do succeed, give yourself credit. It was not by luck or someone else’s grace that you have succeeded, it was your own good work.
3. Think positive. When in doubt, take positive actions to alleviate that. Hang out with positive people. Positive conversations lead to positive energy.
4. Ask help when required.
5. Do not let failure be your end game. Think like this: now that you have failed, there is nothing for you to lose. See this as an opportunity and work harder to turn it into a success.
Remember Launchpad McQuack of Duck tales? He crashed every single time he flew a plane, but it never stopped him from flying and thanks to his sense of adventure, he became the personal pilot of the richest duck, Mr. Scrooge McDuck.
As the old saying goes, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.
6. Look into the mirror and say to yourself: “you have been created by God and God does not make mistakes”.
7. Venture out, meet new people, do new stuff, rediscover yourself every day.
In a nutshell, the only one who can stop you from achieving your dreams is YOU. So get up, shake off the dirt, and get ready for the next round, cause the battle is yours to win.
“The difference between winning and losing is most often...not quitting”- Walt Disney
