Fear of speaking in public, barriers in the face of a new challenge… Self-confidence can be worked on! To help you, here’s 7 valuable tips to follow!
Our upbringing, unhappy experiences and successes from early childhood impact on self-esteem. If you’ve heard that you are “bad student”, “mean”, “tiring”, chances are you are building yourself, in part, on this idea.
Because self-confidence refers to the ability we have to feel secure inside, to be aware of our skills and our qualities. Having self-confidence is “feeling able to face certain situations with confidence, without being blocked by the fear of failing or being judged”.
But the good news is that a lack of self-confidence is not inevitable. Discover these simple exercises, to gain ease in everyday life or in stressful situations.
Stop interpreting everything around you to ward off the negative!
To strengthen self-confidence, it is possible to rely on a great classic of personal development: the four Toltec agreements, and especially on one of them, to put them into practice over a week:
“I don’t make assumptions”
When we make assumptions, we are not in reality. We stick our own interpretations to the intentions of others. To stop making assumptions is to go back to the factual! One may ask: what is the intention of the other? Am I going to verify the reality of the situation instead of imagining it? What is it that shows me that the other thinks that about me?
How to put into practice? For a week, stop guessing. Check your impressions by asking questions of others, or imagine one or more reasons that may explain the situation with a more positive intention, to change your original belief.
“I don’t take anything personally”
The opinions of others are a reflection of their beliefs and projections. Everyone has their own map of the world. So let’s ask ourselves: what does the other’s reaction tell me about myself, what emotions do I feel? What would it be like if I let go of other people’s opinions?
How to put into practice? For a week decide not to take anything personally. Try to spot what others are saying about them when they tell you about you, so that you can differentiate between what belongs to you and what belongs to the other in what is being played.
Move and improve your posture to be more positive!
Physical activity strengthens the body and mind by calming thoughts and releasing action. It boosts our endorphins (the hormones of well-being), makes us more positive, and is an asset to nourish our confidence.
In practice, how do we do it? Choose a discipline that you like (running, brisk walking, gym, dancing, boxing…), and don’t put pressure on yourself: one hour a week is a good start. On a daily basis, remember to stand straight, shoulders slightly back, head raised, feet firmly on the ground, to inspire confidence and feel more confident.
Practice visualization to strengthen homeland security!
This grounding exercise helps to re-energize and strengthen internal security. It can be done anywhere, standing or sitting.
Visualization, in practice:
- Close your eyes and focus on your feet on the ground.
- As you breathe, visualize roots, from your feet, then through the ground, to the center of the earth.
- As you breathe in, imagine the energy you receive from the roots. Visualize the color red which symbolizes action, the energy that goes up to the stomach.
- As you exhale, use this energy to further expand your roots.
- Welcome the energy, confidence, and security that the earth offers you.
Try self-hypnosis to strengthen your inner resources!
Self-hypnosis allows one to put oneself in a mild hypnotic state to activate inner resources.
The self-hypnosis exercise in practice:
- Seated, calm, hands on knees.
- Look at what is around you, down to the smallest detail. When your visual system is saturated, close your eyes.
- Pay attention to any noise, near or far, until you hear it all. Then pay attention to the smells, until the smell is saturated.
- Now it’s time for your external sensations: the fabric you wear, your hands on your thighs, the back of your seat against your back, your feet on the ground …
- Concentrate on your internal sensations, then formulate an inner request to your subconscious.
Make an attraction chart to achieve your goals!
Make a creative collage, to clarify your desires, connect your goals to inspiring images. Guided by a specific goal, you will strengthen your positive spirit and your energy.
In practice, to make an attraction table:
- Stick a picture of yourself in the center of the board and surround it with pictures of what you want to become, what you want to experience in all areas.
- Leave this table in your visual field every day, so that your brain prints it as possible, and even already!
Challenge yourself, to (finally) dare!
Challenging yourself allows you to gradually expand and step out of your comfort zone.
So start with a first step, such as a staircase to climb step by step, the idea is to start with an easy daily challenge, then gradually increase the difficulty.
For example, gradually increase the distance when you run, or on the contrary decrease the execution time of a task, start talking to your neighbors or your baker before talking to someone who impresses you, sing in front of your friends, then in the street in front of strangers before doing it in a show, practice saying no in situations without stakes to learn to assert yourself: in short, set yourself intermediate objectives and steps in these objectives.
And remember to note your progress because we quickly forget what we are successful in order to concentrate on what remains to be done. To nurture confidence, the opposite should be done: congratulate ourselves on each small victory, evaluating the distance traveled rather than focusing on the destination and the path to be traveled.
To boost your motivation, ask yourself about the purpose of the task at hand, its consistency with its values, identify which ones will be nurtured by taking action for this challenge and the needs that will be satisfied!
Then, define a step-by-step action plan by mobilizing your existing resources: to identify the trusted resources already mobilized and strengthen them, ask yourself these questions:
- What are you doing well, easily and without thinking about it?
- What does this tell you about yourself?
- How do these talents make you unique?
- Who knows that about you? if this person was there what would they say about you?
- Among these skills, which ones are a real pleasure?
- In what other situations might they be useful to you?
- How can you exploit them more?
- What is your great achievement? How did you do? who witnessed this?
If the blocking points are important, the limiting beliefs about ourselves are deeply rooted at a more unconscious level, Hypnosis and NLP can help to clean the emotional imprint linked to a past event, modify the belief and re-mobilize people. resources spent to release the action.
The SOS exercise, to be practiced before a stressful event!
- Close your eyes.
- Imagine a colored marker.
- Draw a series of crosses: in the middle of your forehead, at the end of your nose, at the tip of your chin, in the middle of your chest, on your navel, at the level of the pubis, then on the floor, between your feet.
- Using the felt, connect the crosses, from the forehead to the feet.
- Visualize the line drawn, bring your attention back to your breath, and imagine that you are breathing along this line: you exhale, your breath slides from your forehead to the feet, on inspiration, it goes up from the feet to the forehead .
- Follow this line, letting your attention move smoothly in a back-and-forth motion.
- Feel like you are refocusing, no matter what may have happened in your day and whatever the situation is ahead.
The benefits of this “line” exercise: centering allows you to develop confidence and be focused, without letting yourself be parasitized by the mind before an interview, a competition, a speech …
Self-confidence, does it work?
We can work on our confidence by identifying all the areas where this confidence exists and those where we lack it … We all have comfort zones in our life. Identifying them thus makes it possible to change the limiting belief: “I don’t trust myself”, into a more helpful belief: “I trust myself in some areas and not in others …”
Working on your confidence and self-confidence allows us to overcome our fears and take action, be more positive on a daily basis, free ourselves from frustration, even anger, because when we do not act we have the impression to miss opportunities and even his life!
Self-confidence is nurtured through action and is nourished by our successes. Our successes make us proud of ourselves and thus increase our self-esteem. The less we act, the less we have confidence …
Overconfidence and pride: what’s the difference?
The excess of confidence is based on a high self-esteem which can appear as a form of pride. Success and self-confidence are valued, but it is not It is not always fashionable to display foolproof confidence and too much ambition.
However, self-confidence needs to be freed from external judgments, because it is based on a desire for success, is nourished by a need to push back one’s limits, the search for learning, progress, or the experimentation of new experiences.
Pride would rather be linked to a too low self-esteem, because too dependent on the gaze of the other, despite Apparent excess of confidence. It can be characterized by disproportionate ambition, blind obstinacy and difficulty in accepting advice and criticism. One can therefore have excess confidence without being proud, and vice versa!
Reference: https://bloomplanners.com/blogs/plantobloom-1/7-tips-to-boost-your-confidence
Photo de Radomir Jordanovic provenant de Pexels
