How To Build Self-Confidence

From childhood into adulthood, I was so timid. I didn’t know how to build self-confidence, although I built up self-esteem. Does that sound strange? Well, it is strangely common. You may have asked the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem, but we’ll cover that in more detail towards the end of this post.

How To Build Self-Confidence

People that are self-assured appear to be at ease with themselves and their work. Unapologetically persistent in working the skills they possess, these people invite others to trust them and instill confidence in them. These are all desirable qualities to possess.

However, being confident in yourself isn’t always simple, especially if you’re naturally self-critical or if others put you down. There are, thankfully, methods you can use to boost and maintain your self-confidence and self-esteem. As a result, I wrote the book, Supernatural Is Normal – How to Receive Healing, Wholeness & Success.

The Difference Between Self-Confidence and Self Esteem

Self-esteem refers to the belief that we can deal with whatever life throws at us and that we have the right to be happy. Also, part of our self-esteem stems from the belief that those around us approve of us. We may or may not be able to control this, and if we receive a lot of criticism or rejection from others, our self-esteem can quickly deteriorate unless we provide further support.

Back to my own example I started with, I built up more self-esteem but still struggled with self-confidence. A healthy self-esteem is when I worried less about what others thought of me and loved myself enough to walk out of unhealthy situations into areas I had strengths in. I rewarded myself for small accomplishments and started speaking and believing positive affirmations such as “I am beautiful. I am intelligent, etc.” Those were things I saw and knew.

Now when it came to self-confidence, I struggled to believe that I could develop skills that I never had before, to accomplish goals that I’ve never accomplished before. Those were hard to believe future successes that I could not see with my physical eyes.  I could not always see those accomplishments with my mind’s eye. I could not trust myself to get the work done efficiently, so I was slow about learning it. The skills that I knew I had, I was quick to learn tasks and succeeded. I saw my calling and achieved those goals quickly.

Those skills that were unnatural seemed inept. I was nervous and fidgety. I had to break each goal into smaller pieces, which took me longer than other goals. This started to wear on my self-esteem. I tried to avoid comparing myself to others, but that was difficult when others did the comparing. I was starting to change my knowledge of being intelligent to feeling dumb. Sometimes, I even went home crying and praying for more wisdom.

When we perceive ourselves mastering skills and completing goals, we get a sense of self-efficacy. This gives us hope that if we learn and work hard in a specific field, we can succeed. This kind of self-assurance motivates people to take on challenging tasks and persevere in the face of disappointments. Here are a few distinct methods I used to build self-confidence:

Believe You Can Build Self-Confidence

Although self-confidence is important in practically every part of our life, many people struggle to find it. Unfortunately, this can spiral into a vicious cycle. People who lack self-confidence are less likely to attain the success that would boost their confidence.

However, this does not mean that this is unresolvable. There are many forms of success and many areas where a person can be more self-confident. Where they lack self-confidence in one skill, they may be very confident and changing lives in another. This is a picture of me utilizing skills and gifts I am confident with.

Develop positive behaviors — and break harmful ones – to build and increase your self-esteem. Physical and mental health can be substantially improved with regular exercise and a nutritious diet. Getting a good night’s sleep has been related to greater optimism and self-esteem in studies.

Remember Past Accomplishments

When you can declare, “I can accomplish this, and here’s the proof,” your self-assurance will rise. Based on your previous accomplishments, determine what you’re good at. Write a list of five things you’re proudest of and utilize them to make positive affirmations about your abilities. These comments are particularly effective if you have a tendency to weaken your self-confidence through negative self-talk.  A creative and effortless way to make declarations is by wearing them. Wear these declaration tees by Divinely Taylored Apparel on Etsy.

Set Small Goals

Setting and attaining objectives, as well as seeing how far you’ve gone, are important strategies to boost your self-esteem. You can even set these goals in blocks. Even little accomplishments might serve to accentuate your talents. For more details about goal-setting, check out my post on How To Achieve Your Goals.

Clarify the initial measures you need to take once you’ve defined the primary goals you wish to attain. This will get things started and boost your confidence by allowing you to attain realistic goals.

Summarized Tips To Build Self-Confidence

In summary,  when your self-confidence increases, you can trust yourself and your abilities more. You may take immediate efforts to boost your self-esteem and address the issues that are affecting it. These short-term methods can transform into long-term plans for increasing and maintaining self-confidence.

Developing positive habits, reflecting on prior accomplishments, and setting specific goals will boost your self-esteem and help you create and retain confidence over time. So don’t worry, because worry can affect your self-confidence or even your self-esteem.

Once you let go of less important things that you thought were a huge problem and focus more on all the positive things in your life, the positive will magnify and outweigh the negative. So will your high self-confidence.

Have you ever struggled with self-confidence or even self-esteem? If so, what did you do about it. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

For more inspiration, tips and encouragement, subscribe to our email list in the form to the right.

 

This post may contain affiliate links.