How To Boost Your Confidence
Key takeaways
Choose confidence: Set yourself up for success by creating a mindset with belief for each chapter in your life.
Be proactive: Fill your life with activities that help to build up your confidence!
Don’t give up: Holding yourself accountable with a workout buddy and reward system will foster the best active environment
Set your mindset
Confidence: let’s talk about it. Confidence is what makes you feel a million bucks in a new red dress and sparks your courage to go talk to a stranger. It’s the driving factor in stepping out of your comfort zone and taking leaps to achieve your dream life. But confidence is also the voice in your head tearing you down before a big presentation, or the reason you don’t volunteer to be a leader. It’s one part of your mindset that sets the tone for how you view yourself, and therefore how others will perceive you as well. The thing about confidence is that it’s so easy to fake, yet equally as easy to lack. Has anyone ever told you that you are your own biggest cheerleader? To believe in yourself? Now is the time to start listening! Easier said than done, that is for sure. Well, the secret about confidence is it all starts with your mindset, so YOU get to choose what makes you feel good.
We live in a climate that can make confidence hard to find, and even harder to keep. I’m a student nearing college graduation about to step into a whole new working life. This huge change can make it easy for my confidence to lower, but I have realized that is a completely backwards way to look at it! I am about to embark on a new journey, just because it isn’t familiar does not mean I should be any less confident entering this new era. Life is always changing around us, so getting stuck in your head when a change comes is natural. That’s why a new outlook and mindset shift can be the small change that boosts that confidence right back up. When your confidence is low it can be boosted up, and even when it is already high it can go higher. There is no right or wrong way to feel better about yourself! This vicious cycle where confidence only comes with comfortability needs to be broken—be confident in every action new or old. It’s a tough lesson to learn, and I’m definitely still learning, but I’ve found that putting my all into something is better than doing it at half pace, or not at all.
Let’s get started
What are ways to boost your confidence? I’m so glad you asked! While mindset is the overall theme to better yourself, there are many activities that help in this too. Here’s a breakdown of some of my favorite ways to boost confidence:
Daily Affirmations: Look in the mirror every morning and say something positive about yourself! This can be a hard habit to get into, it honestly might feel silly at first. However, just think of how great if feels when you receive a compliment from a stranger. Wouldn’t it be great to hear that from yourself? You are the most important person in your own life, so act like it!
Do Activities You Love: Feeling good can come from feeling accomplished in your hobbies. I think we can easily lose sight of ourselves if we don’t take the time to do the things that make us unique. So next time you think of skipping your dance class, don’t! Or tomorrow when you have 10 minutes of free time grab your guitar and play a song. Anything that keeps you connected and grounded to your personality, make an effort to do more often.
Surround Yourself with Great People: We are all human, so we are all going to grow based off the people around us. Feeling confident can partially come from having friends around you that boost you up. Surrounding yourself with healthy and positive people will reflect off you. Good friendships should feel effortless, although they are not. Our friends are there to lift us up even when we don’t see that value in ourselves. It’s a team effort, and you get to pick your team!
Make Mood Boards: Find yourself in your future. Visualize the places, quotes, outfits, and more that make up your best self. These goals will make you work harder on yourself, a great place to exert energy. See your goals, be happy about them, and let those lead your confidence.
Consume YOUR Media: Listening to music, reading books, and watching TV shows and movies should bring you happiness. Consume the media that brings you that joy. There are so many different genres in our world because we are all such different people, that’s the beauty in it all. If we were all meant to like one type of media, there would only be one (and thank God there isn’t). The books I read or music I listen to may be considered cliché or mainstream, but I think that means they are popular for a reason. And I also know there are so many genres out there I’ll never get to, but someone else has. Find what makes you happy to consume and do it! Life is too short for bad songs or boring movies (subjective to taste, of course).
Prioritize Health: Drink the water. Go on the walk. Do your yoga class. Taking care of yourself will be almost as big a confidence boost as your mindset is. Feeling good physically and mentally are so closely intertwined, so listen to your gut when it comes to your health. You know what’s best for you.
Do it for yourself!
I think overall, life is what you make it. Even if you do all these things there are still going to be down days, but it’s all about picking yourself back up and starting again. Just one day of daily affirmations or 30 minutes outside could change you for the better. At the end of the day, you are with yourself your whole life, so make it a good one! Stay true to what you love, and you’ll attract confidence naturally. This could all sound extremely daunting, so give yourself grace. Confidence doesn’t mean you’re the biggest extrovert at the party, it means you believe your actions have worth. Make your mindset match your goals, and the rest will fall into place. In case you needed to hear it today, I believe in you!
