Self-confidence is your feeling about yourself. How well you are aware of your talents and your weaknesses. People with higher self-confidence have realistic expectations and trust in themselves.
Since self-confidence has a huge effect on all aspects of our life, it is crucial to improve it. When you have a better image of yourself in your mind, you can present yourself to others much better. Therefore you will have a better relationship with others.
Self-confidence is the motivation to pursue your goals. Having high self-confidence leads to even more achievements.
Confidence is not a thing you are born with. It can be acquired, so you can improve it. In this article we will explain several methods you can use to boost your confidence to have a better life.
Fake it until you make it
Make others think you are confident and you will be more confident! The way people see you can improve the way you see yourself. Moreover, others’ behaviors influence your mood and vice versa. When your feelings are at their best, you will be more able to improve your feelings about yourself.
Think about people who you know as confident persons. And Try to apply their attitude in your life; Attitudes like shaking hands firmly, and maintaining eye contact and standing straight. People with high confidence know their values and make others respect them, and they also fully respect others.
Reconsider your posture
Have you ever seen yourself slumping towards the floor? When trying to improve your confidence, posture is the key. It not only makes others see you as a confident person, but also research has shown that it can make your thoughts more positive about yourself. In other words, posture affects the level of confidence.
Upright posture leads to positive thoughts about yourself. Therefore, next time you feel down, try not to slump. Slumping can make your thoughts even more negative. Trick yourself by correcting your posture to an upright posture.
A new study (2) done on students of San Francisco State University, has reported that the majority of students felt performance improvement doing math when they are in an upright position. They felt significantly more difficulty in doing math when they were in the slouched position compared to the erect position.
Make up your hormones
Serotonin is known as the confidence neurochemical. Higher serotonin secretion is related to higher confidence, feeling happier, and more emotional stability. It also makes you more enthusiastic about building up your self-esteem.
How can you boost your serotonin? By being more active, whether it’s a brisk walk after work, doing chores, yoga, or playing sports.
Studies show that the secretion of testosterone has a positive impact on self-esteem. In other words, higher testosterone leads to higher confidence. You can level up your confidence by doing regular exercise.
The other way to improve serotonin secretion is to enjoy the sunshine. Sometimes our bad mood is just because of our unbalanced chemical production. Vitamin D plays an important role in the brain. The deficiency of vitamin D can lead to depression and a bad mood(1). And it can significantly affect your feeling of confidence.
Think positive
Try to focus on positives, “where focus goes, energy flows”. Think about days you were feeling confident. If your positive thoughts are more than your negative thoughts you’ll be more positive. But if your thoughts are mostly negative, not much positivity can be emitted from you. Try to raise positiveness by thinking about good things that happened to you in the past, your mind raises your production of serotonin.
When feeling anxious, calm yourself down by focusing on your breath.
Not all people are perfect in all areas. They are usually experts in limited areas. But someone who has high self-confidence does not have unrealistic expectations of himself. You may feel less self-confident in some areas. Tell yourself: I can get better with striving. If others can do it, I can do it too. Achievements will raise your motivation to pursue more goals and build up your confidence.
Set goals.
Start with small goals then after a while make your goals more advanced. But have in mind that there can be no success without failure. Learn from your failures. Let yourself make mistakes.
Footnotes
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908269/
2. https://www.neuroregulation.org/article/view/18396/12025
3. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091005111627.htm
