When I look at the problems of my past it is easy for me to point to the root cause of all my problems. The sadness I felt, my inability to put my heart into anything, and how I let myself get pushed around all stemmed from my lack of self-esteem.
Self-esteem is key to your success and happiness, but don’t worry if you don’t have much confidence now. It is something you can develop. Here are some methods I’ve used over the years to boost my self-esteem.
Make a list …
Make a list of your strengths. We all have them. What are you good at? What have you accomplished? What are you proud of?
Write down as many things as you can think of. If you have trouble thinking of things to put on the list ask a friend to help you. Make sure it is a friend who will actually help not one of your smart-ass friends.
Once you’ve made the list don’t just tuck it away in a drawer never to be seen again, look at it. Look at it everyday. Look at it multiple times of day if you feel like you need the extra boost.
Surround yourself with supportive people …
Friends are important. If you tend to spend time with people who are unkind and not supportive, it might be time to broaden your circle of friends. The people you hang out with really do help shape who you are.
Body language counts …
I’ve been reading a lot about how your body language affects not just the way that others perceive you, but the way you perceive yourself. Standing up straight really makes a big difference. Think about your posture for a minute. When you feel badly about yourself what is your posture like? When you feel confident how does your posture change?
Simply adopting the posture of a confident person helps you feel more confident.
Develop a skill …
One way to boost your confidence is to get really good at something. What are you already good at? Is there something that you do that seems to come naturally? Try developing that skill even further.
Reading a list post like this is all well and good, but honestly, nothing will change if you don’t take action. When I was seriously lacking self-confidence I would read things like this all of the time, but I almost never made the changes suggested in these types of posts. Maybe it was because I doubted they would really work. Maybe it was because I didn’t know where to start. Sometimes life and the idea of changing seems so overwhelming that you end up doing nothing.
I’ve had that paralyzing feeling before. You know that one where you know you need to change, you know you should change, but you don’t know how or even where to start, so you end up watching an hour’s worth of silly You Tube videos instead. Then you feel ashamed because an hour has passed and you’ve done nothing, but you don’t feel ashamed enough to take action yet. You end up watching some reality TV show that you know isn’t really reality at all and eating chips, and then your realize it’s time for bed and you’ve accomplished nothing. So you go to bed promising yourself that you’ll do things differently tomorrow. The thing is that you know you won’t really because you always promise yourself that, and it just never happens.
I told you I’ve been there. That’s why this next piece of advice is extremely important. Something that will boost your confidence a lot is to have integrity. Do what you say you are going to do! Do you know who is the most important person to have integrity with? YOURSELF.
I’m not normally a caps lock type of person, but I really want to make sure you understand. All of the other things I’ve listed in this post work. I know because these are the exact methods I’ve used on myself, but the most important one for me was having integrity with myself. I do what I say I’m going to do. I always did this when other people were involved, but ever since a young age I never kept my promises to myself.
That is no longer true. If I promise myself I’ll get something done, I get it done. Just keeping my promises to myself upped my self-esteem and confidence tremendously. Start with small promises to yourself to improve. If you want to start getting up earlier promise yourself that you will get up 15 minutes earlier one day a week. I know that sounds like nothing, but it’s doable. You probably won’t let yourself down on that one.
Because we are used to letting ourselves down, there is a natural tendency to make a promise to yourself that is way too big for you to really keep. Then you fail and you’re back in the same boat you were in before. You’re letting yourself down again. It’s a habit just like anything else. It takes small steady steps to break it, but once you do it will make a difference in how you feel about yourself.
So get your integrity together first. Once you do that working on the other steps I mentioned in this post will be easier and before you know it your confidence will be solid.