3 self-confidence boosting tools

Self-confidence is the feeling or belief that you can rely on yourself; you trust in your own abilities, judgements and skills. Having self-confidence means you value yourself and portray confident behaviour, regardless of what other people’s perceptions may be. Overall, you are at ease with yourself and your work.
 
Your level of self-confidence has an impact on all areas of your life; your performance at work or in business, with performance in sport or public speaking or interviews, in your relationship with yourself and with others, your ability to do things alone, to be assertive, to ask for help when needed, to admit to mistakes, to accept compliments, to express yourself and to communicate authentically. Our confidence is so important because it allows us to show up fully in the world, in the way that we want to.  
 
Self-confidence may seem to come more naturally to some than to others – much of this could be down to our upbringing and the behaviour we learned growing up, as well as our environments. Our level of self-confidence can fluctuate depending on different circumstances or situations – when things seem to be going well in life, our confidence can soar, but if we have had some setbacks, rejections or knocks to our confidence, it can feel difficult to imagine having your old sense of self-confidence back again. Our confidence can be fragile and that’s okay and part of the human experience.
 
On a scale of 0-10, where do you feel your level of self-confidence is at the moment (with 0 being non-existent and 10 being really high)? If you’ve given yourself a low score, try some of these tools to boost your self-confidence.

Building self-confidence

Reverse the rabbit hole

Spending a lot of time thinking about negative or worst-case scenarios will really start to burn a hole in your confidence. If you have a particular thing to do e.g. give a presentation or attend a job interview and you’re stuck in a repetitive narrative of ‘what if I totally mess up?’ or ‘what if I can’t answer the questions?’ or ‘what if I can’t even open my mouth to speak?’, you will start to believe this narrative. The truth is, your thoughts are not facts. 
 
If this resonates with you, write a list of all these negative ‘what if’ scenarios. For each one, reverse the rabbit hole by coming up with a positive outcome e.g. ‘What if I totally smash it and they love me?’, ‘what if I answer all the questions calmly with my excellent knowledge?’ And ‘what if I speak confidently sharing all my well-informed prepared materials?’    
 
How does it feel now, to know there are other options on the table?

Self-esteem boost

Take some time to do some journaling and write yourself a list of all the things in your life, or in a particular area of your life (e.g. career, home life, relationships, business etc) that you are proud of accomplishing, what memorable experiences you have had and what people have complimented you on.   
 
Further, add to the list all of your strengths, write down all the things you do well, what do other people say you do well?
 
So often, when we have a ‘win’ or we have achieved something, it can be easy to feel good for a few moments, to forget about it and move on to the next thing. Spending some time really reflecting and celebrating just how far you’ve come will be time well spent and give you a boost and a chance to reflect on your awesomeness!
 
Read it back out loud to yourself with a smile on your face – you’re incredible! How are you going to celebrate yourself?

Set yourself a challenge

It doesn’t have to big or elaborate, but something that will give you a sense of achievement. Perhaps it could be learning how to do something new, going for a jog, offering to help someone to do something, cooking a new recipe…choose something that you will find fun and that you can progress with to look back on how far you’ve come.
 
If you’d like to explore more about your confidence, working with a coach can support you to improve your level of confidence – to get you from where you are now, to where you want to be in the future.
 

“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear.”

–Norman Vincent Peale