Confidence boosting tips

Increasing your confidence can open up many doors in life and allow you to enjoy all kinds of wonderful experiences.

Six top tips to boost confidence

1. Create your own story

Many of our beliefs about having low confidence may have been given to us in childhood; maybe by our parents or teachers or even a person at the supermarket. These people may have asked us "why are you so shy?", or told us that we lack confidence.

However, these are other people's beliefs that we have internalised.

This is someone else’s story about us we have adopted. The good news is that we get to choose our own story, and we can change the negative beliefs that we may have held for so long. In the same way that behaviour can be learnt, it can also be unlearnt. Behavioural theorists such as Pavlov and Skinner illustrate this well.

As a newborn baby, we are not born having confidence or lacking confidence - it is a behaviour we have learnt. You can start by stopping telling yourself you are not confident; change the story you tell yourself and stop telling other people you are not confident. Positive affirmations around being confident can help here. Some examples of positive affirmations could be "I am confident", "I am growing in confidence", or "I am feeling more and more confident every day".

Positive affirmations can be very effective in helping you feel more positive and confident. The mind believes what you tell it, so tell it positive things! The negative thoughts may still creep in, but the more you can remind yourself of the things you have been able to achieve (however small), the better.

2. Visualise

Visualising situations that you are worried about going well can be very helpful. Sometimes, when we go into a situation where we are worried or feeling less confident, it can help to have practised visualising a positive outcome in our mind first. If we have visualised a situation going negatively, we are more likely to create a self-fulfilling prophecy and create the situation we fear the most.

During situations of stress, the mind may revert to autopilot and behave in ways that it has been previously programmed to. This will allow for the mind to revert to what you have practised, which will be beneficial to you.

Visualisations are also often used by famous athletes and entertainers and are believed to enhance their performance abilities.

3. Be authentic

There is so much pressure in society today to 'conform', 'wear a mask', or 'fit in' with how we think others want us to behave. Being someone else can be exhausting, and it can feel empowering to embrace your true self.

Embracing yourself, your gifts and abilities that you have to offer, and behaving in a way that feels good and true to yourself, can also give you a confidence boost.

4. Change your state

Changing the way you move and present your body can have a great impact on how you feel. People that lack confidence will usually sit slumped down with closed body language. So why not try opening up your body language, standing or sitting tall, moving your body in a way that you imagine a confident person would.

When you have good posture and change the movement of your body, you can often feel an immediate impact and confidence boost. In his book 'Unlimited Power', Tony Robbins, a famous life and business coach, demonstrates how a change in state can give you an immediate boost in confidence.

5. Meditation/mindfulness

Meditation can be an effective way of calming down the body and mind. It can help us to feel more relaxed and balanced, which is very helpful for situations where we need extra confidence.

Uz Afzal in her book Mindfulness for Children demonstrates how mindfulness is effective in aiding emotional regulation and helping the body move into the 'rest and digest system'. She highlights how mindfulness can aid us in making kinder and wiser decisions in our lives. In addition to this, because of neuroplasticity in the brain, the more we practice mindfulness the easier it will be to calm down our mind and body after difficult situations have arisen.

6. Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy can be a wonderful way of increasing your confidence and self-esteem. Hypnotherapy can help to reprogram some of the negative self-beliefs held by the subconscious mind. It can also be supportive in providing the subconscious mind with positive suggestions which help to improve confidence and self-esteem.

At the Hypnotherapy Directory, there are a range of amazing and experienced therapists you can contact if you are looking for help and support in increasing your confidence and self-esteem using hypnotherapy.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article - I wish you every success in moving towards a more confident version of yourself.

References

• Robbins. A (1988), Unlimited Power: Sydney, Robbins Research institute
• Afzal. A (2018) Mindfulness for Children: London, Kyle books