Confidence is one of those things that we often approach the wrong way around. The result is that we end up chasing it, doing things that are actually going to take us further away from it in an effort to get closer to it. So if you are keen to avoid doing that, you might need to learn a little more about what confidence actually is, how it works, and what you are likely to be able to do about it to get closer to it in your own life.
How To Feel Confident In Yourself
In this post, we will therefore take a look at some of the main ways to feel confident in yourself, and you might find that some of the following are a lot simpler than you had expected. Actually that is very often how it works – becoming confident ends up being something that you can do quite simply and easily, and that is really important to bear in mind here.
Defining Confidence
Because the word can be used in so many different ways, it might be helpful to discuss what we actually mean when we talk about confidence. Here we are referring to a kind of essential self-care, one based on seeing yourself as you are and being fundamentally accepting of yourself. If you are able to adopt that kind of view of yourself, and to treat yourself with essential kindness, then that is the kind of confidence we are talking about here, and you should find that you are going to really notice a difference.
So getting clear on this sense of confidence, we can already see some of the things you might be working on in order to get closer to this. It might be that you have particular areas here which you feel you could probably do with working on more, or you might not be entirely sure. Either way, it’s something that you can always make progress with, and it is really helpful to have this clear definition to start off with.
Stepping Back
Sometimes when you are working on yourself in this way, you may find it is necessary to step back a little and see what that does for you. The truth is that this is going to make a huge difference to how you approach things, and that you might very quickly see some things that you want to change, or which you feel are worthy of your acceptance. Either way, it’s something that you are going to want to think about, and you’ll find that just the act of stepping back and looking at yourself with fresh eyes is going to be really important.
Of course, it might be a bit of a shock what you find, especially if there is anything there that is particularly difficult to work with. But generally it’s going to be much better to be aware of this stuff, so that you can ensure you are going to work through it much more effectively on the whole.
Being Gentle With Yourself
As you go through this process, but also just generally, you really need to make sure that you are trying to be as gentle with yourself as possible. That is something that you should certainly aim for, but it’s important that you are gentle with the gentleness! If you try too hard to be gentle with yourself, then that’s actually the opposite, after all. So generally, you should aim for a light touch when it comes to building up your confidence in yourself and working on yourself.
This is a little like looking after a child or trying to keep a bird from flying away. You need to be gentle and caring, and partly because this is the attitude towards yourself that you are trying to develop generally anyway. If you are able to do this you should find that you are going to have a much better approach to your life overall and that it’s really going to make a huge difference to how you feel about yourself.
If you ever notice that you are not being quite as gentle as you could be, don’t beat yourself up – just think about what you might be able to do to turn that around. This is something that you are really going to find extremely useful, and it’s going to help you to develop more of the right attitude that you are hoping to develop. So all in all, being gentle with yourself is a really important thing to do, and something you should certainly make sure you are focused on as best as you can be.
Develop Your Personal Style
A really powerful and common way to feel more confident in yourself is to purposefully develop your style a little more. There are all sorts of ways in which you can do this, but as long as you are doing it consciously you should find that you are going to have a much better way of feeling about yourself and that you are starting to really enjoy being who you are. Personal style relates not only to your physical fashion sense – although that is important – but also to how you hold yourself and move through the world as a whole. So if you work on both of those elements, you are going to find that this probably makes a big difference.
When it comes to fashion sense, just make sure you are focused on wearing whatever makes you feel good in yourself and enjoy what you are and how you look. That can be done in whatever way you like. Sometimes just having a couple of corsets to wear underneath, or finding a new dress that you feel really speaks to you, can be all that is needed to really start enjoying your own style. Whatever it is, just make sure you are taking a conscious stand with your personal style, and you should find this is going to make all the difference.
And as for how you move through the world, there is something to be said here for being conscious and not simply floating around. If you can do that, it’s likely going to mean that you give off a better impression to other people, but most importantly you are going to feel personally so much more confident in yourself, and this is a feeling that cannot be replicated or bettered by any artificial means.
So as you can see, developing and embodying your own personal style is a really important part of feeling more confident in yourself.
Build Your Skills
Whoever you are, there will be some skills that you have that are particular to you, and these are something that you should really be focusing on if you want to feel more confident in yourself. There is something about doing what you are good at, and getting even better at it, which really helps you to improve, and you are going to find that it’s something you really need to be aware of and try to improve in whatever way is possible. To that end, you may want to consider how you are going to go about doing that.
The first step is to identify what skills you feel you have, and to see what you might be able to do to improve them. It might be that you are not that in touch with what your skills are – which is a very common situation indeed – so you might have to spend some time figuring that out. However, once you have figured it out, you can then simply build them up through practice, and the more you do that, the more your confidence will quite naturally grow and develop.
So don’t judge what your skills are – just follow them and see what happens. You might find that you are going to have a much better feeling of self love as a result of this quite naturally.
Develop Relationships
Relationships are important to all of us, because we are relational beings. If you are keen to try and live a fuller and happier life, you will almost certainly find that this involves, to some extent at least, trying to develop stronger and better relationships with people. Now, you are not the sole responsibility for your relationships, because it takes two. But if you are doing your part, you are going to be so much more likely to be met with the right kind of response from people, and you are going to develop a relationship so much more easily and profoundly.
So be sure to bring your best, honest self to people, and you should find this really makes a difference.
As you can see, there are a few things you might want to focus on to ensure that you are going to feel more confident in yourself, and this is something that you should certainly bear in mind.
**Contributed post