Self-confidence is like a superpower. It allows you to take risks, to ask for items that more timid people would be scared to do, and attract positive people into your life.
As social creatures, we can always tell when someone has high self-confidence versus when they lack it. Low self-confidence can be disguised but not completely masked, which is why you need to practice these self-confidence exercises to boost your self worth and gain the ultimate superpower.
Exercise
Literally. Exercise. As in running, swimming, or cycling.
Exercise is one of the best ways to improve your mood. It not only reduces anxiety but releases endorphins in your brain, which is one of the “feel-good” chemicals that help reduce the symptoms of depression.
When you exercise, you tend to only focus on the exercise at hand because it’s physically exerting. Let’s say you’re running, for example. If you’re running at a pace that pushes past your comfort zone, you’re breathing hard, and your muscles are perhaps burning. Your brain can’t think past the discomfort in your body and the self-talk to keep you going.
Not only can you get immense psychological benefits from exercise, but physical ones as well. If you’re self-conscious about how you look, exercising helps you shed pounds and slim down. Body confidence should come to people of any size, but feeling physically good in your body helps boost your confidence.
And perhaps one of the best aspects of exercise that helps you boost your confidence is how accomplished you feel after it.
When you say you are going to run three miles without stopping, you have to force yourself to keep going even when it’s tough, and your body is screaming at you to stop. But you keep going, and when you finish those three miles, you feel on top of the world.
Exercise boosts your self-discipline, which can then be applied to other areas of your life. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, musician, writer, or filmmaker, the discipline behind exercise can help you accomplish the success you’ve been dreaming of.
Filmmaker and YouTuber Matt D’Avella makes videos to help people along in their self-improvement journey. He has said that the habit that changed his life for the better was exercise. According to D’Avella, exercising is a keystone habit or one good habit that leads to other good habits, such as waking up early and eating healthier.
How to Start Exercising
There’s hope for you if you’re a couch potato. No matter what your circumstances are, there are things you can do to get your heart pumping.
Here’s what you need to do: start ridiculously simple.
Start with a daily requirement that’s so simple you would feel like an idiot if you missed it. This means exercising for 30 seconds. Everyone has 30 seconds in their 24 hour day to spare.
The reason you should start ridiculously simple is that it takes the excuse out of exercising. There’s no reason why you can’t exercise for 30 seconds. You could do it at the beginning of your day and knock it out instantly.
By starting your habits insanely simple, you start within the means of your willpower, so you’re not draining yourself. Instead, you’re training yourself to factor exercise into your life — no matter how small it is. When you’ve established exercise into your schedule and officially become someone who exercises, you can increase the amount of time you exercise.
But increasing exercise comes later. What should come now is simply starting.
Stop Talking Negative and Start Speaking Positively
Whether it’s to yourself or those around you, one of the best things you can do to clean up your mental space is to switch to positive speech.
This means that when someone cuts you off in traffic, you don’t yell at them and curse their entire family lineage. This means that when someone does something you don’t like, you don’t talk smack about them to your friends behind their back.
Speaking positively about things forces you to change your mindset. Yes, there are so many things to complain about in this world. The climate is on fire. People can’t seem to drive, and it’s very easy to feel like the world is out to get you.
But here’s the thing: people don’t care.
People don’t care about the bad things in your life because they’re too busy focusing on the bad stuff in theirs. Everyone goes through tough periods, but that doesn’t mean you get a free pass to traipse around town and leave complaints everywhere. You end up spending people’s time and attention on things they don’t care about.
This isn’t to say that you can’t complain to friends about issues that deeply affect you. Let’s say your boss exhibits abusive behavior, such as overstepping boundaries and insulting you in front of your coworkers. Those are serious workplace issues that need to be addressed, and talking to your friends can be one effective way to brainstorm solutions to the problem.
But when it comes to minor issues like the weather, bad traffic, or a waiter who messed up your meal, people don’t care. And those who do seem to care only pretend to do so because they’re polite.
When the only thing out of your mouth is negative, you push the positive people away from you. Likes attract likes, and no one wants to feel burdened with constant negativity. Complaining about frivolous items brings the mood down and can be annoying after a while.
Why You Need Positive Speech
Attract More Positive People in Your Life
Instead of saying, “There was this crazy guy driving on the road, I’m so sick of bad drivers!” opt for “Though there are bad drivers, I’m glad that none of them have hurt the people I love.” Kitsch aside, it’s a more positive take on a daily occurrence.
Notice the spin? You go from “Man, people suck” to “Man, I’m glad the people I love are alive.” You go from chastising to appreciation. It’s humbling to say the second sentence, and people like the gratefulness you exhibit.
If you skew your speech to reflect the second statement rather than the first, you’ll find yourself attracting more positive folks in your friend circle. Those positive people, in turn, will challenge you to think with appreciation and gratefulness in mind.
Change Your Inner Monologue
Positive external speech helps you change your internal remarks. We’re often our own worst critics since we’re the only ones who have to live with ourselves.
No one else knows all your fears, embarrassments, regrets, and anxieties. No one else’s brain brings these things up to the forefront of their consciousness the way your brain does. You have to love and forgive yourself continually, and that’s hard to do.
But when you practice talking positively to those around you, you can begin to speak positively to yourself.
The reason is that it’s weird to break a habit. If you’re used to always saying good things, you’ll notice the difference when what you say is negative. Since you notice the difference, you’ll be more likely to refute the negative statement and put a positive spin on it.
Positive self-talk is one of the best ways to boost your confidence. You become your own best friend, teammate, and fan. Instead of saying, “You’re stupid and will fail this test,” you say, “You might not know everything, but you will do the best you can on your test.” The second is more affirming and will set an expectation of success instead of failure.
Some other positive affirmations to say to yourself include:
- I deserve to be happy and prosperous.
- Mistakes are the stepping stones to success.
- I love the person I am becoming.
- I will continue to learn and grow.
Positive affirmations may seem cheesy and childish, but if you find yourself in a mentally dark place, they can be the key to changing that momentum. You have to start somewhere, and the essential place is in your mind.
Remind Yourself That You Will Be Okay
Alright, there are some situations you enter in which you might not be okay, such as if you have a dangerous job or plan to go into a jungle or something akin to it.
But for us regular folk, we rarely encounter such physical dangers. We work our office jobs and drive our cars and eat at food-regulated restaurants.
And yet, our anxiety can get the best of us in the most inopportune situations. When we have a speech to give in front of a crowd, or we see a celebrity we want to meet. We’ll feel afraid to ask out that cute person in a bar or feel the crush of failure when we do poorly on a test.
But here’s the thing: You’ll be okay. You’re not going to die if the person you ask out rejects you or if you do poorly on a test. The dread you felt before those events, while warranted, is ultimately meaningless.
In fact, you can learn a lot of things from rejection. Rejection is the number one lesson that you will be okay even if what you want doesn’t go your way. It’s so powerful that some people can even give TEDxTalks about it.
Remind yourself that you’ll be okay no matter what emboldens you. You have a little more courage to go out and do the thing you want without fear holding you back. When you’re feeling a little scared and unconfident, just remember that you will be okay.
Limit Social Media
There’s a quote that says comparison is the thief of joy. It’s credited to Theodore Roosevelt, but the quote still applies today.
With social media like Instagram and Twitter, it’s easy to compare yourself to other people. On Instagram, you might not feel as physically attractive as the models you see. On Twitter, you might not think you’re as effortlessly funny, witty, or intelligent as the people you read.
And there are statistics to back up the adverse effects of social media on our psyches. One study found that of the people aged 28-73, social media lead to a decrease in self-esteem in 60% of people. Not only that, but 50% of people reported that social media negatively impacted their relationships.
Social media is designed to be addictive. Your brain gets a rush of dopamine when it sees that you got a notification and that a large number of people liked your photo. Your brain wants another hit, which is why you continue to post and post.
But especially on Instagram, it’s easy to feel like you’re not presenting your most authentic self. You have to take 100 different selfies from various angles before you find the perfect one. In the 99 that preceded it, you can’t help but think, “No, too ugly, no, not good enough.” Over and over, that repetition can get to you.
If you’re an avid poster on social media, take a break. Even if you’re just a lurker, take a break too. Your brain will eventually go back to the way it was before all the likes and comments became your norm. Your sense of self will no longer be based on numbers and external validations but from other, more important areas.
However, depending on your job, you have to continue to use social media. This is true if you’re in marketing or advertising, and especially true if you’re an influencer. Some people have made their living by posting on social media, but that doesn’t mean it can’t affect your self-confidence.
If you’re afraid of what your social media fans will say, remind yourself that you’re human, and you have to take care of your needs first. Taking a short break from social media and living your life away from it will reap fantastic benefits for your self-confidence.
Start Grooming Better
There are only so many aspects of ourselves that we can modify. We can’t change how tall we are or what our face looks like. What we can do, though, is change how we groom, dress, and smell.
Grooming involves guaranteeing the utmost hair (body and otherwise), nail, skin, and dental care. It means you bathe regularly, trim your hair, cut your nails, wash your skin, and brush your teeth daily.
You can groom however you like. Some men, for example, groom their beards to have sharp lines along their lower cheeks. They opt to keep the stuff on their faces while trimming what grows on their necks.
Lots of women choose to remove hair all over their bodies, but some prefer to keep some armpit hair. Women also tend to wear perfume and get their hair done at a salon regularly.
However, you decide to groom, ensure you’re caring for your body’s needs. It was long expected that women were the ones to shave, keep their nails and teeth perfect while men were given a free pass, but no longer. Lots of men are opting to shave their body hair and style their hair with the utmost care.
Whatever the case may be, looking and smelling your best is a great way to boost confidence. When you’re rocking killer body odor, no one wants to be around you — and you know it. Poor hygiene not only makes you look and smell bad but feel bad as well.
Since hygiene is something you can control, ensure you’re keeping up with it regularly. If you let your nails and hair grow wild, ensure your breath and body smells good.
Learn Healthy Selfishness
There’s nothing worse than working with someone who feels entitled, as if they’re a spoiled brat who made it to adulthood. This type of person demands to get what they want all the time and makes sure other people lose so they can win.
That’s unhealthy selfishness. It tends to destroy relationships and keep people away from you.
But too much selflessness can be unhealthy as well. This means you’re the type of person to overextend yourself and be too generous even when you don’t want to. Unhealthy selflessness is also known as being a “Yes man” or everyone’s doormat since you let people walk all over you.
Being too passive and giving everyone what they want prevents you from getting what you want. It stops you from having your needs met. Not having your needs met makes you feel secretly resentful and angry at the people around you, and these feelings can grow the longer you don’t do anything about them.
Not only does your mental health take a toll by being a doormat, but your confidence takes a hit as well. You learn that what you want doesn’t matter and that your needs don’t matter as much as the needs of people around you. This means you deserve less than those around you, which could stop you from going after other things you want in life.
It’s okay to be selfish. To live a successful life, you have to be selfish. Why would you write a book if you didn’t think it was worth the readers’ time? That involves a sense of selfishness. Why would you ask someone out if you didn’t want their company? You have to want to get what you want.
With the book and date example, you should obviously have something to offer, but the point is there. To build confidence, you have to be assertive and to demand to get what you want.
Let’s say you’re at the gym ( because exercising builds confidence) using a machine. Midway through, you decide to go get some water — but you’re not done. When you come back, someone is sitting at the machine, scrolling through their phone.
The meek, unconfident person would walk around awkwardly until that person got up. The confident person would walk up to that person and say, “Hey, sorry, I wasn’t finished using that machine. I just have a few last reps I need to finish.”
There’s a good chance that the person sitting at the machine will apologize and let you use the machine. If they demand to keep using the machine, they’re probably an unhealthily selfish person and not worth your time.
Either way, you did something important: you stood up for yourself and what you want. You can feel the rush of strength swell in your chest and upper body. You’ve proven to yourself that you’re no one’s floor mat anymore.
It’s difficult and scary to stand up for yourself. If you want to please people and make everyone like you constantly, you’ll find it extremely difficult to be assertive at the beginning, since people are bound not to like the fact that you’re not giving in to their demands.
But other people who are secure in themselves can afford to give up what they want for a second or two to let you have what you want, such as the machine. When it comes to bigger things, like jobs or money, you have to be okay with people not liking you. Once you become okay with that, you know you have acquired high self-confidence.
Practice Personal Integrity
Everyone has their definition of living with personal integrity. You can certainly have your own, so we don’t mean to define one sense of integrity as superior over the other.
However, we believe that there are certain trends among those with high personal integrity. These are people with strong moral compasses, an affinity for honesty, and a tendency towards empathy.
You might have made mistakes in your life in which you lied to someone and seriously hurt them. Let’s say you cheated on a former partner and got found. Not only did you dissolve that relationship because of your lack of infidelity, but your confidence took a hit. You are now a “cheater” and a liar, and that makes you feel terrible about yourself.
But there’s still time to change. If you promise to practice transparency and radical honesty in your relationships and treat people with the utmost empathy, the tide can turn for your self-confidence. You were once a cheater, but if you hold yourself to high standards now, you can rebuild your confidence and the trust people put in you.
Practicing personal integrity also comes in other ways, as well. Let’s say someone dropped $20 on the ground at a cafe. Instead of waiting for the person to walk away and pocketing it, you tap the person on the shoulder and tell them they dropped their money. The person thanks you and collects it.
While you didn’t walk away $20 richer, you can rest assured that, even when that person should have been more careful with their money, you still didn’t take it. You gave it back to the person who lost it, because had the roles been reversed, you would have been bummed to lose $20 from your pocket.
Doing the right thing is a great way to boost your confidence because you show with your actions that you are a good, just, and honest person. When you can say those things truthfully, with anecdotal evidence to back it up, it’s a great confidence boost. It’s like looking on an excellent resume and saying, “Wow, I did all that. I’m a great person.”
Hold yourself to a high standard. Now live by those standards, and you’ll be feeling confident.
Find the Lesson in Everything
This is perhaps the most cliche advice on the list. Yes, you’ve heard it a thousand times, but it bears repeating. There are lessons in every hardship and every success you encounter. Shifting your mindset to find the lesson in everything, especially when it’s a negative situation, allows you to pull yourself out of a victim mindset and into a more autonomous one.
This isn’t to say that you can’t experience emotions for a little bit. Letting yourself feel your emotions instead of suppressing them can be one of the healthiest things a human can do. But don’t wallow in the “woe is me” mindset for too long, as it soon becomes easy to find yourself the victim to the various bullies around you.
Instead, you have to think strategically and find how you can use each bad situation as a teacher to improve in the future. For example, that bad presentation you gave to your coworkers today could have been due to poor preparation, so next time you’ll know to prepare for a presentation instead of winging it.
When you find lessons in everything, you put yourself in conversation with your future self. You say, “I’m going to find the various teachers in my life so that I can become better and not fall prey to the same pitfalls I once did.” When you do that, you gain back autonomy and find the motivation to improve your life. From there, your confidence will grow.
People have low self-confidence for a variety of reasons, but that doesn’t mean you have to have it forever. By tackling your low self-confidence and doing these exercises, you’ll find yourself slowly feeling more powerful and confident in your life.