What is confidence?
Confidence is a belief in yourself and your abilities, not in an arrogant way, but in a realistic, secure and self-assured way. It’s all about believing that you’re capable and feel sure about your abilities, choices and values. Confidence doesn’t need to loud or extroverted, and can often be quiet, calm and silent. Authentic confidence comes from you and is grounded in your ability to know your own strengths and areas you’d like to improve while still feeling confident about yourself as a person.
Confidence is a state of mind
Different situations may change how confident you feel. Take some time to think of a scenario where you feel confident, whether that’s at home with your family, exercising or in a team meeting at work. Try to answer the following questions…
- Do you understand why you feel confident?
- What is it about the situation that helps you feel confident?
- Does the confidence come completely from you, or from other people?
Now think of a scenario where you feel less confident, whether that’s public speaking, travelling to a new city or meeting someone for the first time.
Again, answer these questions…
- Do you understand why you feel less confident?
- How do you know you’re not confident?
- What evidence is there to support this?
It’s interesting to reflect on what gives you confidence in one situation but leaves you lacking in another. Our levels of self-confidence are fluid and vary between specific situations and over time. For example, sometimes it’s affected by how we feel that day or how others impact us.
Self-confidence comes from knowing who we are and trusting in ourselves to cope with and manage what we’re faced with in life. This self-awareness can also help us to be more self-accepting which in turn feeds our ability to be self-confident.
What does confidence mean to you?
Self-reflection is an effective way to find out. Think back to the scenario you imagined earlier where you felt less confident, and consider what you would look like as a more confident person in that situation…
- How would you sound when you speak?
- How would you hold yourself and what would your posture look like?
- What would it feel like to be more confident in this situation?
- Would others interact with you differently?
Write down your answers and visualise how you would bring this confidence to life. Practising better posture, body language and facial expressions can also help you feel more comfortable and confident.
Learn from others
Discover how to be more self-confident by observing others. Being open to learning from your peers can really benefit you, noting their behaviour in conversations, their facial expressions and how they carry themselves.
Tips for building confidence
Let’s take a look at some top tips to build confidence in situations that may make you feel a little anxious. From public speaking, meetings, dates, 1-1 conversations and more, it’s important to focus on your communication, both verbal and non verbal.
- Think about your body language. Try to not slouch, stand tall.
- Think about your eye contact. It’s natural to look someone in the eyes and alter your gaze away during conversation. If you find it difficult to make eye contact, focus on a point in the middle of the person’s forehead.
- Think about your verbal communication. Choose your words carefully and listen to your tone of voice. Use ‘I will’ or ‘I want to’ as opposed to ‘I should’, as ‘I’ statements are an incredibly powerful way of taking ownership of a situation.
- Don’t be afraid to say no. This can help you feel more confident, whether you’re saying no to yourself or to others. For example, ‘No, I can’t take that extra project on right now but let’s review the situation in a month’ or ‘No, I won’t have a drink tonight, I need to get up early tomorrow and I want to feel fresh’.
- Be aware of verbal or non-verbal clues from others. Confidence can be knocked simply by not knowing what someone else is feeling or thinking. Asking questions and actively listening to their response can help give us some insight.
- Always be prepared. Speaking in front of others can be daunting, so prepare, do your research and make sure you’re an expert in your field.
- Practise breathing techniques to relieve anxiety. Sometimes when we’re not feeling confident, it’s easy to get in our own heads, shut down and feel anxious. Be mindful of when this is happening, take a few slow, deep breaths or press your foot down on the floor to help ground you.
The first step to feeling more confident
After you’ve pinpointed situations where you feel less confident, start thinking about what steps you can take to improve. It can be simple things like wearing a new colour when socialising, making eye contact when meeting someone new or a different posture in a team meeting. It takes time to make change, so be kind to yourself while on your path to building confidence.
Learn from experience
You can also help improve your self-confidence by building an ‘evidence bank’ for future reference. Whenever you feel confident, capture the moment and note in detail what the situation was, who was involved, how you felt and what happened. Referring back to these examples can be reassurance in future if you’re ever feeling less confident.
Ask for help
While it’s largely down to us to help ourselves become more confident, encouragement from others and positive feedback can help grow our sense of self-worth and self-confidence. Asking others for feedback on how you behave, your performance and your body language can give you great insight into how you appear to others.
Inevitably, your self-confidence may sometimes take a knock. Seek a coach or a therapist if you regularly feel overwhelmed or can’t understand your lack of confidence. While you have the power to make a change in your life, it’s ok to do this with the support of someone else.