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[Personal Development]

7 Ways to Develop Self-Confidence

Improve Your Confidence with these 7 Personal Development Tips

What could life be like if you had full trust and confidence in yourself? At Life Ladder, our coaching team has helped countless people discover the answer to this question and develop unshakeable confidence in their personal and professional life. As we have years of experience helping people in this arena, we wanted to share 7 ways to develop self-confidence.

Let’s get started…

 

1. Identity - Confidence is a behaviour, not your identity

If you have a lack of confidence, this is a behaviour, it isn’t your identity. It may have been your past, but it doesn’t have to be your future.

Switch your focus! If you feel a lack of confidence, it’s highly likely you are focusing on what you’re not doing, what you think your faults are or, what you’re not achieving. Switch your attention to what you are getting done. Ask yourself the question: what have I done well? And imagine it is non-negotiable, you have to find answers. Imagine you would receive all your dreams and millions of pounds if you answer the question with a list of 10 things you can be happy with about yourself. Or you could imagine your job, home, or security depends on you asking the question.

I am saying this because when we are in a pattern of looking for what’s not good enough, it’s easy to think “I can’t think of anything I have done well.” This just means your mind needs re-training, you need to take control and imagine your HAVE TO answer the question.

You can also get people around you to help you. Get your friends or colleagues to ask you regularly what you’re doing well so you know you have to have the answers, it is part of getting your mind into the habit of looking for it.

You can also ask the question of others “what do you think I have done well?”

This may also help if you’re struggling to see it for yourself.

The power to change is in your hands, and you can do it! If you look for more good, you’ll find it. It’s all about your focus.

 

2. Gain a deeper understanding of why confidence is important to you

For the mind to change your pattern and start generating more confidence for you, it’s important to think through why is it important to you.

Sometimes, we can unconsciously stay in the pattern of lacking confidence because on some level it’s easier, less scary, safer. We have worked with countless people to improve their confidence and in some cases, the block to feeling confident was a safety measure, because if they allowed themselves to get confidence then people would expect more from them.

This may not be the case for you; however, we all have things under the surface we haven’t seen yet and it’s not always logical or what we expect.

So, to get confidence, ask yourself what you gain from having this lack of confidence (if anything).

Do you get extra nurturing, more understanding from others, more encouragement, more safety, and security because it’s what you know?

Take a note of the answer to this as we are going to come onto what to do with this in one of the later tips.

Ok, so now the very important question: why is it important to you to improve your self-confidence?

Write down as many answers to this question as you can because your mind needs to see the reward on the other side of the effort.

What will having more confidence enable you to do that you don’t currently do?

What will you gain in your life if you develop your confidence?

It’s like climbing over a wall to get to a garden because there’s something in the garden for you. You won’t climb the wall for something you don’t want.

It’s not enough to say, “I want self-confidence, so I don’t feel bad.”

That’s like saying “climb that wall because you might feel less bad if you do.”

Compared to “climb over that wall because when you do, you’ll have fun, celebrate and receive a wealth of things that make you happy.”

What would you climb over the wall for?

Don’t try to get out of the problem, focus on what you want and decide if it worth the effort of change.

 

3. What's stopping you from believing you can be confident?

Our belief system is full of cause and effect, which means we have created reasons for our beliefs.

For example: “I am not confident because I don’t understand the industry I am in,” or “I am not confident because I am too short / tall / skinny / overweight.”

You will have reasons for your lack of confidence and once you identify the reasons, you can give yourself reasons to feel differently.

Finish the following statement “I lack confidence because……….”

Now finish the following sentences to give yourself some ‘reasons’ to change.

“I believe I can change because……..” (Maybe you can remember making other changes in your past.)

“I believe I can start to embrace confidence because……”

“I am confident in some ways because……”

By planting new seeds in your belief system, you can change how you feel and therefore how you behave.

How to learn more about beliefs

We also have a wealth of resources on beliefs in our Life Ladder online personal development platform (click here for more info on membership benefits)

4. Use the power of your memories for confidence

You may not feel confident now, but if you look for it, there will be times in your memories where you did feel confident about something.

If you’re thinking “no there isn’t because I have lacked confidence my whole life” then you might be taking things for granted. Do you feel confident switching the kettle on? Having a shower?

At one time you were a child and didn’t know how to do these things.

There will be moments in your life when you did feel confident in one way or another, so scan your memories and make a list of as many times you have demonstrated confidence as you can think of, taking nothing for granted.

Realising that you have been confident in some ways and looking through this lens, will help re-programme your mind to see yourself differently.

5. Decide to let go of what’s stopping you from being confident

Earlier we mentioned the importance of identifying when you have an underlying gain for keeping hold of the issue.

So, let’s revisit those, if lacking confidence is providing something for you, such as ‘reassurance, stability, comfort, safer, less expectations of you’ etc. etc.

Are you willing to DECIDE that the gains of having more confidence outweighs the reasons for keeping the lack of confidence?

Decide to go for the benefits and that’s the instruction to your mind to climb over the wall (to follow up on our earlier example).

6. Develop the habit of noticing what you are confident about

For the next week, keep a confidence diary. Note down everything you say or do with confidence.

The more you notice it and give your attention to confidence, the more it will grow.

This is how you tell your mind you want more!

7. Use your imagination – connect to the life of confidence

To become a confident person, you need to understand how you will know when you are living this way.

So, imagine you feel confident about yourself, what would life be like?

What would you see, hear and experience in a life of confidence?

Consider what makes you get excited about a holiday, part of it is probably the pictures of the place and the hotel right? Or the imagination of the sensations of the sun and the pool?

The imagination creates the excitement, which generates the motivation to get there.

Connect to a life of more confidence with your imagination and you can ignite deeper motivation within to make it happen!

There you have it, 7 ways to get started on improving your self-confidence today!

For more information on how to join the Life Ladder personal development community for the low monthly membership of £9.99 per month, click here.