6 Personal Development Tips to Improve Your Confidence

Looking to improve your confidence? You’re not alone. It’s safe to say that pretty much everyone has felt self-conscious, or lacking in confidence, at some point in their life. 

If only there was a way you could simply wake up with a newfound confidence which sticks around for the rest of your lives. 

I’ll let you in on a secret. You can. Okay that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It’s not going to take one day of positive thinking and you’ll magically wake up the next day and you’ll be ‘cured’. 

It will take persistence and personal development.  

At Life Ladder, our expert coaching team has helped countless numbers of people boost their confidence, so we’re keen to share how to improve your self-confidence. 

Not everyone has the time or available funds to invest in a Life Coach or personal development coach, so we wanted to share some valuable tips that can empower you to take steps towards overcoming this on your own. As a business, we specialise in providing an affordable alternative to coaching, putting you in the driving seat of your personal development, so we want to help! 

1. Be confident: recognise what you already have already 

Perhaps you haven’t noticed yet, but you’re pretty impressive. There is no one in the world exactly like you. 

You may not believe it, but it’s absolutely true. No-one has your mind, your heart or experiences. You are full of wonderful individuality. 

It’s so easy to spend your time thinking about what you don’t have, or what’s not good enough about you, that you forget to think about the good things. Sometimes it’s hard to believe they exist, but I promise you, there are many of them. 

When improving self-confidence, a good starting point is to identify what is good about what you do. Think about what’s great with how you think, how you look, what you have achieved, how much you have learned, your attitude, your ability to love... I could go on forever! 

Whatever it may be, there will be loads. Start noticing the good stuff. 

Next time you think... 

“I’m not good enough.” 

Ask yourself...... 

Compared to who? 

The world is literally chock-a-block full of people. Who decides what ‘good enough’ is? 

You’re the boss of who YOU are. 

If you want improve things about yourself, then improve them. If you don’t care about it, then don’t change it. 

Just because you want a change doesn’t mean that you’re currently not good enough. We are all on a journey, a discovery to find out who we really are. What does or doesn’t happen today, you can learn from to be better tomorrow. Start a daily tracker of all the things you’re happy with and everything you have done well. Take the time to notice the good stuff, even the smallest of successes, and you will layer the building blocks of confidence on top of each other to build confidence in abundance. 

It may seem difficult to begin with, but it will become a natural impulse to write down all your successes over time. The more you praise yourself, the more you’ll naturally praise yourself every time you do something great. 

An article on entrepreneur.com says: “Develop a reward system. It’s an element of classical conditioning: rewards shape long-term positive behaviour.” 

2. Achievement and successes build confidence

Get yourself a piece of paper, or open up a word document, and list all of your achievements. It doesn’t matter how small they may seem. It could be a time what you expressed your feelings well or when you handed in a great piece of work. 

Start from as far back as you can remember and re-live all the positive moments. Make sure you note all of your small achievements and things that made you feel good. 

Once you have a long list, add to it every day. Put down all of the great decisions you made. All of the moments you stayed strong and all of the moments where you went out of your way to make a difference to others. 

In my experience, this practice really gives you perspective on how much you achieve every day. It’s difficult to see the wood through the trees when it comes to personal success and we often overlook the small things even though they should still be counted on as achievements. 

3. Connect with when you have felt really confident before 

At some point in your life, I bet there was a moment where you did something confidently. Even just one moment where you threw caution to the wind and just went for it. 

Next time you find yourself hesitant in a situation and needing a confidence boost, allow your mind to take you back to that moment. Really connect with it. Feel the way you felt. Hear what you heard. See what you saw. Let it wash over you. 

What was that like, feeling so confident? What was the feeling? 

Right now, get inside that feeling. Sit quietly with your eyes closed and really allow yourself to connect with that memory. Imagine what’s happening around you and what you see, hear and feel. Ramp up the feeling and let it absorb you. If you’re there, well done. You have now discovered a brilliant resource – you can connect to that feeling any time you want! 

The more you connect with it, the more confident you will become and the faster you’ll get back to that feeling every day. 

Photo by Alena Jarrett on Unsplash

4. Stop comparing yourself to others it destroys confidence

Forget about everyone else. What matters is you. 

This isn’t being selfish, so don’t worry if you’re the kind of person who always puts others first (as people with low self-confidence often do!). 

Everything that happens in this world is a matter of opinion. When you look at someone and think they’re better than you, it doesn’t mean everyone else thinks the same. Some might do, and others won’t. 

We cannot control what others think. We can only control what we think. It’s what we think that matters because our perceptions are what we project into the world. 

The moment you start feeling good on the inside, you project goodness and attract more positive results. I know I sound like one of those Facebook memes by saying that, but it really is true! 

You need to stop worrying about what other people think (easier said than done!). When you line up 10 random people and ask them their opinion on literally anything, they will all have different views. If people can’t agree on what the best type of cheese is, who are they to judge whether you’re the right kind of person or not? There is no right or wrong, the only person you should listen to when it comes to YOU is yourself. 

Comparing yourself isn’t actually accurate or fact based, this is mentioned in an article on Huffpost.com on why you should stop comparing yourself to others. 

5. Look forward 

I’ve already mentioned using your past experiences to help you. Now, I want to talk about looking forward. 

A lot of the time when I’m working with someone who lacks confidence, their main concern is about what WILL/COULD happen.  

When you’re concerned about a future event, I want you to sit and imagine yourself doing it. Notice all the sights, sounds and feelings associated with it. Imagine it going really well, exactly like you hoped it would. 

Now, fast forward to just after the event has finished. Imagine it’s gone perfectly to plan. What’s the feeling? What’s that success like? What will you be saying, and what will others be saying to you? 

By connecting to the event like this, it directs our mind into a more positive position. Our deeper mind (subconscious) works with pictures, sounds and feelings. By using this technique to connect with the event, it creates a map within the mind of where you want to go. 

As I’m sure you’ve been told time and time again, life is a journey. It’s up to you to choose your destination and have a map. When you pre-emptively map out the good feelings and steer towards them, you’re giving yourself the best chance of getting there. 

6. Be okay with whatever happens 

Finally, and most importantly, be okay with how it goes. No matter what. 

As an example, let’s say you’re nervous about a presentation. When you do it, you miss a few bits. Your nervousness stops you from being able to speak as calmly as you’d hoped, and you miss some key words. 

How is that a problem? At worst, your co-workers will just note that you’re nervous and shrug it off. At best, they won’t even notice. 

It’s only a problem if you choose to make it one. 

Tell yourself, whatever happens, this is a journey and I will learn from it and move on to be wiser and more knowledgeable. 

Fill yourself with empowering beliefs and take the pressure off yourself. You’ll be amazed at how it helps your confidence. 

So, we have come to the end of the article on how to improve confidence. We hope that you have gained new insights. The best way to develop unshakeable confidence is to make personal development a habit, this changes how you feel about yourself. Personal development is our speciality, that’s why members love Life Ladder personal development memberships.