Do you know how a muscle gets stronger?
You work it in the gym. By lifting weights you break the muscle down and cause the fibers to tear. It is sore for a few days. But you make sure you give your body the proper fuel. As it heals, it comes back stronger. This is the same concept that you must understand when it comes to building confidence in yourself.
In order to build confidence, you’re going to need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. If all you do is what you’re comfortable doing, you’ll never grow. So you’ll have to start making your way outside of your comfort zone.
Building confidence comes from doing something over and over again, from failing over and over again, until you feel like you’ve got this. This includes building confidence within yourself.
If you struggle with self confidence, this is for you. I’m sharing my top tips to start building that confidence muscle.
- Go After a Long Lost Dream
The best way to build confidence is to do things that you enjoy and continue to get better at them. I don’t mean stick to the same stuff that you always do.
If you love to write, start the blog.
If you love to workout, lift.
If you love to sing, sign up for karaoke.
But you’ve got to start moving out of your comfort zone before you will ever feel confident beyond it. It is scary, but that is what’s going to increase your confidence.
- Tell yourself that you’re confident
This sounds so ridiculous but this is a huge part of the “fake it until you make it” concept. Every morning when you wake up, look in the mirror and say “I am confident. I am strong. I can do anything I put my mind to.” Don’t believe it? That’s fine – I didn’t at first either. But if you make this a solid practice, one day you’ll realize that you do. You’ll look in the mirror and think to yourself, “Man, I’m amazing” without a second thought. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen if you’re committed to the process.
- Complete a Project that you’ve started
When you finish something you’ve been working towards, it will give you an incredible boost of confidence. You’ll be proud of yourself for completing it, it will give you momentum to keep going, and it will be something that you can use to remind yourself how awesome you are. So get serious. Pick one project. Set deadlines and meet them. It will tell you that you’re the type of person that finishes what they start. I don’t know about you, but it feels pretty dang good when I feel that way.
- Look at all of the things you’ve accomplished in life, and be proud of yourself for doing so.
You’ve survived every moment up to now. That means all of the bad days, all of the good days, all of the things that you thought you wouldn’t make it through, you did. That is pretty dang amazing. Make a list of all of the things you’ve accomplished and praise yourself for it.
My list looks like this:
I’m a great mom. My son is thriving and doing so well.
I started my website.
I’ve changed my body so much in not a lot of time.
I get my butt to the gym without any excuses every day.
These are the things that I’m so proud of that remind that, even on the bad days, I’m capable of so much more than I ever thought.
- Cultivate a Community of support
I have made a conscious effort to surround myself with people that encourage and challenge me. I have friends that hype me up when I do awesome things, and push me when I get lazy. I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough. Even if you don’t have people within arm’s reach, create a community through social media or that you can call on a consistent basis. Having people that continually lift you up will build your confidence in more ways than you could possibly guess.
People tell me all of the time they wish they had my confidence – and this is honestly how I’ve done it! There are plenty of days I don’t actually feel confident, but I own it anyway. I remember back when I had absolutely no self confidence – that is enough to know that I never want to go back there. Every day I’m working toward my best self, and confidence plays such a huge part in that.
Do you struggle with confidence? Did any of these tips resonate with you?
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