How to Build Self Confidence and Self Esteem

Self confidence is how we feel about ourselves. It is the belief in our abilities to accomplish any task no matter the odds, difficulties and adversities. Our success, by and large, is the result of our iron faith in ourselves translated into action. It is the “open sesame” to success. At the same time we tend to become more confident when we succeed in something or feel accomplished. That is, self confidence and success follow each other.

Lack of self confidence leads to low self esteem, poor self worth and self doubt. Since such people doubt their own abilities they are hesitant to take risks or better opportunities, this hampers their growth in both personal and professional life. People with low self confidence -- tend to hate themselves, are obsessed with being perfect, are oversensitive, fearful, often get angry and are people pleasers. All these factors hold back such people from focusing and working towards their goals.

On the other hand, people with high self confidence generally like themselves, are willing to take risks and bigger opportunities to achieve their personal and professional goals and think positively about their future.

Now, we cannot deny the fact that aoint or the other we have all gone through self doubt and lack of self confidence or are going through it, but fortunately there are many things we can do to elevate our self confidence and self esteem. Here are some tips how to go about it:

• Take care of yourself: Do something good for your body every single day. Exercise regularly, develop a good eating and sleeping habit and take care of your hair, skin and nails. Dress the way you want to. Do anything that makes you feel good about yourself. Work towards developing a healthy physique.

• Stay away from negative people: Negative people are extremely dangerous for your emotional health. They try to break your confidence with their negative talks. It becomes important to either maintain a distance from these kinds of people or, if possible, eliminate them from your life. Though it will hurt you in the beginning but will pay you off well in the long run.

• Visualise yourself as you want to be: We all have a mental picture of ourselves which determines how confident we feel. A poor self image results in low self confidence. Use visualisation technique to see an image of yourself that you are proud of. That is, visualize the best version of yourself.

• Appreciate yourself: We tend to behave in accordance with our own self image. We believe whatever we tell ourselves and appreciation is a positive and uplifting statement we say to ourselves. The trick here is to change the way how you view yourself. So the more you appreciate yourself, more you tend to believe in the goodness in you and more proud you feel about yourself. Always remember, there is no one else like you and that is your superpower.

• Improve your posture: Yes, there exists a body posture that makes you look and feel confident. Stand and walk in an upright position, with your chest out and shoulders pulled back. This will help you to look taller and broader and can even trick your brain into feeling more confident and capable.

• Maintain an eye contact: When we maintain a good eye contact while conversing with others it shows how confident we are and speaks volumes about our sincerity and transparency.

• Empower yourself: One of the best ways to feel more confident is to empower yourself with more knowledge by reading, researching and studying, taking up new courses, etc. Prepare yourself for your own betterment and practice, practice, practice whether it is public speaking, swimming or driving. Remember, no one has ever felt confident doing anything for the first time. Hence, practice is the key to feel more confident.

• Extend a helping hand: Try to help others as often as possible it makes you feel amazing about yourself. You feel incredible because you know you have done something good for someone. This skyrockets your self esteem and confidence.

• Develop a mentality of ‘Equality’: It is important to see yourself as equal to everyone. People with low self esteem and low self confidence tend to perceive others better than them, which is often inaccurate. Consider yourself equally deserving as others.

• Celebrate yourself: People with low self esteem have a hard time celebrating themselves even when they have accomplished something amazing. They tend to compare themselves with others which may breed the feelings of inadequacy. To overcome this feeling you have to learn to celebrate every achievement of yours whether big or small. Take time to reflect on all the hard work you have put into it and be proud of it because most people cannot put in that much effort as you.

• Smile: A warm and genuine smile is the basis of a confident personality. So smile, to look and feel more confident. Make sure your smile is subtle and looks natural. A fake smile is easily recognizable.

Learning how to be confident is an important part of self improvement. Furthermore self assured people derive satisfaction from their own achievements. They have an upper hand in their ability to achieve success and happiness in their personal and professional life. Confidence affects almost everything you do, from what you think, to what you say and even how you look and as they say “if you are confident, you are beautiful.”