5 Ways To Build Confidence And Improve Your Personal Image.
There are many personality traits and character attributes that help you achieve success. These include your level of drive, ambition, tenacity, obsession with crushing your goals, and most importantly, confidence level.
Easy to brush off and label other successful entrepreneurs based on their end results as talented or gifted and where they are in life and business today. If you saw them from day one, their hustle and grind to be the kind of individuals they are, you would say otherwise.
Confidence is a skill that can be worked on and learned over time. The most valuable tool that helps you with your confidence also happens to be your worst-performing asset if not trained properly - your mind.
Fair warning and a word of advice, if you’re looking for a quick and easy hack to gain confidence, it best you stop reading here and now. Here’s the guaranteed outcome if you diligently follow through with the steps:
Will it be simple? Yes, but not easy and the payoff is amazing.
Will it be quick? No, all great and amazing things take time to be built.
In a world of instant gratification, your mind has been programmed receive dopamine hit at the single push of a button. Adapting to a change in lifestyle and mindset will take time.
1. Master A Craft or Skill
Now this can be anything you want or are interested in. Whether you’re into knitting, painting, copywriting, baking, software development, or want to be a professional athlete, it doesn't matter.
Pick one thing – and one thing only – because you wouldn’t want to be a jack of all trades and master of none. Once you’ve finalized your desired craft or skill to master, pursue it with all your might, dedicate yourself, and commit yourself to learning and mastering the skill.
Sounds simple so far, right?
Here come’s the hard part. You’re to do this day in and day out without noticing results or success.
For the first three months learn and apply all newfound knowledge and wisdom about your craft. Look for practice opportunities whether it’s a friend, family member, neighbor or even your current and existing customer.
During months four to six, you have built a solid foundation and should actively seek out new clients to offer your services with both proof and a portfolio of having done the work.
By the 12th month aka one year in, you now have a skill with a strong foundation and evidence of helping other people achieve either personal or business success.
Welcome to a whole new realm my friend. While you’re far away from being a master of a craft, rest assured that your confidence level is at an all-time high and will only grow from here.
This is because the anxious voice in your head will eventually fade away and you’ll feel as if your mind has been fortified and no external factors can dictate how you feel internally.
2. Workout And Healthy Eating
Let's start with working out. If you’ve never worked out before or hit the gym start with simple baby steps. Go for walks every day for the next month for 30 minutes and no less.
Start with slow walks to begin with. But after one week in, you should increase the speed of your walks and gradually thereafter each week has passed. You’re also going to experience soreness in the body, mainly your back and thigh area.
At this point, many people will call it quits, but not you. Push past the pain and continue going every day and build on it because now you have created momentum for yourself and trust me you do not want anything to get in the way including yourself.
Working out is only part of the equation, 20% of the equation to be honest. The other 80% comes from eating healthy and sticking with a diet that you can actually follow through.
Fair warning, don't go cold turkey on yourself when it comes to food else you run the risk of falling into your old and unhealthy eating habits. Ease yourself in it. Take baby steps and start by maybe introducing one healthy meal per day and then slowly replacing the rest of your meals throughout the day with healthier and heartier options.
Find a diet that meets all the nutritional requirements for you and your body and most importantly one that you can actually stick with.
This is important because a healthy body leads to a healthy and productive mind which allows you to have more clarity, creativity, and innovation in regard to your work or action that you are performing and this helps with increasing your confidence.
3. Measure your progress
What you can track, you can grow. Now this is probably easier when it comes to tracking how much weight you’ve lost or your daily caloric intake but it is harder to quantify on skills and craft.
It does not have to be complicated though.
See, when it comes to tracking your weight, it's easy because you hop onto the scale and it tells you a number. You then compare that number to yesterday's and look forward to tomorrow’s numbers.
Another way to track your progress is to crack open the blue aluminum Danish Butter cookie box not because it's your cheat meal snack and you want to grab a quick bite but because that’s where your mom hides her sewing kit and you want to measure the size of your guns aka biceps and also your waistline using her measuring tape.
What about measuring my skill mastery and progress?
Let’s assume you’re trying to master copywriting for example. There are a number of ways to actually quantify if you’re getting any better.
Use the Hemingway app to measure your copy’s readability. Anything below grade 6 and below is golden. Anything above needs work. So keep practicing.
How much site visit or traffic were you able to bring to a website? This can be tracked.
How many emails were converted into sales? This can be measured.
Was your article shared? How many comments were there on it? All of this can be measured and tracked.
It goes without saying that the measurement matrix and the way we measure varies from industry to industry. Find out what is a normal way to track progress within your respective industry and witness your growth. One other best way to measure your progress is to have a coach or mentor guide you in your pursuit of mastery.
Being able to see yourself grow and witnessing the progress does wonders for your confidence because you start believing in yourself and your ability to get better and before you know it, confidence is oozing out of you “naturally”.
4. Follow through on your promises
Nothing is more detrimental to your confidence than not following through on your own words. If you can't keep the promises you tell yourself, your mind is going to catch you slipping and use it against you. This is where you sabotage your own confidence and mental health.
You start making up stories in your head about how you’re weak, not smart enough, not creative enough, or hardworking enough to get things going for you when all you simply did was not follow through on your own words and promises.
confidence is a state of being or rather healthy mental well-being. You become more confident because you do the required task and actions.
This in turn my friends reaffirms your mind that you do the things that you said you were going to do and now instead of it being against you, your mind begins to aid you towards your respective goals.
5. Be Kind To Yourself
Setting out on a path of most resistance always yields the best results. As you embark on your journey toward being a better version of yourself and self-improvement, you will stumble and fall more times than you even anticipated.
When things don't go as planned, or you do not achieve your results, please do not be so hard on yourself. You’re already on the right path and executing all the required steps that are getting you closer to your confident and ideal self.
Be gentle with yourself. Remind yourself that Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will your confidence.
it goes without saying that if you truly understand what is shared above and develop realistic actionable steps towards building your confidence, you will certainly achieve it.
Once you do have your confidence developed, please remember that it is a perishable skill and feeling. The only way to maintain and build confidence is by treating it like a muscle and working on it daily.
Let The Confidence Flow
Anything meaningful in life comes with dedication and hard work.
The same goes for confidence. Put the 5 list above to action and watch how your confidence is built over time and watch how people are left in awe with how you carry and portray yourself.
References:
https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-boost-your-self-confidence-4163098
https://www.forbes.com/sites/francesbridges/2017/07/21/10-ways-to-build-confidence/?sh=6987d4a83c59
https://hbr.org/2011/04/how-to-build-confidence
