How to Build Self Confidence - 10 Tips

How to Build Self Confidence through Knowledge

1. Knowing how to build self confidence starts with this basic idea: Know that you are loved and supported. The Universal Source of all Love has your back-side (and front-side too for that matter). This is your (not so secret) source of personal power. Copy this model of love by loving yourself in the same manner. Genuine self love gives other people the subliminal message that you too are worthy of love and acceptance.

2. Acknowledge the stress and anxiety you may feel. There's an inspiring book by Susan Jeffers called "Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway" in which she writes about the importance of acknowledging the fears that cause a lack of confidence. Understand that fear (in the form of shaky confidence) is only an expression of your beliefs and feelings about yourself. Just because you have those beliefs and feelings does not make them true. Try looking at those feelings with the indifference of an objective outsider.

3. Know that you are safe. It's safe to make mistakes. One large tech company I heard of had a motto that went something like "If everything you do is a success, then you have failed." Confidence is the ability to deal with your mistakes openly and in the most human way possible. Hiding your mistakes gives you (and maybe others) reason to doubt yourself even more. A healthy dose of self love creates an environment of safety within yourself where mistakes can be seen for what they really are - opportunities for learning and growth. I (Steve) started a mastermind group with a number of creative and inventive friends where we spend an evening now and then sharing our latest ideas or struggles with each other. It gives us a safe place to present new, untested (and sometimes really whacky) concepts where we know we will get valuable, constructive criticism. It's a wonderfully safe way of refining an idea without getting raked over the coals by a less friendly evaluator later on.

"If everything you do is a success, then you have failed."

How to Build Self Confidence by Being Yourself

4. Have realistic expectations. Only you can define realistic, and what the meaning of success means to you - but I can guarantee that realistic does not mean perfection. Of course it can be great to push yourself, but it's also important to create achievable goals that you believe you can pull off. I often need to remind myself that perfection is all in my head and that it is inhuman to be perfect. (Oddly enough, my wife Susan doesn't seem to think that I'm as perfect as I would like to think I am.) Embrace your flaws and perhaps even laugh at those qualities when others notice.

5. Don't let competition take the place of motivation. When you compete you are judging yourself in comparison to someone whom you will never be. When you motivate yourself, you are simply working to be the best that you can. Simply be yourself. Self empowerment doesn't depend on the actions of others. If you find you are trying to be something you aren't just because it seems to work for your "competition", it degrades your feelings of confidence. If someone does not appreciate who you are and the efforts you produce, then be prepared to move on to the next person. You can't be all things to all people.

How to Build Self Confidence through Openness and Honesty

6. Model openness and honesty. It is a natural tendency when you feel insecure to hide certain aspects of your character. This is a classic symptom of a lack of confidence. Practice being as open and honest with others as is practical. The vast majority of people respond with a trust that breeds confidence for all involved. When you lead the way in letting your flaws show up here and there - with the following really important caution; WITHOUT degrading yourself in any way - then others will see you as more confident.

How to Build Self Confidence through Mastery

7. Another way you can learn how to build self confidence is by persistent practice. You may have heard the old story of someone driving around looking for Carnegie Hall. They saw someone walking along the sidewalk who was carrying a violin case and asked him "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" He replied "Practice, practice, practice." You don't practice to become "perfect", you practice to build your confidence, skill and knowledge. It has been said that it takes around 10,000 hours of practice for someone to become a "master" in a specific discipline. Do you think you would feel more confident if you had 10,000 hours of focused practice under your belt?

How to Build Self Confidence through Self Love

8. Celebrate your uniqueness. There is an enormous pressure to conform to the styles, norms and expectations of our society. The pressure to conform erodes confidence. What you have within you is valuable - and most of all unique. Your gifts and abilities have never been expressed on this earth in quite the same way before. When you grow to love the unique aspects of yourself, you give others the opportunity to appreciate those unique characteristics too.

How to Build Self Confidence by Focusing on the Things that Really Matter

9. Focus on what you can do to serve or assist someone else. Too often when people feel a lack of confidence they are overly focused on themselves - and it shows. Remember how good it felt the last time you where a huge help to someone who needed it? Do you think they cared about whether you felt confident or not? Focus on providing such excellent services, products, friendship or other assistance that people will be overwhelmingly grateful for your assistance.

10. Another way to learn how to build self confidence is to focus on doing the things that give you the most joy and fulfillment. Research on self confidence and self esteem shows that the single most important factor in determining how much confidence the subjects exhibited was how much success they had previously experienced - even if it was in a different area of expertise. The more you experience the feelings that confidence brings as you do activities you love, the more easily you can tap into those feelings of confidence in a new or high-pressure situation. In other words, success breeds success. Look for inspiration wherever you feel a lack of confidence. Recall previous times when you felt inspired and "on fire". When you are truly inspired, you will discover a powerful confidence that is literally unstoppable.