Confidence is key, and many of us commonly hear that. Confidence is a weird thing because it’s not an actual physical feature of ourselves. It’s just some loosely understood psychological feeling, but it means so much to our way of life. Confidence can open doors for career opportunities, relationships, and friendships. It seems strange that we know so much about how confidence can benefit us, but not that much about what it actually is, and that’s not why you’re here.
You’re here to learn some simple steps to improving your confidence. Confidence, as mysterious as it is, is pretty simple. There’s a lot of self-improvement you can work on to help you reach goals that are just out of reach. They might be because you don’t feel like you can do it, or maybe it has something to do with your appearance. In any case, you want to feel like you can walk into a room and all eyes are on you in the best way possible. These simple steps will help you achieve just that.
Plastic surgery
Yes, this one isn’t exactly a simple step, but it’s one of the quickest ways to ensure results that boost your confidence and allow you to feel right in your body. Plastic surgery has improved so much over the years. It’s no longer just a possibility for rich people. Because plastic surgery operations are more common, it’s becoming more affordable as well. The procedures have also grown in purpose. The procedures at Lexington PS aren’t just for beauty changes, but can help provide reconstructive surgery for those that feel their confidence has been ruined by changes to their appearance from birth issues, health problems, or accidents. Maybe not what many would consider a simple step, but it’s certainly a quick way to restore confidence and feel great again.
Physical exercise
Tried and true, exercise is a great way to boost confidence. Not only can it improve your outward appearance by helping you lose weight or gain muscle, but it will improve your inward health. Improving your health is a confidence booster because of the dopamine and serotonin produced from running, rowing, swimming, weightlifting, and any number of sports activities. These chemicals in your brain are responsible for producing happiness and act as rewards for doing something enjoyable. They can occur from something as easy as eating food you love, but they are very potent when activated or produced from exercise. Not only can you see changes in your physical body, but your mind will be de-stressed, aiding in the reduction of anxiety related to confidence issues, and make you feel better in a general sense.
Meditation
Moving away from the physical exercise and into the exercise of the mind is meditation as a confidence-building method. Meditation helps you unplug from the world around you and focus your mind inwards on relaxation. There are a lot of ways you can go about practicing meditation. The simplest form is to simply turn off all of your electronics and unplug, sit down, and just be in the moment. This gives you time to think about what’s plaguing your mind that could be related to confidence, often anxiety. Yoga is another good way to incorporate both meditation and light exercise. You can use music or meditation audio to give yourself direction as well. Another very important way to help the meditation process is to focus on breathing techniques. These breathing techniques help slow your breathing or deepen it to keep you focused on the mind-body connection, which will reduce the number of problems you’re thinking about. Meditation is a good way to tap into your mind and feel at ease, which can really help with confidence-building.
Talk to someone
Whether it’s a therapist or a friend, talking to someone can really help you work out what confidence issues you may have. Having confidence issues or low self-esteem might make you feel like you’re alone in your problems, but you’d be surprised to learn that a vast majority of people have some form of a confidence issue, which affects them in daily life. They all vary, but we all have them, and it’s completely normal. Talking to a friend, therapist, or family member can help you get some outside perspective, which can be mutually beneficial to both of you. Whether it’s self-esteem related to the workplace, dating, physical appearance, sexual performance, or finances, someone is going through the same internal problems you’re going through, and it’s essential to be open and transparent with the people who love and trust you. Talking it out will help you feel better, and find out that you have people in your circle that want to help you get over your problems because they love and care for you and want to see you overcome these issues to be the best possible version of you.
Practice socializing
Whether you realize or not, socializing with other people is one of the biggest ways to help improve your confidence, and it’s right below your nose. Even if you’re an outgoing person, it never hurts to practice as well, because practice makes perfect. It can feel hard at first if you’re more introverted and keep to yourself, but even while waiting in line in public, it can help to chat up someone else. Simple hello’s or other greetings can make you realize that people are all just waiting for someone to talk to them (most of the time), and that striking up a conversation isn’t as hard as it seems. Talk to them about something they are buying, ask them how their day is, and give them a simple compliment. Even if your confidence or self-esteem issues don’t stem from your social skills, they can be improved by improving this area. If you feel confident enough to talk to a random stranger in line at a store, which is something many people are nervous to do, you can feel confident knowing that you can engage in something that a large majority can’t.
Finish your chore list
How do chores relate to confidence? Well, it might not seem apparent at first, but it gets you in the habit of following through on your words and applying actions to them. Completing lists is a good way to keep you motivated to stay on top of your responsibilities. Motivation is one of the key components to confidence, and it can begin with things as small as your checklist/chore lists. Starting small by keeping your room clean, putting away dishes regularly, keeping up on cleaning your bathroom – they all add up eventually and allow you to de-clutter your living space and keep you focused on keeping things organized. Confidence comes from many strange places, and it might not be evident right away how doing your chores around the house or at work can improve your confidence. Still, it adds up in small ways to eventually help you stay on top of your duties, then leads to focusing on yourself.
Present yourself well
They often say, “Dress for the job you want to have,” and this applies to more than just the workplace. Dressing in a suit and tie every day isn’t the goal, but it’s the idea that you want to present yourself well as often as possible. If you live in sweatpants and baggy clothing, you won’t be able to see yourself in anything but a lazy presentation, which just feeds into the cycle of low self-esteem and low confidence. Grooming yourself often and attempting to dress well will give you more confidence. People see the effort you put into yourself, and it goes a long way to show others that you value how you look, but more importantly, that you value yourself enough to put in the effort often. Dress for the job you want, but in this case, dress for the confidence and lifestyle you deserve.
Confidence is a tricky thing to understand. It’s deeply rooted in psychology, so it can be considerably hard to picture it. It’s not a physical thing you can see on or in your body, but it’s always there, whether big or small. Understanding how confidence is an abstract concept makes it difficult for people who suffer from self-esteem issues to understand that it’s more of a process than an end goal. While there are definitely goals that can come of it, that doesn’t mean there’s a limit to how confident you can end up becoming. These simple steps range in how you can affect your life through your presentation physically to the understanding of your mind internally. They can all add up to reaching a goal of confidence, with the potential to go beyond that initial improvement to your self-esteem.