How We Strengthen Our Self-confidence

A healthy self-confidence is absolutely necessary for each of us, because only in this way can we face life with joy and confidence. This in turn means that we achieve our goals better and more doors open for us. As a result, we will be more satisfied with ourselves in all areas.

6 signs of low self-esteem

1. Conformism, lack of motivation : The person stops fighting for their dreams because they believe they will not be able to fulfill them. She ascribes little value to herself.
2. Shyness, fears, insecurities: Infinite fear of losing sight of what others might think of us, of doing something ridiculous. Failure to take the initiative for anything.
3. Neglect of outward appearance and a lack of attention to lifestyle habits : those affected no longer care how they look. In the other extreme case, they overdo it with beauty care to make up for their lack of self-confidence. They do not have a healthy lifestyle, eat unhealthily, do not exercise, etc.
4. Negative attitude and stiffness : Any incident, any mistake you make is one more reason for a lack of respect for yourself and for dragging yourself down and blaming yourself. Those affected are not very flexible and have little understanding for themselves.
5. Refusal to accept change and perfectionism : The person becomes too upset about any change in their life, even if it is a positive change. She also prefers to keep doing the same thing because she is afraid that she will not be able to integrate herself into a new area. It is also perfectionist, as having done something wrong gives rise to new self-accusations, internal arguments and self-humiliation.
6. Treating Others Badly : Many people with low self-esteem will attack others to make themselves feel better. When they manage to make someone else the victim, they feel like they are in a position of power that is above the other person. This situation is a relief and at the same time a delusion for them, since they are only apparently superior.

What can we do to increase our confidence?

In the following we show 8 habits that can help us develop a healthy sense of self.

Know yourself

One who does not know himself cannot love himself either. Have you ever loved someone you didn’t know? This is not very likely because love arises from knowledge and emotional discovery.

It is very important to know your own virtues and weaknesses , because those who do not know them cannot do anything with the following steps. It often happens that we do not have a realistic picture of ourselves because a low level of self-esteem causes us to perceive reality in a distorted way and everything seems overly negative to us. In this case, it would be necessary to rely on someone else’s help. A person that you not only know, but also know things that can help you further.

Once we know who we are and where our path will lead us, we can go along this path in our life more purposefully. For example, a bird can fly better than any other living thing, but if you put it in the water, it usually has little use. A person may be perfectly skilled at programming computers, but may have difficulty doing handicrafts. The smartest thing would then be to follow the path of programming, not that of craft.

Often, however, we don’t know ourselves well enough and choose the wrong path. If you don’t know your strengths and weaknesses, your life won’t go in the right direction.

Focus on your virtues

We all have our merits and our bads too. Absolutely everyone has both, but those people who seem very self-confident concentrate on their merits and thus let their weaknesses take a back seat.

Thoughts are like snowballs that keep rolling and getting bigger. Therefore, if you focus on them, your weaknesses, insecurity, and discomfort will grow. On the other hand, if you focus on your strengths, you will feel increasingly more secure.

Keep your thoughts in check

People with low self-esteem tend to give plenty of space to negative thoughts about themselves. They put themselves down, think they are incapable, think others are better, etc. Some people criticize and even abuse themselves all the time.

We need to respect ourselves and treat ourselves lovingly because if we don’t, it is impossible for our self-esteem to grow. Try to change your thinking habits and your internal dialogue. Get in the habit of using positive language and praise to yourself. Be patient with yourself, and most importantly, be flexible and understanding. Bombarding yourself with negativity will only make you sink further and further into insecurity.

You have an enemy inside who wants to sabotage you permanently and whispers to you: “You can’t do it”, “You are incapable”, “That’s not your thing”, “You don’t deserve it”, “You are not worth ”,“ you will get it wrong, don’t even try ” , and so on and so forth. Replace this enemy with an ally who values ​​you and tells you: “You can do it”, “You can do it”, “You deserve it”, “I love you”, “You are great”, “Try it and if it doesn’t work, it’s not that bad either. You will learn from it and eventually get it right, ” and similar motivational phrases.

As you get into the habit of being your own ally rather than your own enemy, you will become more confident because the words you think are the determining factor that will convince you to believe in yourself.

Stop thinking in boxes

Take every single drawer in your head off its rails. If you are low in self-esteem, you are likely to feel worse than others. Or you think that you are worthless because you’re unemployed, because you don’t have a partner … The good news is that none of this matters. Do not associate your personal worth with anything but yourself. Not with your work or your possessions or your love life. Who you are as a person has nothing to do with what you own.

You can have a healthy sense of self without having great things because it doesn’t matter what you have, but who you are. The key is to appreciate who you are as a person, your values, your way of being, how you look at life, how you deal with other people, your good nature, your integrity, your trustworthiness and so much more.

Take responsibility for yourself

Everyone has to take responsibility for themselves. There is no reason to hold other people responsible for our insecurities and problems. Other people influence us, but in the end it is we who make the decisions, not the others. That is why we are responsible for our own lives.

What happens around us is one thing, but we decide how to deal with the situation at hand. For example, if someone treats you badly and you decide to have a relationship with that person, you cannot blame them if you become unhappy because at some point you chose to go down that path yourself because of inexperience, misplaced trust, or the like have. It is also our responsibility to turn.

Everything we have in our life, good or bad, we have provoked in some way. There are exceptions and sometimes, through bad luck, we get into really bad situations that we haven’t chosen, but we can always make decisions that change a situation. An important point is to be able to count on the security and the courage to face the changes.

As long as you put the blame on others, your self-confidence will not be able to grow, because if you avoid responsibility, you will make no effort to change yourself. However, when you begin to take responsibility and find that it is you who controls your life, then you will begin to take control of your life and dare to make decisions about the things you are not are satisfied, change.

These actions that you begin to take to improve your life will make you feel self-loving because you are doing something to help yourself. And just as you feel gratitude and love when someone else helps you, you will feel the same about yourself.

Know your goals

It’s important that you don’t just let life drag you along. We can all manage our lives and shouldn’t leave it to fate. We need to set goals and create action plans on how to achieve them. Because if you don’t have goals in life, you can’t go to work on them and that will cause you to stagnate in your personal development.

Self-confidence always arises from our experiences and life events. So if you don’t face appropriate situations and pursue goals, you can’t improve it. That would be like expecting a basketball player to play well without training and hours of practice.

Take care

What do you do when you love someone Be it a child, a friend, a relative … When we love and value someone, our natural response is to care for them and to get the best out of them. It seems that we do not see his weaknesses and multiply his strengths. You have to do the same with yourself : take care of yourself – by eating a healthy diet, exercising, paying attention to your desires, pursuing your dreams, being able to be moody, enjoying the things that are important to you, being able to say no …

And you should not only take care of yourself, but reward yourself as well. Focus on the best you have, use it and be proud of it. You are a unique person and we all have strengths – only some people cannot recognize them because they are too preoccupied with their mistakes. So you have to get into the habit of focusing on the things that are close to you, the things that you are achieving, and that doesn’t have to be great. The very fact of facing something you are afraid of is a reason to pat yourself on the back because you are doing something to make your life better and that is worth acknowledging.

Who hasn’t heard something like, “Don’t exaggerate when you see the best in me” ?  When we look at ourselves with those loving eyes, everything looks different. This is what you have to achieve: to love yourself so that you manage to see the positive side of yourself. As you begin to love yourself more, you will find it easier to see your own strengths.

Accept yourself

Without acceptance there is neither well-being nor security. If you don’t accept your mistakes, they will only get worse. But when you start to put up with and accept them, strangely enough, they suddenly seem to get very small.

Perfectionism is one of the reasons for a lack of acceptance. We grow up with ads and films that brainwash us into perfectionism. When summer comes all we hear all the time is how to achieve the perfect bikini figure, how to take care of our skin to keep it looking young, and how to use toothpaste that makes our teeth as white as fresh snow . Society makes us believe that we have to shine anytime, anywhere. While we may not be aware of this, it is one of the reasons we do not sufficiently accept ourselves.

But everything in life has advantages and disadvantages; There are pros and cons in everything. We need to be aware that we all have a good side and a bad side, both outwardly and personally. Accept that you are human like everyone else and therefore have both good and bad qualities.

Most of the time we only accept the good and fail to realize that the worst of things has a purpose – it exists for a reason. Without rain, there is no rainbow, and yet people complain and reject the rain while enjoying the rainbow and enjoying its beauty. Everything has two sides and the two complement each other. If you reject your weaknesses, it is an assault on your self-esteem. You have to accept them and when you do, oddly enough, they often improve.

Accepting yourself does not mean giving up. It’s okay if we don’t like something – we can try to improve it. Accepting yourself means not bothering ourselves about the things we don’t like about ourselves. Instead, we are able to not ignore certain things, even if we would very much like to change them, but to accept that I am like this at this moment without worry, stress or negative feelings.

We have to accept ourselves even if there are things we don’t like about ourselves. We still have to love each other, concentrate on the positive and work with love and without negative feelings on what we are still lacking.

Images courtesy of Alba Soler