It’s perfectly normal to feel insecure from time to time. It happens to the best of us. However, if you really want to make the most out of life you need to minimize these moments and feel like your best self as much as possible. This, of course, is easier said than done as negative thoughts can often feel more powerful than positive ones. But it’s certainly not impossible.
What you need is a new mindset and a few little tips to help cultivate a more confident personality.
Fake it until you make it
Confidence is a funny old thing. It can sometimes feel like a bit of an act. But the more we start to think and feel something, the more authentic it starts to become. Start acting more confident and before long it will feel like second nature and eventually, where the act ends, and the truth begins will cease to matter.
Smile through it
The adage “smile and the world smiles back at you” isn’t necessarily true all the time but there is some wisdom to it. If you’re able to brush off bad thoughts and smile through them even when things appear to be falling apart around you, then you can feel confident in any situation.
Dress up and feel confident in what you’re wearing
For hundreds of years, people have been using clothing as a means of putting out into the world how they want the world to see them. So don’t be afraid to dress to impress occasionally. But don’t do it to impress anyone else; do it for yourself. Spoil yourself with some fancy new black stockings and hit the town with an extra swagger in your step.
Surround yourself with the right people
Life is far too short to spend it surrounded by people that don’t really care about you and make you feel worse about yourself. We all have those friends that we don’t really know why we’re still friends with them because they make us feel terrible about ourselves. Think about how much better your life would be if you removed them from your life and only chose to spend time with people you genuinely got on with.
Try a new, empowering sport
Speaking of surrounding yourself with positive people, taking up a new hobby or sport can be a great way to find likeminded people that will help you feel more confident in your own skin. Pole dancing is a good option to gain confidence in your body fast, for example, or if you don’t want to try something so racy, why not a competitive sport like football or netball?
Don’t validate your every thought
Not every thought you have is valid. Our minds are strange and sensitive things that will often tell us things that are not true, and that we shouldn’t believe. So, learn how to register these negative thoughts and filter them out. Let them be, but don’t acknowledge them and you’ll soon find yourself having them less and less frequently.
