6 Things You Have to Do to Boost Your Self-Confidence

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Everyone always envies the person who can walk into a room and carry themselves with such poise that their self-confidence is practically dripping off them. They are not arrogant or conceited, but they know they can handle whatever someone throws at them. It is an attractive characteristic to find in everyone from a potential employee to the person asking to buy you a drink at a bar.

Part of the reason that self-confidence is so highly valued is that few people have taken the time or energy to build their own up to the same level. They may be sure of themselves in some things, but they are hesitant and uncertain in many areas of their lives. Such people often labor under the misperception that self-confidence is something that others are simply born with and that they cannot develop themselves. That, or they feel that self-confidence requires special training and the assistance of assorted wellness gurus. Boosting your self-confidence, however, is easier than you think. Most people are simply unwilling to do what it takes to really grow their self-confidence. If you are willing to take the next step to become a more confident person, here are six things you have to do to boost your self-confidence.

Fail

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Congratulations. You have decided to build your self-confidence which means that you need to face failure. The vast majority of people take one look at that statement and click the back button on their computer or walk away from the conversation. Those who lack confidence almost always lack the willingness to fail. That lack of willingness, however, is exactly why they do not have confidence in themselves. If you are going to build up your self-confidence, you need to be willing to fail. That does not mean you deliberately sabotage your own efforts, but you will never be able to become confident if you are constantly flinching away from any thought of failing. If you are going to become confident and self-possessed, you need to be willing to fail, and you need to be willing to look like a fool. Otherwise, you will always be cringing away from opportunities to grow because you are afraid of trying and failing.

Try New Things

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Fear of failure will hold you back from boosting your self-confidence because it will keep you from trying new things. Trying new things, however, is one of the most important ways you build self-confidence. When you do something new, you have to deal with the fact that you have no idea what you are doing. You are not going to be an instant expert, and even if you have a rare talent for something or are a complete natural, you will still not be the best of the best immediately. You are going to make mistakes, struggle to keep up and almost certainly look like a fool at least once while you are learning. This is deeply intimidating to some people, but trying new things is a surefire way to increase your self-confidence. You will be forced to confront failure, see that it is not the end of the world to get something wrong and overcome your initial challenges and inexperience.

Struggle

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Some people appear to have great self-confidence because they have never failed. The reason they never failed, however, is because they never took on a serious challenge. They never had to struggle, persevere and push through serious obstacles in order to reach their success. The constant wave of easy success may give them a superficial sort of confidence, but it is fragile and brittle. At the first hint of a serious challenge, they may waver and give up.

True self-confidence does not come from drifting along and succeeding at things that come easily to you. Real, solid self-confidence comes from facing down something that is difficult and wrestling with it until you master it. Succeeding at what is easy for you will give you a small confidence boost, but conquering something difficult can give you the sort of confidence that will change your life.

Kill Perfectionism

There are innumerable quotes that suggest that perfection is a laudable goal. “The good is the enemy of the great.” “Champions don’t work until they get it right, they work until they never get it wrong.” “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” Trying to reach perfection, however, is a surefire way to hurt your self-confidence. If you set perfection or even near-perfection as a goal, you will never be satisfied. You will experience nothing but failure and feel as if your attempts to overcome that failure never succeed either. Rather than your failures giving you a chance to change and grow, they will pile up and weigh you down. Instead of chasing perfection, aim for continuous improvement. Seek to be a little better every day and celebrate your successes. If you fall short of your goal, use your failure as a learning opportunity so you do not make the same mistakes. At the same time, celebrate how far you made it. If your goal was to save $1,000 and you saved $800, study your habits so you can save $1,000 next month. Also, celebrate that you saved $800 rather than bemoaning the fact that you fell $200 short of your goal. Achieving 80 percent of a goal is far better than never getting started.

Prepare

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Sometimes, what you need is just a spot of self-confidence when you are facing down something that is particularly difficult or important. You might normally be perfectly confident, but you get nervous when you interview for a job that you really want. This may not be due to a lack of self-confidence overall, but even a person who is typically very self-possessed may find their confidence flagging when they are dealing with a high-stakes opportunity.

One of the best things you can do to give yourself a boost of self-confidence in specific and high-stakes situations is to prepare. If you are entering a job interview, make sure you have answers to common interview questions at the forefront of your mind and that you have studied the company for background information. If you are getting ready to go on a trip to a new country, familiarize yourself with basic customs, embarrassing faux pas to avoid and try to learn at least a few basic phrases in the nation’s language. That way, you will never worry about having to put on a humiliating mime performance while you try and get someone to understand that you really need to know where to find the bathroom.

Believe in Yourself

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If you have struggled, failed, learned from failures, wrestled difficult challenges into the ground and prepared for specific situations, then all that is left to keep your confidence high is to believe in yourself. You have to let your confidence shine rather than hunting for any excuse to hide it or challenge it. Sometimes, this means forcing yourself to stop obsessing over what could go wrong. Other times, you may need to give yourself a bit of a push. Even if it makes you feel ridiculous at first, strike a heroic pose in front of your bathroom mirror and tell yourself that you can do this. Recite a mantra in the car. Wear those boots that make you walk like you own the room. Put on the suit that makes you look like a model from a magazine. Let yourself feel good in your own skin, and stand a little taller. Once you give yourself permission to feel confident, you might be amazed at how quickly you find yourself believing in your own abilities.

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Self-confidence is not something that can be developed through careful study or following a convenient quick fix you found on the internet. The only way to become more self-confident is to put yourself in situations where you are challenged and forced to persevere. True confidence does not come from constant success but from overcoming the odds and getting back up after a failure. This is why so many people struggle to become self-confident. It is not because they have too little faith in themselves. It is because they refuse to face the reality that they are not perfect. Since they never let themselves fail, they never learn that they can get back up after a failure and find their way again, and that is the true root of self-confidence. Not a belief that one cannot fail, but the understanding that failure is not the end, not for them.