4 Ways to Boost Your Self Confidence

4 Ways to Boost Your Self Confidence

By Michael Lee
Author of How to Be an Expert Persuader

In today's world, there is absolutely no room anymore for shrinking violets. You have to know how to have great self confidence, put yourself out there, shine a spotlight on yourself, and astound the world with your presence. This isn't a problem for people who are brimming with self esteem, but what about those who have yet to figure out how to have great self confidence?

It's no big mystery and isn't really something that's programmed into people's chromosomes from birth - it can be cultivated. For all you know, that cool and assured person you've been admiring had to work hard to conquer his shyness.

It usually starts with possessing a healthy amount of self esteem. If you don't know the good qualities you possess, or if you don't believe you have anything worthwhile to offer the world, how can you move forward to success? Here are some tips to help you build your confidence level.

Great Self Confidence Booster #1: Pump Up Your Self Esteem

Start out by assessing yourself. Be honest and brave enough to take a look at yourself; find out who you are and where you presently are in life. But don't start giving negative reviews of yourself.

Learn to have self discipline and silence your inner critic. Stop listening to that little voice of doubt that says you're not good enough or that other people are better than you. Tune in to thoughts that cheer you on and tell you exactly what you're good at. If you feel like focusing on your negative aspects, exercise self control and don't let yourself be overcome with despair. Use this opportunity to figure out how you can improve - and trust me, you can do better.

An important step is for you to take stock of your achievements. What have you accomplished in life? What kind of work are you good at? Do you have any talents or special skills? Answering these questions will give you a better sense of certainty about your abilities and will help you start thinking that, yes, you do have many fine qualities.

Great Self Confidence Booster #2: Overcome Shyness

Shyness prevents you from letting people see the real you, because you're afraid to say or do the wrong thing or to appear awkward. The problem is, by being shy and hanging back from the rest of the crowd, you're already projecting yourself as awkward. Take a look again at the first tip and give yourself a dose of self esteem by reminding yourself of your good traits.

Overcoming shyness doesn't mean that you have to start trying to dominate conversations or hog all the attention. You have to show respect, empathy, and recognition to others. All you need to do is emerge from your shell and be alert; always open yourself to interact with people. Always show your enthusiasm and radiate optimism, and you will naturally attract people's attention.

If someone approaches you, you don't have to look down at your feet or mumble inaudibly. Don't focus on how painfully shy you think you are and just listen to what the other person has to say. Believe it or not, there will be people out there who will have something interesting to say; they will then get you to share your views and ideas. Once you start talking and expressing yourself, then you've already taken a major step on having great self confidence.

Great Self Confidence Booster #3: Get Out There and Just Do It

Many of us don't think we are capable of doing the things we want because we're not sure about ourselves. Again, there's the dreaded voice of doubt. What you want is to be fearless enough so you'll be able to tackle all the things you've ever dreamed of doing.

Fear of failure is a big factor in the crumbling of our self-confidence, and this same fear is caused by our insistence on focusing on the negative side of things. True, it's never a bad thing to be cautious whenever we're thinking of new ventures, adventures, and activities, but too much caution will paralyze us, making us unable to take action.

So why not start thinking positively? Think hard about what you want to do. Join activities that may enhance your leadership and teamwork skills. If you stumble over any doubts or possible problems that will come up, don't immediately say, "I can't do it." Just imagine ways that will help you work around those problems.

Don't just second-guess your plans. Trust in your abilities and the fact that you can bounce back from any situation. That's already a big bonus. An even bigger plus for you is when you actually follow your dreams and achieve your goals, which would even make you feel confident that you can do anything.

Great Self Confidence Booster #4: Dress for Success

Shallow? Not really. You know how there are certain accessories or outfits that make you feel like a million bucks? This works the same way. Instead of putting on clothes that only make you feel drab and dull, choose the very things that make you stand out and feel special. It all starts in how you feel; and if you feel good about yourself, you will really act more confidently (and intelligently) throughout the day.

There are more ways on how to have great self confidence, but these are just some easy tactics for you to try. Building it may be a challenge for some, but just trust yourself and don't let doubt gnaw at you. With a little effort, you'll be shining brightly along with the best of people, so get to work!

Michael Lee is the author of the highly acclaimed How To Be An Expert Persuader... In 20 Days or Less. It reveals mind-altering persuasion secrets to greatly enhance your relationships, boost your career and business, and persuade anyone to willingly and eagerly do what you want... without them knowing it.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Body Posture Improves Your Self Confidence

Body Posture Improves Your Self Confidence

Source: Science Daily

Sitting up straight in your chair isn't just good for your posture – it also gives you more confidence in your own thoughts, according to a new study.

Researchers found that people who were told to sit up straight were more likely to believe thoughts they wrote down while in that posture concerning whether they were qualified for a job.

On the other hand, those who were slumped over their desks were less likely to accept these written-down feelings about their own qualifications.

The results show how our body posture can affect not only what others think about us, but also how we think about ourselves, said Richard Petty, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

"Most of us were taught that sitting up straight gives a good impression to other people," Petty said. "But it turns out that our posture can also affect how we think about ourselves. If you sit up straight, you end up convincing yourself by the posture you're in."

Petty conducted the study with Pablo Briñol, a former postdoctoral fellow at Ohio State now at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain, and Benjamin Wagner, a current graduate student at Ohio State. The research appears in the October 2009 issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology.

The study included 71 students at Ohio State. When they entered the lab for the experiment, the participants were told they would be taking part in two separate studies at the same time, one organized by the business school and one by the arts school.

They were told the arts study was examining factors contributing to people's acting abilities, in this case, the ability to maintain a specific posture while engaging in other activities. They were seated at a computer terminal and instructed to either "sit up straight" and "push out [their] chest]" or "sit slouched forward" with their "face looking at [their] knees."

While in one of these positions, students participated in the business study, which supposedly investigated factors contributing to job satisfaction and professional performance.

While holding their posture, students listed either three positive or three negative personal traits relating to future professional performance on the job.

After completing this task, the students took a survey in which they rated themselves on how well they would do as a future professional employee.

The results were striking.

How the students rated themselves as future professionals depended on which posture they held as they wrote the positive or negative traits.

Students who held the upright, confident posture were much more likely to rate themselves in line with the positive or negative traits they wrote down.

In other words, if they wrote positive traits about themselves, they rated themselves more highly, and if they wrote negative traits about themselves, they rated themselves lower.

"Their confident, upright posture gave them more confidence in their own thoughts, whether they were positive or negative," Petty said.

However, students who assumed the slumped over, less confident posture, didn't seem convinced by their own thoughts – their ratings didn't differ much regardless of whether they wrote positive or negative things about themselves.

The end result of this was that when students wrote positive thoughts about themselves, they rated themselves more highly when in the upright than the slouched posture because the upright posture led to confidence in the positive thoughts.

However, when students wrote negative thoughts about themselves, they rated themselves more negatively in the upright than the slouched posture because the upright posture led to more confidence in their negative thoughts.

Petty emphasized that while students were told to sit up straight or to slump down, the researchers did not use the words "confident" or "doubt" in the instructions or gave any indication about how the posture was supposed to make them feel.

In a separate experiment, the researchers repeated the same scenario with a different group of students, but asked them a series of questions afterwards about how they felt during the course of the study.

"These participants didn't report feeling more confident in the upright position than they did in the slouched position, even though those in the upright position did report more confidence in the thoughts they generated," Petty said.

That suggests people's thoughts are influenced by their posture, even though they don't realize that is what's happening.

"People assume their confidence is coming from their own thoughts. They don't realize their posture is affecting how much they believe in what they're thinking," he said.

"If they did realize that, posture wouldn't have such an effect."

This research extends a 2003 study by Petty and Briñol which found similar results for head nodding. In that case, people had more confidence in thoughts they generated when they nodded their head up and down compared to when they shook their head from side to side.

However, Petty noted that body posture is a static pose compared to head nodding, and probably more natural and easy to use in day-to-day life.

"Sitting up straight is something you can train yourself to do, and it has psychological benefits – as long as you generally have positive thoughts," he said.

For example, students are often told when taking a multiple-choice test that if they're not absolutely sure of the answer, their first best guess is more often correct.

"If a student is sitting up straight, he may be more likely to believe his first answer. But if he is slumped down, he may change it and end up not performing as well on the test," he said.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad