100 Ways How To Build Confidence
- 1. 100 Ways How To Build CONFIDENCE
- 2. Introduction This is a free publication intended to help as many people as possible. You may distribute this publication to as many people as you like for free, provided that all the original links remain in tact. This publication is for informational purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for professional advice. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought to address the particular circumstances involved. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to build confidence is a question that millions of people all around the world ask themselves on a daily basis. And confidence is an essential ingredient in the recipe of success, happiness, health, better relationships, reaching your dreams etc. Think about it, do you know any successful people who are not confident? Fortunately, anybody can learn how to be confident. It’s just a matter of knowing which steps to take and then taking action every single day to build your confidence until you’ve reached the level where you want to be at. Here are 100 ways how to build confidence. All we ask in return for this wonderful free publication is that you share this with your friends (Click the link(s) below): Share on Facebook, Share on Twitter, Share on Stumbleupon
- 3. 100 Ways How To Build Confidence 1.Martial Arts Martial arts are a fantastic way to build confidence for a few reasons. It teaches you how to defend yourself, it trains your body and pushes your limits and it requires strict discipline (training your mind). I personally like Aikido but there are countless forms of martial arts like Taekwondo, Karate, Capoeira etc. I’m pretty certain that almost anywhere in the world you are able to find a dojo with a teacher where you can learn a martial art. 2.Boxing Boxing is a very technical sport that requires good physical condition and lots of stamina. Again, boxing is good for building confidence because it trains your body and releases endorphins, teaches you how to defend yourself and trains your mind. 3.MMA MMA stands for mixed martial arts and is a relatively new phenomenon. It combines various martial art styles together with boxing so it is different from the traditional martial art forms that have been around for hundreds or thousands of years. MMA is a good way how to build confidence because it also teaches you how to defend yourself, it’s very intensive physical training (releasing those feel-good endorphin hormones) and it teaches you to be disciplined.
- 4. 4.Gym & Weight-Lifting Good old fashioned gym and lifting weights are a great way to build confidence. Getting your body in good shape helps you feel more confident. It’s that age- old saying of “look good, feel good”. When you look good, you feel more attractive and sexy which instantly boosts your confidence and allows you to be more comfortable around other people, especially the opposite sex. Besides getting the “look good, feel good” benefit, exercise also releases stress and produces endorphin hormones, allowing you to feel good for a long time after exercising. 5.Dancing Just dancing to your favorite song is a great way to lift your mood and boost your confidence. However, it’s usually only temporary and wears off pretty quickly. What does help to build lasting confidence is if you learn how to dance really well. It doesn’t matter what style you choose, whether it be hip-hop, crump or more classical styles, when you are able to dance well, you just feel much more confident. It allows you to be yourself around strangers because you experience that feeling of being in the spotlight when you dance in front of strangers and you are comfortable with it because you are a good dancer. 6.Snowboarding Snowboarding is a good way how to build confidence for a few reasons. It’s physical exercise which releases those endorphin hormones, but mostly it gives you a feeling of freedom like nothing else. It’s just you and the mountain, you can go where you want, as fast as you want, as many times as you want. And you can choose the level of difficulty of the slopes you go down. When you become better at snowboarding, you can choose more difficult (dangerous) slopes and doing difficult and challenging things like this really builds confidence in yourself because if you have a lack of belief in yourself, you’re not going to be able to go down those difficult slopes. This confidence you gain from snowboarding carries through to other areas of your life. 7.Surfing Just like with snowboarding, surfing also builds up confidence. It’s good exercise, you’re out in fresh air, get sunshine, have the thrill and freedom of riding the waves… and the better you get, the bigger waves you can ride. When you become a good surfer and ride those big waves, it builds up confidence that carries through to other areas of your life too.
- 5. 8.Sky-Diving Jumping out of a plane with a small backpack and the faith that your parachute will open is a great way to build confidence. Experiencing a successful jump will make all other problems in life pale in comparison. You just jumped out a plane, fell down to earth at a huge speed with the risk of turning into mush and landed safely. Yeah… now you have confidence for whatever else you need to do in your life. 9.Bungee Jumping Just like sky-diving, bungee jumping is an equal way of building confidence and it can be easier than sky-diving (it was for me personally at least). It’s actually more scary to bungee jump because you are so much closer to the ground, and you see it coming at you very fast before that elastic rope kicks in and halts your fall. I did the highest bridge bungee jump in the world at Bloukrans in South Africa. It’s a free-fall of 7 seconds (which feels like an eternity), but after you’re safely back up on that bridge, every other problem you have in life suddenly doesn’t feel big or scary anymore. Approaching total strangers? No problem… I just dove head-first off a bridge with only an elastic cord around my ankles. 10.Extreme Sports I’ve already mentioned a couple like snowboarding, sky-diving and bungee jumping, but extreme sports are a great way to build confidence. It’s simply because there is a risk involved, and you really need to believe in yourself to do the sport or else you will end up getting hurt. This belief in yourself to do the extreme sport carries through into other areas of your life and thus makes you a more confident person. (Of course extreme sports are risky and not suitable for everyone).
- 6. 11.Public Speaking A fantastic way how to build confidence is public speaking. You put yourself out there on a stage or in a room full of strangers, either with a prepared speech or an impromptu speech about a topic you’re not really familiar with. At first it will be super uncomfortable (and possibly make you feel like you want to die) but after time you will start to gain confidence, feel more comfortable in front of people and believe in yourself more. There are clubs around the world like Toastmasters which are perfectly suited for this. 12.Acting Class Taking acting classes will help you build confidence much like public speaking will. You get lots and lots of practice being in front of strangers having to act out impromptu scenes, sometimes having to be totally silly and look like an idiot. It makes you feel more comfortable with yourself and gives you more confidence around strangers or being in front of people and this confidence carries through to other areas in your life. 13.Marketing / Sales A sales or marketing job is another good way how to build confidence. At least, if you’re passionate about what you’re selling or marketing. You have to pitch something to a total stranger, you have to convince them they need what you are selling, and you can sell them on something better, or bigger. You have to interact, you have to come across confident and you have to be social otherwise you risk losing the sale. It doesn’t mean that you need to change your career to sales, but if you’re serious about becoming confident maybe it’s worth a try to shadow someone who works in this industry. Alternatively, try your skills on the internet with a sales letter to sell a product (yours or someone else’s).
- 7. 14.Filming Yourself on Camera It’s quite possible that you have no idea how you act, look or talk. You may imagine it in a certain way, but maybe the rest of the world perceives you differently. Get access to a camera and film yourself when you’re doing something you normally do. And then watch it. Do you notice anything strange? Are you slouching, not holding eye-contact, speaking weird, have a nervous tick? Maybe you can find something about yourself that you never knew, and change that bad habit, and suddenly become more confident? 15.Approach Strangers There’s no way to build confidence like facing your fears head-on. One of the scariest things that most people can imagine is to go up and *shudder* approach total strangers. Like… start a conversation with someone you’ve never met in your life. You might argue with me that you need confidence before you can do this, but it is in fact one of the best ways to build confidence. My best advice is to start very simple, like asking someone what the time is, and then progressing to paying someone a compliment, and then having a small conversation etc. If you do this with 5 people a day, every day for 30 days, after these 30 days you’ll be a much more confident person. 16.Ask Someone Out On A Date After you get comfortable with approaching strangers, the next step is to ask someone out on a date (or ask someone to join you for an activity if that’s less scary for you). When you start doing activities or going to places with people you hardly know, it really does wonders for building your confidence. Again, initially it will be scary, nerve-wrecking and horrible, but if you push through then it will become much easier and more pleasant. 17.Solo Travel Another fantastic way how to build confidence is to travel solo (and I’m speaking from experience). This is because firstly it takes guts to travel solo and you need belief in yourself that you’re going to be able to sort everything out (travel arrangements, accommodation, possible problems etc.). Secondly, when traveling solo you are forced to interact with people on a constant basis, even if it’s only part of your basic travels (like asking someone for directions). You’ll also find it much easier to speak to people because you’re in a more relaxed vibe, and in another place (you have an excuse to talk to people) and also the fact that you know you’re never going to see most of the people you speak to again in your life. Solo travel is a super experience and you don’t even need to be super rich to afford it. You can live in a place like Thailand for $500 per month!
- 8. 18.Say Yes To Something New If you take an objective look at yourself, you’ll probably find that you decline a lot of opportunities to go out, socialize or do something new. It’s probably because subconsciously you are scared and it’s easier to say no and avoid a potential situation for putting yourself out there, and that is exactly why you don’t become more confident. There’s a very cool movie starring Jim Carrey called Yes Man. I recommend watching it. And then for some time, try saying yes to something you would normally decline. What have you got to lose? 19.Meditation Meditation is a practice to help silence your mind. All those thousands of thoughts running through your mind all the time, constantly fighting with you, working against you, creating doubt and uncertainty. With practice, meditation can allow you to get rid of all the useless thoughts in your mind and allows you to focus on the things you want in life, thus helping you build confidence by elimination of all those negative and useless thoughts. 20.Binaural Beats Binaural beats are a recent technology with various purposes. They are scientifically engineered sound tracks of very specific frequencies that are proven to stimulate certain pathways and activities in your brain. Scientists have discovered that every thought or emotion you experience creates activity in very specific parts of your brain and emit brain waves of very specific frequencies. By creating these sound tracks of specific frequencies, it’s possible to stimulate the brain to experience and enhance emotions like… confidence. And all you have to do is listen to these sound tracks in a quiet place with headphones for 5-15 minutes a day and you should immediately notice a difference in your confidence level. Learn more about binaural beats here.
- 9. 21.Self-Hypnosis If you think that self-hypnosis involves swinging a pendulum back and forth in front of your eyes combined with the words “you are getting sleepy, very sleepy”, then you’re wrong. Self hypnosis is a recent technology (although it’s been around for hundreds of years) that allows you to bypass the conscious mind and reprogram your subconscious mind directly. This is so very effective because you logically (consciously) have no ability to resist the change and hypnosis, and it thus changes, removes or instills new beliefs in your mind in as little as a single session, compared to weeks or months of conventional therapy. There is so much to this topic that it’s impossible to fit into this post, but I highly recommend self-hypnosis as a way how to build confidence. If you want to learn more, check this out. 22.Find Your Purpose Have you ever asked yourself what the meaning of life is? Or what you are doing on this planet? My simple philosophy is that there is no meaning of life, you’re just here and you have to make the best of it. You can do whatever you want to do in your life, and you can become anything you want to be. But if you don’t know what you want, then you’re going to find yourself lost, wandering around and not finding much happiness in your day to day activities. Take some time to reflect and decide what it is that you want to do with your life. Maybe you want to make a difference to the lives of others, or build a fortune 500 company, or become a movie star… who knows. But find your purpose and it will give you a lot more confidence. 23.Help Someone When you’re feeling down, reach out to help someone. The same applies when you lack confidence. If you help someone not only do you forget about your own problems, but you’re doing something to make a difference. At the same time, by helping someone it shows you that you’re not so useless or bad as you think which is a good way to build confidence. 24.Set Goals This is similar to finding your purposes. If you have no plan or don’t have any goals, you’re wondering around aimlessly and not making good use of your time and life. Make it a habit to set short-term and long-term goals because it will give you a direction to follow at all times, which will build your confidence because you know where you are going. Before I go to bed I always like to make a list of things that I want to do the next day. This keeps me productive and efficient, and lets me feel like I’ve accomplished something during the day which helps boost and maintain a high level of confidence. When you achieve, you feel good.
- 10. 25.Prioritize After you set goals, the next important step is to prioritize. If you have a list of 10 things to do in a day, but only one is urgent or important, what do you think is going to make you feel better: doing 9 unimportant things or doing the 1 important thing? My experience is that it’s the more important thing. When you work and you always complete your most important tasks, it allows you to feel confident because you’re never running behind or need to panic. 26.Learn From Your Mistakes If you are human, you make mistakes. It’s part of life, and part of the process of growing up. It can be minor mistakes like bumping your head or it can be much bigger mistakes. There’s a saying that says “it’s not what you do, it’s what you do next”. When you make a mistake, it’s not a problem. The problem is how you handle the mistake. It’s usually a good idea to admit your mistakes, and it’s a good idea to fix or replace something if you are able to. Some mistakes are life-changing, but the best you can do is to learn from your mistakes to become a better person. When you see mistakes as a learning process, it allows you to be easier on yourself and thus be more confident with whatever you do because you know that making a mistake does not mean you are stupid or worthless. 27.Dress Stylish Confidence should not depend on some external factor like what clothes you wear, but an easy way to boost your confidence is to dress sharp. When you look good, you feel good (just like when you have a good body you feel good). If you always dress like a bum then chances are good that its subconsciously affecting your confidence level when you’re out in public.
- 11. 28.Make Eye Contact One thing that you’ll notice about confident people is that they’re very good with making and holding eye-contact. Insecure and confidence-lacking people will often avoid eye-contact and look around or stare at the floor. Make it a habit to make eye-contact with people around you and not look away when the look at you or when they talk to you. 29.Don’t Slouch Your body language not only conveys to others how confident you are, but it has a huge effect on your own confidence. A big rule if you want to be more confident is to stop slouching. Sit up straight. Walk straight with your head high. Just by changing your posture you’ll be able to become more confidence. 30.Stop Fluff-Talking Stop making small talk and wasting words. Try for a while to only talk about what is necessary. Communicate as directly as possible. This is something that you may struggle with initially because you’re so used to saying hundreds of words to get your point across, but if you master this skill it will make you a more confident person. I highly recommend watching the movie “1000 Words” with Eddie Murphy. 31.Speak Louder If you’re lacking confidence then it’s likely that you speak quite softly. Do people often ask you to repeat what you’ve said? Then it’s a sign that you should speak louder. Try to raise your entire volume level with everything you say. It doesn’t mean you should shout, but project your voice. Make sure that people who stand 5 metres away can still hear you when you speak. It’s one of my favorite ways how to build confidence. 32.Confident Body Language I already mentioned how important body language is for feeling and looking confident. By walking and sitting up straight, you’re already on your way to confident body language but there are a couple of other things that you can do. For example don’t cross your arms or legs, this is protective behaviour and usually not of confident people. Don’t place yourself in corners of the room or on the edge of a couch. Take up space, spread your arms, sit in the middle of the couch even when there is nobody else there. 33.Do Everything With Intent When you do something, anything, do it with intent. When you pick up a glass, pick up the glass. When you walk somewhere, walk with intent. It comes down to you knowing what you want, being sure what you want to do and then doing it.
- 12. 34.Smile They say that your brain cannot tell the difference between when you really smile or when you fake it, and that either way you feel happy and good emotions. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know, but I know that smiling makes me feel good and not so serious about everything. And when you smile you look good to others, and make a difference to their mood, and then they start being more friendly with you, which boosts your confidence. So it seems that there are a lot of good reasons to smile. 35.Gratitude It’s amazing what a difference being grateful can make to your confidence level. Gratitude allows you to appreciate what you have: the roof over your head, the food in your fridge, the safety of not having people wanting to kill you, the freedom of being able to walk around through your city without being arrested, your family, your friends etc. Make a list of everything you’re thankful for and look at this list from time to time. 36.Understand Your Insecurities Everybody is insecure about something, whether it be your body, your background or your life so far. But you may not be aware of what you are insecure about and that could be a big contributing factor to your lack of confidence. I suggest taking some time to reflect and understand what you are insecure about. This will allow you to either take action to change what you are not happy with (e.g. when you are overweight) or it will allow you to let go of what you cannot change and move on (e.g. your height or skin-color).
- 13. 37.Love Yourself This ties in with the previous point of changing what you cannot accept and accepting what you cannot change. You are who you are and you should love yourself. If you hate or despise yourself then you are not going to be very confident. Love yourself for the person you are, but if there are things you don’t like that you can change, take action to change these things (e.g. get a better job to make more money, go to gym to lose weight, etc.) 38.Forgive Yourself Everybody makes mistakes. I’ve already covered learning from your mistakes, but what is also a very important part of building confidence is to forgive yourself for mistakes you’ve made. You may have made some decisions in your life that you really regret. You may have lost or destroyed things that were very valuable to you because of stupidity or ego, but unfortunately what is done is done. You cannot change the past, and if something is unchangeable, try to forgive yourself and learn from your mistakes. And then continue to be the best person you can be and make the most of your life from this day forward. 39.Try To Understand Try to understand why you lack confidence. What are the core reasons? Is it something that happened to you in the past? Is it something you fear? Once you understand what you fear or why you don’t have confidence, you are able to make a plan to change that and start building confidence. (By following the 100 ways to build confidence that you are reading right now). 40.Eliminate Negative Thinking One of the biggest contributing factors to lack of confidence and low self- esteem is negative thinking. Every time you think a negative thought you’re conditioning yourself to believe that it’s true. When you think “I can’t” or “It’s not possible” enough times, then you actually start to believe that it’s true and you don’t even try any more. Stop this negative thinking. Every time you have a negative thought, consciously stop yourself and think of something positive or constructive.
- 14. 41.Remove Limiting Beliefs Limiting beliefs are similar to negative thinking yet there is a difference. Negative thinking would be talking to yourself in ways like “You’re such an idiot” or “Your life sucks” while limiting beliefs are things you’ve conditioned yourself into thinking are true (e.g. “I’m not attractive” or “I am not smart enough to make money). To remove limiting beliefs, first you need to know what they are. I suggest making a list of everything you tell yourself you cannot do. Once you have this list, you need to consciously be aware of every time these thoughts enter your mind, and then you need to stop yourself from thinking them and continue to replace the limiting belief thought with the positive side of it. (e.g. “I’m not attractive” becomes “I am attractive”). Removing limiting beliefs is a very good way how to build confidence. 42.Think Positive Stopping yourself from thinking negatively will make a big difference to your confidence level, but if you combine that together with thinking positively then you’ll notice a world of difference in your confidence level. Be kind to yourself, motivate yourself, cheer yourself on. Believe that you can do anything you set your mind to. 43.Believe In Yourself You are the shit! (my high school math teacher always told us to believe that about ourselves, and no it does not mean that you are shit, it means you are THE shit, as in you are awesome). Be your own best fan and have faith that you can do whatever you set your mind to, even if it will take you many attempts or a long time or cost a lot of money. Have unwavering belief in yourself and know that you can count on yourself to get you through any situation. This belief is crucial to becoming a confident person. 44.Learn To Say No Learning to say no makes a very big difference to your confidence level. People who lack confidence or who are low on self-esteem very rarely say no and always end up doing things they don’t really want to be doing. Learning to say no involves setting boundaries. You need to know what you want to do and what you do not want to do. If a situation occurs that involves you having to do something that will cross your boundaries then say no (e.g. your boss asking you to work overtime without paying you for it). Don’t be afraid that you will look like a jerk for saying no to something that crosses your boundaries. It’s much better than being a wussy who lets others walk all over him.
- 15. 45.Be True To Yourself Being true to yourself is similar to learning to say no to things that cross your boundaries. It means that you should be doing everything because you want to be doing it. Create your life in a way how you want to live it, don’t do something because your friends, parents or family expect it from you. Don’t be in a relationship with someone who you don’t really want to be in a relationship with. Follow your heart and let it guide you. Once you stop living for other people, you’ll start to feel more confident because your life aligns with your heart and your desires. 46.Be In The Present A common mistake people who lack confidence make is to dwell on the past or dream in the future most of the time. The only time when you live, when you feel, when you can take action is right now… the present moment. Reflect on the past from time to time and use it to learn from, and dream in the future from time to time to plan your goals and direction, but live in the present moment. When your mind and body are present, it’s a lot easier to be confident with everything that you do. 47.Let Go Of The Past Living in the present moment as much as possible on its own is not going to help you if your past is haunting you. If you’ve got something in your past you really regret it can be a huge weight on your confidence level or even the sole reason why you lack confidence. I already mentioned how you should forgive yourself and how you should learn from your mistakes. Now it’s time to let go of the past. You cannot change what’s done. Try to find a way to forgive yourself or find closure, and stop letting the past weigh you down.
- 16. 48.Take Action The single most important way how to build confidence it to take action. You can read as much about building confidence as you want, if you don’t take action to change your confidence level then it’s never going to happen. You don’t just wake up one day and say “Hey, I’m a super confident person”. It’s a gradual process that requires you taking small steps over an extended period of time. But take small steps to improve your confidence every single day and within a few weeks or months you can be a completely different person. A good example is when you want to learn how to approach women – you’ll get better with each approach. 49.Write About Your Feelings A very good way to let go of the past or to forgive yourself is by writing about your feelings. When you put your thoughts onto paper, it’s almost like you transfer them from your mind onto that paper. They leave your body and open up space inside you. Anger, hate, fear, worry, insecurity… once you really start writing how you feel you’ll notice how the intensity of these emotions inside you become less and less. And of course, the fewer negative emotions you have inside you, the more confident you become.
- 17. 50.Start A Blog A blog is a good way how to build confidence. Why? Firstly because it incorporates the above point where you write about your feelings and inject your opinion and personal life into your blog (how much you choose to reveal publicly is up to you of course). Secondly, when you blog (and take it seriously), you’re building a resource that thousands, potentially millions of people will visit. This means you need to make it look good and make the content on your blog interesting or valuable. This means you’re in front of a lot of people, and although you’re not directly in front of an audience like you are with public speaking, you still get lots of emails and contact requests with your readers from all around the world. And as a bonus additionally to becoming more confident by blogging, you also stand the chance to change the lives of others or make money. So go out and start a blog right now, it’s really easy. 51.Learn Another Language The majority of the world only speaks one language. So go out and learn another one. It’s challenging and takes work but it’s also interesting. When you are able to speak another language you just feel like you can do more than your average person which helps with confidence building. After you have basic knowledge of another language you can take this exercise even further by visiting a country that speaks this language and then interaction with native strangers to communicate your needs or just start a conversation. (This is a super way how to build confidence because you’re combining learning another language with solo travel with approaching strangers. Hardcore!) 52.Be Curious Although curiosity killed the cat, being a curious person is a very good trait to have. If you want more confidence, become more curious. Find that urge to want to know how things work, or that urge to visit new place or learn more. A strong sense of curiosity will help you move out your comfort zone and build more confidence. 53.Get Feedback Sometimes you don’t see the forest through the trees, meaning you’re so involved in your daily life and person that you don’t see what you are doing wrong or what your problems are. It’s a good idea to ask constructive feedback from someone who is confident but who is also a good person. What you need is hard constructive feedback, someone who is not afraid to tell you straight (e.g. you slouch too much and don’t keep eye-contact) but at the same time someone who doesn’t say stupid things like “you are an idiot”.
- 18. 54.Take Risks When it comes to building confidence, you need to take risks. Maybe small risks, but sometimes bigger risks. You may ask yourself what I mean by taking risks, but the answers are already in this list that you are reading. Fore example, when you go sky-diving to improve your confidence, you’re taking a risk. When you start with public speaking, you’re taking a risk of humiliating yourself. When you approach a stranger, you risk rejection. The key to taking risks is to see it as a learning experience. If everything goes okay then you get a huge boost to your confidence. If something goes wrong, see it as a mistake to learn from and do it better next time round. (Unfortunately you don’t get second chances if something goes wrong with sky-diving). 55.Motivate Yourself When you set out on the journey to become more confident, it’s going to really help you if you find ways to motivate yourself. I guarantee that there will be times when you feel like giving up because you’re facing obstacles and failures, and because you don’t seem to be making progress in your quest of gaining confidence. If you give up, you go back to square one, being your old self with no confidence. So, in times of need, you must turn to sources to motivate yourself to keep going. I personally like to turn to quotes of people who I admire, people who persevered and overcame enormous obstacles and achieved huge success. Examples would be Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong and Will Smith. 56.Find Role Model Another very good way how to build confidence is to find a role model (or more than one). Find people who have achieved what you want to achieve, or who are living a life you dream of living. Make it a project to find out everything you can about these people, how they think, what they eat, how they work, what their philosophy is. Study them and imitate them so that you can too achieve what they achieved. If you want to be more confident, find someone who is super confident and study their habits. What makes them so confident and how can you apply their habits to your own life? 57.Admit When You Are Wrong It can be a difficult thing to admit when you’re wrong, but learning to do this will help you with becoming more confident. It prevents you from being so protective of your ego and your pride, and it makes you a much more open person. There’s nothing wrong in admitting you made a mistake. In fact, people often respect you more for admitting you did something wrong than when you try to deny it or cover it up.
- 19. 58.Relax You are not a machine or robot. From time to time your body and your mind needs a break. You need to relax, let go of your stress and worries and really go back to being yourself. Sometimes a day off or a weekend is not enough, so if you feel that you really need a break, take a week and go somewhere where you can relax. Being in the wild or near nature is always a good idea to relax. When you are relaxed you’ll find it easier to believe in yourself and have more energy to go after the things you want. 59.Spend Time With Friends Don’t underestimate the importance of friends in your life. Spending time with friends can be a huge boost to your confidence, happiness and success in life and you should from time to time get away and spend time with your friends. However, it is important that your friends are people who support you ad who challenge you to grow. Being friends with the wrong kind of people (negative people and people who also lack confidence) is not going to help you become a more confident person. 60.Do Something Silly A great way how to build confidence is to do something silly or ridiculous on purpose. Have people look at you, laugh at you and above all, laugh at yourself. Take lipstick and write something on your forehead and go to the mall, wear a funny costume and go out on the street, offer to tell people a joke for $1. Whatever you can think of, just make it silly and go out with the intention to have people laugh at you or look at you funny. You’ll see it’s not so bad as you think it is. 61.End Negative Relationships A huge drain of your confidence comes from negative influences or rather, negative relationships. These are abusive and destructive relationships where people just bully you, use you and don’t give anything back to you. It could be a romantic relationship, a business relationship or just a friendship. If you feel someone is taking advantage of you and only using you for their personal gain without contributing to the relationship in an equal way to how you contribute, either tell them off or just end the relationship. Don’t let other people use you and put you down. You deserve better than that.
- 20. 62.Challenge Yourself If something is too easy for you then you’re not going to grow and you’ll be bored out of your mind. You’ll be stuck in your comfort zone and stay at the same level that you’re at right now, lacking confidence. If you want to become more confident you need to challenge yourself. You need to do things that push you out of your comfort zone, things that you may feel nervous or anxious about. You need to be doing something that challenges you, that forces you to work harder or think smarter to be able to achieve it. A challenge can be anything you want, from a sport to approaching strangers to even starting your own business. It just needs to be something that forces you to push your boundaries so that you can grow and become more confident. 63.Control Your Emotions As you read earlier in this list, negative thinking is very bad for building confidence. In the same way, negative emotions are very bad for building confidence. Anger, hate, jealousy, depression etc. These emotions are very strong and very powerful, and it’s easy to let these emotions control you. You need to learn to control your emotions. By that I mean focus on positive emotions and not give time or energy to entertaining negative emotions like anger or hate.
- 21. 64.Follow Your Heart In modern society we are conditioned to follow rules and orders. We are conditioned to believe that the opinions of our parents, teachers and friends are sacred and that they are ultimately what is the best choice for us. And as a result we end up living lives where we choose jobs, partners, friends and even apartments because other people think it would be best for us, while we are unhappy and depressed yet cannot figure out why. If you are unhappy or depressed and don’t know why, it quite simply may be due to the fact that you’re living with choices that other people pushed you to make but that you would not have made out of free will. It’s time to start listening to your heart, because with every choice that you make, you know deep inside you whether it feels right or not. Next time you have to make a decision, don’t do something that doesn’t feel right inside you. Listen to your heart and let it guide you to make decisions that align with it. 65.Simplify And De-Clutter Your Environment I personally think that you cannot be your best self when your environment is full of clutter, junk and unnecessary things. This weighs you down emotionally and possibly even obstructs your confidence from being present. Make it your mission to sift through your whole house. Whatever you need and is useful, organize it neatly and give it a fixed place. The things that you don’t need or don’t use, put them in storage, or better yet, sell them or give them to charity. The simpler and more organized your environment, the easier it is for you to concentrate on other things and add more emotional energy to those other things, thus allowing you to be more confident. 66.Stop Comparing Yourself To Others A very bad habit that most people have is to compare themselves to others. This is not bad if it really motivates you to work harder or be a better person if you know that your neighbor works hard and is a good person, but usually comparing yourself to others makes you feel incompetent and like a loser. It’s better to have role-models and look up to people and use their success to motivate you than it is to be jealous of others who have more or who are better than you. You are you, and not somebody else. If there are things about yourself that you don’t like, then make an effort to change those things. For the rest, stop worrying about what others have or what they are doing.
- 22. 67.Don’t Depend On Something You Cannot Control For Happiness I know that this is much easier said than done. It’s really bad for your confidence to depend on some external factor for your happiness. If you depend on the mood of your partner, or the weather or the results of your daily efforts for your happiness, then your mood is going to be up and down more than a giant roller-coaster ride. And when your mood is so unstable, your confidence really starts to be affected. Try to be happy because you are who you are, you’re alive and you have the opportunity to create and achieve something. 68.Realize That Confidence Brings Happiness You may not be sure of the effects of confidence because you’ve lacked it for so long. Confidence is a wonderful thing that allows you to have the best of many aspects of life, and one of those aspects is happiness. When you are a confident person, you are likely to be a very happy person. Think about super confident people who you know in your life. Do they seem like happy people? Once you realize that confidence brings you happiness, it may be a very strong motivational factor to push you to want to become more confident. 69.Realize That Confidence Brings Success If you lack confidence and wonder why you don’t have as much success as you’d like to be having, maybe you don’t understand that a crucial ingredient to the recipe of success is confidence. You need confidence to believe in yourself, in your ideas and in your business. You need confidence to allow others to believe in you and in your ideas. Without confidence, you’re likely to make less sales and less progress in your financial situation. Understanding how important confidence is as part of achieving success allows you to take action to become more confidence so that you can achieve the success you want.
- 23. 70.Realize That Confidence Brings Better Relationships Confidence is very good for relationships. It allows you to know what you want and at the same time say no to the things that you do not want. Being confident allows you to speak your mind to the person you are in a relationship with, and as you may know, the better you communicate, the better your relationships become. And if you learn how to approach women, you will have many opportunities for new relationships! 71.Realize That Helps You Materialize your Dreams As if you may not have enough reasons why you should work to become more confident, here is another one: confidence helps you materialize your dreams. You can dream about something all your life, but if you don’t take action to make it come true, the dream will always remain a dream. But it can be scary and risky to take action to make your dreams come true. And without confidence, those risks and that fear are going to keep you from taking any action to make your dreams come true. So go ahead and take action to become more confident, because you’ll need it if you ever want to make your dreams come true. 72.Read Books Back when I was in school, there was a saying above the door of our library: Read to Succeed. Pretty much everything you can imagine has already been said or done by someone who walked on this earth in the last 2000 years. Books can contain wisdom that has taken people lifetime’s to accumulate and understand. The more you read, the higher your chances are of overcoming an obstacle or problem you’re facing. If you want a great way how to build confidence, it’s to read as much as you can about how to become confident. Of course you have to combine reading with taking action, but you first need to start with reading. Make it a habit to read a new book every week. 73.Attend Seminars There are countless good self-help mentors and gurus around the world who give seminars about a variety of confidence building techniques and personal development tips. Steve Pavlina for example has some fantastic workshops that you can attend. If you can afford the price and you have the opportunity, then attend a seminar about building confidence. Who knows how much it can help you out.
- 24. 74.Follow Courses A simple search in Google about self-confidence courses will reveal hundreds of results. There is a lot of junk out there, but there is also a lot of super useful information. Do yourself a favor and buy a course or two about becoming more confident, and then actually take the time to read the course and follow the instructions. Once again, only reading is not enough, you actually need to do the exercises and take action if you want to improve your level of confidence. To save you time and money from buying junk courses, I personally recommend this course for overcoming shyness and social anxiety, and becoming a super confident person. Alternatively check out our confidence training manual. 75.Watch Inspiring Movies Movies are good for more than just entertainment. Many movies contain a strong message, and have actors and actresses who play roles of very confident, respectful and noble people. You can learn a lot from watching inspiring movies. A good example would be the movie The Pursuit of Happiness starring Will Smith. It shows how against all odds, a man with enough determination to succeed will eventually succeed if he tries hard enough and doesn’t give up. 76.Listen To Uplifting Music Music is among the best things that life has to offer. A simple song can change your mood even when you are angry or sad. Make a selection of uplifting songs that you can listen to when you wake up, go to gym or even when you’re driving in your car. Uplifting music can do wonders for your mood and when you’re in a good mood, you feel more confident to do anything you want. 77.Break Bad Habits This refers to changing habits that contribute to or are responsible for your lack of confidence. It includes every bad habit you have ranging from bad body language, to limiting beliefs to choosing to stand or sit in the corner or the back of the room etc. Make a list of all your bad habits and start changing them one at a time. The more bad habits you eliminate, the easier it will be to become confident.
- 25. 78.Eliminate Crutches Another great way how to build confidence is to eliminate your crutches. Now you may be thinking, “I’m not disabled, I don’t have crutches”. I’m talking about the metaphorical kind of crutches. Crutches that you rely on for support or temporary confidence. Things like alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, a special watch, your favorite shoes. You don’t need these things to be confident, and the sooner you realize that you don’t need some substance or special something to feel confident, the sooner you can really let your natural confidence out. 79.Create Something For some reason it always brings me pleasure and joy when I create something. It doesn’t really matter what it is, but the fact that my hard work created something our of nothing always lifts my mood and boosts my confidence. Think about making music, pottery, drawing, woodwork, building a shed… whatever you enjoy doing, as long as it means that you create something. 80.Find A Mentor I’ve mentioned finding role-models to help you become more confident. What’s even better is to find a mentor, someone who will take you by the hand and train you to become more confident. Someone who is quick to see what you are doing wrong, and who can get you to push your comfort zone. Someone who will stimulate you to build your confidence. You can look for a confidence coach, or simply just find a friend or colleague who is super confident and ask him if he or she is willing to be your mentor in return for something they want (money or help or even you mentoring them at something they need help with). 81.Throw A Party If it’s too scary to throw a party, just organize a small get-together with some of your best friends. Tell you friends they can bring some of their own friends too. Keep it simple, have some snacks and drinks, maybe organize a barbeque. It will help your confidence because you’ll be the cool person who organized the party, you’re responsible for other people’s fun. They’ll thank you for showing them a good time. And you’ll meet new and interesting people who show up at your party. 82.Have Fun Some people are just too serious and forget how to have fun. Does this sound like you? Make it a point to go out and do something dun every now and then. Go to a club, go to a movie, go play a game of paintball. When you have fun your mood becomes better, your stress and worries fade away and it’s easier to be confident with other things in your life.
- 26. 83.Take Responsibility For Something A good way how to build confidence is to be responsible for something or someone. When you are responsible for something not only does it help you grow up faster and makes you feel important, you need to believe in yourself because you are the one who has to handle things, there is nobody to do it for you. You could for example get a pet that you need to take care of, or you can volunteer to lead a group or teach a class. 84.Start Over Maybe it’s time to cut the loose ends, let go of your past, forgive yourself and start over. Start a new life. Get a new job. Make new friends. Find a new partner for a relationship. It can sound harsh, but if you feel that it would be best for you and you know in your heart that you would be much better off with a fresh start, then go for it. Don’t keep walking the same path if it’s been making you unhappy and depressed all your life. 85.Make The Decision To Change Have you consciously decided that you want to be more confident? That you want to be SUPER confident? I know that you want to be more confident, and kind of wish for it. But until you actively decide to change nothing will happen. 86.Visualize If you spend a little bit of time focusing on your goals (in this case becoming more confident) then you are in fact programming your subconscious mind with your desires. Your subconscious mind can then guide you and help you make decisions that will help you indeed become more confident. I’ve read a couple of interesting biographies about successful people who attribute their success to daily visualization of their goals. Napoleon Hill even talks about this concept in great detail in his popular book Think and Grow Rich.
- 27. 87.Step Into Someone Else’s Shoes A change of perspective can do wonders for your confidence level. Take some time to imagine stepping into the shoes of someone else. Maybe shadow someone for a few days, or if you have someone who trusts you and lets them be you for a day, go for it. See what it’s like living the life of someone who is confident, and realize that you can do exactly the same. You are confident, you just don’t know it yet. 88.Remember What You’re Good At People often make the mistake of focusing on their weaknesses and faults. When you do this, you’re constantly destroying your confidence and self-esteem and there’s no chance you’re going to be able to build confidence. I don’t care what you say, there is something that you are good at. Think about what you are good at, and focus on those things. You can pull a lot of confidence from the things you are good at and apply it to other areas of your life. 89.Fix Something There comes great pleasure from fixing something that is broken. And not only does it bring joy, it also boosts your confidence enormously. It lets you see that you are good at something, that you have skills, that you are valuable. And this belief in yourself helps you build confidence. The stronger your belief in yourself, the greater your confidence. 90.Post Sticky Notes To Remind Yourself Are you forgetful or do you lose focus quickly? In that case it would be a good idea to put sticky notes around your house, work and in your car to remind you to be confident. You could write down points from this list on different sticky notes and it will help you stay on track with building your confidence because you’re constantly reminded of what you need to be doing (and what you do not need to be doing). 91.Eat Healthier Exercise is not the only way to get a good body. The food you eat and your diet plays a huge role in how you look, how healthy you are and how you feel. And of course, when you look good and feel good, your confidence automatically becomes higher. So take a closer look at what you are eating. Switch to a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and lean protein, while cutting out as many processed foods, sugars and alcohol as you can.
- 28. 92.Cleanse Your Body From time to time it can do wonders for your body if you do a cleanse. A cleanse means exactly that, cleaning your body and ridding it from built up toxins. There are various types of cleanses you can follow, one being The Master Cleanse which is a special program where you drink only water, lemon juice, maple syrup and some sesame seed husks. Another good way to cleanse your body is to drink nothing but vegetable juice for 3-5 days, no solid food, no processed food. 93.Stop Trying To Be Perfect A big obstruction to being or becoming confident is perfectionism. When you constantly try to be perfect you’re constantly being very critical of yourself and you’re very likely going to be unhappy with yourself most of the time because nobody is perfect. It’s good to do your best with everything you do and be the best person who you can be, but let go of trying to be 100% perfect. 94.Stop Idolizing Others Idolizing others is similar to comparing yourself to others. Stop putting other people on a pedestal It just makes you feel inferior and makes you feel like you are not good enough or worthy to be alive. You can look up to people and use them as role-models or as inspiration for you to build confidence easier or faster, but don’t idolize them. 95.Stop Asking For Permission If you want to build confidence, stop asking people for permission. Do first and ask for forgiveness later. This will teach you to believe in yourself and to believe in your idea or your ability to make something work, because if it doesn’t work you’re accountable for it. Of course if it comes down to something important and you legally need someone’s permission, then it’s better to do that, but for the smaller things, stop asking the permission of others. 96.Focus On Solutions Instead Of Problems There are two sides to a problem: the problem and the solution. Many people focus just on problems, and guess what… this is extremely negative and destroys confidence very quickly. Try to focus on solutions, shift your energy to finding a way to solve a problem rather than focus on the problem itself and complain about how it’s making your life difficult.
- 29. 97.Realize You Are Not Alone The state that you’re in right now, and your life situation is one that thousands if not millions of people all around the world share with you. You’re not alone with your fears, insecurities and lack of confidence, and this knowledge should make you feel a lot more comfortable. The only question is that just because others have the same problem as you, are you going to settle for staying in this same situation or are you going to do whatever it takes to become more confident and create the life you want to be living? 98.Put Fear Aside Fear is a totally natural phenomenon. It’s designed by evolution to keep us safe and protect us, but in today’s society we often allow fear to cripple us and hold us down. Fears are often irrational (like the fear of approaching a stranger) and serve no real purpose except to hold us back from growth and success. Try to put your fear aside and do what you’ve always been afraid of doing. 99.Be Patient Out of these 100 ways how to build confidence, being patient is the most important one. Building confidence takes time, it’s an evolution. You don’t wake up one day and become a super confident person. You need to take action, small steps, for days, weeks and sometimes even months before you see a big shift in confidence. Sure, you can get temporary boosts in confidence, but before you truly become a confident person at your core, it takes time. So don’t give up when you don’t see immediate results, or when you have a bit of a relapse into lacking confidence. Just be patient and keep working hard at building your confidence.
- 30. 100.Subscribe To FlawlessConfidence.com If you really want to become a super confident person and as a result become happier, more successful and more free in your life, then you should subscribe to the email newsletter of this blog. We will send you daily tips, advice and examples how to build your confidence and how to become a super confident person. And as you can judge by the length and quality of this e-book, teaching you how to become confident is something we take very seriously. SUBSCRIBE TO FLAWLESSCONFIDENCE.COM VIA EMAIL HERE
- 31. As An Extra Tip… Albert Einstein defined 'insanity' and doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If you have no confidence, if you are low on self-esteem and if your life just plain sucks because you're not successful, don't have money, don't have friends or don't have a love life... maybe it's time to start doing things differently. You're about to get your hands on the exact steps and secrets that will completely transform your life, help you to obliterate your shyness and make you SUPER confident so you can start living the live you've always dreamed of. But understand this: If you're expecting a magic bullet or overnight success, then you may as well not bother. If you continue with your daily habits and routines, your life is going to stay exactly the same as it is now. (mediocre). If on the other hand you want to become a confident person, you have to change your life. And no... small changes won't cut it. If you're serious about becoming a self-confident person, you have to make permanent radical changes. Without a blueprint or guide to help you make these changes, you're not going to get very far on your own. It took us years of trial and error and thousands of dollars spent on self-help material to learn the steps and secrets of what you're about to learn in our guide.
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