3 Easy Tricks To Boost Your Self-Confidence When It’s Lacking

How you feel about yourself is one of the most important aspects of living that most people are not ready to address. If you’re reading this, it means you want to improve how you see yourself and that is AWESOME! You are actively choosing to improve your self-confidence. Powerful stuff my friend!

Self-confidence, can be defined as believing in one’s abilities and inner power. It means that you simply believe in yourself, which can help you navigate life and adulting a little easier.

Self-confidence is what you can lean on when you feel low and need a pick me up. Self-confidence, as I like to think, is your inner best friend. Someone that you nurture who in turn nurtures you back, and then some.

Unfortunately, I know for a fact I didn’t always nurture that part of me. There were many times that I felt very low and really didn’t believe I would get past any given moment. I didn’t have confidence in my abilities to navigate life, my relationships, etc. I felt I had lost a lot of my power…my hope.

My problem wasn’t that I had moments or periods of time in my life where I lacked self-confidence, it was that I wasn’t doing anything about it. I was choosing to ignore and simply not work on that part of me. And in turn, my mental health suffered. So did my relationships.

Lacking self-confidence meant I could not show up fully as my whole self. It meant that I allowed certain people or situations to dominate me, because I didn’t have the confidence or strength to speak up for myself. But now I see where I went wrong. Thank god for growth!

I don’t even remember exactly when I came to this realization, but I do know that it was quite eye-opening when it did happen. And last year was the first time I started to become more intentional about my self-care and the ways I show up for myself. Including improving and raising my self-confidence.

Improving your self-confidence is a beautiful practice that I think everyone should work on! So let’s raise the bar, or our self-confidence, using these tips below.

Use Positive Self-Talk

Positive self-talk is an amazing tool you can use to self-soothe and improve your self-confidence. It forces you to be your own cheerleader and boost yourself up, even when no one else is doing it. That last part is key.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s beautiful when people have positive and nice things to say about you, but that can’t be the foundation of your self-confidence. It’s just a bonus.

Positive words or affirmations will be a lot better and will help you improve our self-confidence, because it is coming from you.

When I first decided to fully launch my blog business, and this time without a focus on underground music, I was scared silly. Man, I still am LOL.

I was hitting a wall creatively because I wasn’t sure how I could get my vision to actually work. So, I instantly went to the negative thoughts like, “I suck, I can’t do this” or “You’re going to fail, don’t even waste your time”.

Sounds harsh but I’m being honest! Our thoughts can get real negative, real quick if we don’t address them correctly.

Luckily I snapped out of it and realized I needed to talk to myself with more positive language. So in that same scenario, maybe positive language would have included…

“I am really stuck on X, but I’m proud of myself for working so hard” OR “I don’t have it all figured out, but I am grateful for the opportunity to try”.

That’s WAY better than flat out saying I suck over and over again, right?

So try to use more positive self-talk when you know you’re needing a boost of confidence! Not only will the negative self-talk dissipate, you’ll become increasingly more positive and kinder to everyone, including yourself.

Don’t Be Camera Shy!

I honestly think everyone should be their own hype man, and this includes the moments when you’re taking a selfie. You can do this however you want; the point is for you to get more comfortable in the skin you’re in.

I found that over the years, we have increasingly used filters or creative effects on our photos. Every social media platform has them, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and I’m sure the list goes on. And it’s no shade to these platforms. It’s actually a very cool feature to use and a funky way to share digital media.

However, it can also impact the way we see ourselves, how we view the way we look. And to be honest, it definitely skewed the way I saw myself over time.

I noticed slowly that I didn’t like myself as much in pictures where I didn’t have some type of filter applied. Or I was extra cautious about looking a certain way on camera. I absolutely did not like this!

I felt that it was ridiculous for me to feel almost less than, without a damn filter or effect on my pictures. So one day I decided to appreciate my beauty in all that it was.

I took photos whenever I had a free moment and could remember to do so. No frills, no makeup, just me as I am. And what I learned was magical.

Over time, I started to appreciate my looks and my natural beauty, without the damn filters. I started to notice the freckles coming in on my face and upper chest. I loved how my brown skin reflected off the sunlight coming in our window.

Sounds silly, but I started to fall back in love with me again. And this is not to say that physical beauty is everything, because it definitely is not. But I think it’s important to love the way you look, to love yourself as you are.

So try taking photos of yourself more often. You don’t even have to share them! I have a whole album in my phone dedicated to my selfies and I appreciate them because they represent moments of real self-confidence.

Write 10 Things You Love About Yourself

Sounds cheesy at first, I’ll admit, but I think this is a great practice for boosting your self-confidence. It gives you the opportunity to praise yourself, your actions, etc. Which is something we don’t get to do as often as we should.

So this is your chance. This is your opportunity to praise yourself the way you probably praise others. This is simply for you.

But, if writing is not your thing, that is totally fine. You can think about it, write it as a text in your phone, or even maybe craft an e-mail to yourself! Either way, you always have something to come back to or refer to.

This then can become a tool in your toolbox when you need a boost or pick-me-up.

So take some time to think it through. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get you started…

What are things I do well? Is it how I show up for a friend or family member? Is it how fast I am at completing projects at work, which in turn has lead to all of my promotions? What’s your superpower and why?

There are a million more questions you can probably ask yourself in order to find out what you love about you. Spend time truly reflecting and you’ll be amazing at what you come up with.

Writing out what you love about yourself will also help you become further aligned with your inner power. It gives you the perfect opportunity to look within and see all the good that is you. Not only a great way to build and boost self-confidence, but a great practice for self-love.

I hope these three tricks will help you love and appreciate not only the way you look, but it will help you honor your thoughts and feelings in a more positive manner. Give your time space to really work on your confidence in who you are, physically, mentally and emotionally!

These tips are a great addition to your already existing tool box of self-confidence. They are also great to use when you hit a wall or run into a storm in your life and need a boost. May this help you wherever you are on your journey.