Many of us will spend decades of our lives striving for self-confidence- the type that can’t ever be taken away from you, even in the most challenging circumstances like failing romantic relationships. It can sometimes feel like you’ll never reach complete self-confidence: some days feel particularly promising, then the next minute you’re back to square one, feeling hopeless and insecure.
Let’s get one thing straight: there’s really no quick fix to improving self-confidence, so you can forget about things magically changing overnight. Though it certainly can be improved upon, no matter where you’re starting from. There are several techniques and methods you can try, many of which could be considered temporary solutions, like changing how you dress or faking confidence until it feels real. You can of course try out these methods too, but you will be wasting your time. If you’re looking for lasting self-confidence, and a solution that will improve confidence slowly but consistently, you must start with your mental attitude. In this article, we will discuss how a positive mental attitude can improve self-confidence.
What Is Self-Confidence?
Contrary to what you might believe, confidence is a skill, not a trait that we were either born with or without. In other words, it can be learnt – by anyone! We can define self-confidence as a belief in our own ability to be successful at something. You can have high self-confidence in some aspects of your life, and not in others. Typically, this is because of what we’ve spent more time practising or familiarising ourselves with.
Self-confidence doesn’t just apply to obvious activities and scenarios like sports; it can apply to moments within our everyday lives, like catching the bus alone after school. To prove that self-confidence simply comes down to how familiar we are with something, think about a habit that was built into your everyday routine as a young child – perhaps when you transitioned from one school to another. The children who participate in weekend sports activities like football would likely feel confident about trying out to be a part of the school’s sports team, whereas someone who has never experienced being involved with a sports activity may have low self-confidence in making the team.
Read: How to Build Lasting Self-Confidence
Self-Confidence and Practice
It’s obvious that improving self-confidence within a specific activity, like rugby or dance, for example, can be solved through practice – and lots of it. Though when it comes to improving how you feel towards things like your appearance, personality or social skills, for example, it’s easy to look for an alternative solution. You might be thinking, what can I practice in order to feel better about the way that I look and feel about myself? In these instances, when we refer to practising self-confidence – or self-image, as it can also be referred to as, we mean the practice of habits that positively support your confidence and worth.
How A Positive Mental Attitude Can Improve Self-Confidence
Adopting a positive attitude towards life is not only beneficial to self-confidence, but also has a rewarding impact on your mental wellbeing, professional life and relationships too. But how is a positive mental attitude effective at improving self-confidence? If you think back to a time when you didn’t feel confident about yourself or about something you were about to do, no evidence pointed towards these feelings you had; it was, in fact, a thought – a negative thought.
Of course, it’s important to be aware of all the emotions, thoughts and feelings we experience daily, though it’s equally important to pay attention to negative thoughts that feel overwhelming or unrealistic. These particular thoughts can often be untrue, but feel powerful and genuine, because our brains create them from things like past experiences, expectations and perceived threat.
When we train our brains to combat every negative thought with a positive one, the negative emotions slowly lose power and control over us. They suddenly feel insignificant and manageable, because we’ve altered our perception to have a more positive outlook. Then, with practice, every time you feel self-doubt, you can reframe the negative thought so that it doesn’t take over and occupy your brain. Here’s an example to inspire you to give it a go.
Scenario: A teacher asks the students to each come to the front of the class to introduce themselves to their new classmates.
Negative thought: ‘I can’t do this, I hate speaking in front of people, I will mess up my words and look like an Idiot. I wish I had more makeup on so that my face wouldn’t go so red.’
Reframed thought with a positive outlook: ‘Instead of reapplying my lipgloss (which no one will notice anyway) I should use this as an opportunity to get better at public speaking, as I will only continue to feel this way If I keep avoiding it. To help me feel calmer, I should take some deep breaths before it’s my time to stand up.