Blog: 259 How you can boost your self-confidence effectively

If you’ve ever had anything happen to you, that made you step back from the way you usually live your life. Now you being around people might seem like an overwhelming thing to have to do, because you’re not sure how or who to be any more. All you want is for people to like you and for you to be the popular, fun person you used to be.

E.g. In 2014 I had a very serious accident happen to me. I was hit by a car at 50 mph and my full recovery took many years. Before my accident I was as dancer and the internal communications manager at a world-famous bank. I have always been a fun person to hang out with = a good laugh, who is fun and kind to people. I lost my self-confidence during my recovery time. I felt I didn’t know how to be a good laugh anymore and I was very behind most of my friends in the career ladder stakes.

After a few years of recovery, I’d had enough of sitting around feeling crap about myself and my life in general, so I did a few things to get my self-confidence back. Before my accident I was a very confident and popular lady with people I knew, and I wanted that to be my life again.

If you need to: get yourself some confidence or boost the confidence that you have, you should give these things a go – because I promise you, they’ll make you feel happy about being you = you’ll be very self-confident:

·      Set and achieve small goals. Accomplishing small, manageable tasks will give you evidence of your capability = it’ll build your confidence gradually.

·      Step out of your comfort zone. Regularly doing things that make you feel uncomfortable will help to expand your comfort zone.

·      Practice positive self-talk & self-compassion. Challenge negative thoughts by treating yourself with the same kindness you offer your friends.

·      Build competence through action. Competence is built through repetition. If you take action first, confidence will follow as you learn from experience. E.g. I started writing my blogs without posting them on here, I’d re: read them, then write them again, again & again until I was 100% happy with what I’d written = repeat, repeat, repeat = perfection (I hope you agree with me about the standard of my blog posts).

·      Celebrate your small wins. When I’ve written a book to sell on this (my) website, I have a few friends come to mine for dinner = we toast me achieving a good thing.

·      Always care for your body & mind. Having no confidence in how your health is and how your body is shaping up, doesn’t feel good, does it? Therefore, regular exercise & you getting proper sleep significantly improve your self-confidence = Physical activity helps to improve your body image & your mental health.

·      Curate your social circle. Spend your time with people who put a smile on your face, because they are a great laugh to hang out with.

·      Adopt positive body language. Emulating confident behaviour, such as you having great posture and quality communication skills = can influence your internal state.

Also....

If you have no self-confidence when you go out for the night with your friends, e.g. to a nightclub, to dance the night away. You might want to join in with ‘shaking your thing’, just like your friends do, but you feel far too shy to do more than just nod your head in time to the music – try this: Put your favourite music that you can dance to on your stereo in your house and stand in front of your full-length mirror. Dance to your favourite song(s), moving / dancing in the way you want to when you are in a nightclub. If you do this a few times so you can memorise the moves you do to shake your thing in a cool, funky & sexy way – you’ll be able to do it with confidence when you go out to dance the night away with your friends.

I’ve done this to get my self-confidence back when I’m on a dance floor and to be able to continue to be a writer – I’ve made it happen, by being a self-employed writer = selling my books as online books on this website. GET IN!!

My mum and I are very proud of how well I’ve made my life go, post-accident.  XXX