I have had many conversations, with people recently, who are struggling with their self confidence!
Gaining self confidence is important to us all because from time to time we all get our confidence dented.
Which is why I have put together a simple strategy for building your self confidence or for your clients – just follow these steps below:
- Remind yourself of previous successes.
Have a think about when you last did something well or were successful and take some time to think about the strengths and the skills you used. By doing this exercise it will give you an opportunity to praise yourself. Write down a positive statement that supports your strengths and skills.
For example, I am great at communicating because I smile and I always have a positive frame of mind towards all of my clients. Start telling yourself this affirmation of your good qualities at least 3 times daily until you firmly believe in your qualities.
- Picture a successful future for yourself.
When you set future goals it is important that you visualise what your success will be like. To do this you should build into your vision as many of your senses as possible because the richer the vision the more likely success will be achieved. Think about how success smells – ‘the sweet smell of success’, or how it tastes – ‘taste the victory’, or how it feels – ‘you feel your victory’, or sounds – ‘I can hear the applause ringing in my ears’, and how does it look – ‘I can see my great achievements clearly’. You could also paint this in your mind in full colour or draw a mind map or create a picture on a piece of paper. This will be your future goal so design it the way that suits you best.
- Reframe past mistakes
‘If at first you don’t succeed try and try again’. As a friend or a parent you would tell someone else to pick themselves up and have another go. As one door closes another one opens. Starting to look at past failures as critical learning means that every failure leads towards your final success. What would you do differently, how would you improve what you have done before, what areas of development are needed?
- Creating self-confidence by using goals
SMART goals will help you achieve. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timed.
Achieving goals is a powerful tool to boost your confidence. Firstly, set your future goals – the life goals – the ones that you described in detail and are linked to your positive statement. Then set some short term goals that complement your life goals. When you achieve these short term goals it will make you feel good. By feeling good you will become more confident and then be able to set more goals and so a positive reinforcement of your strengths is set in place.
You have now put in place four steps to help you build your confidence – you have focused on your strengths, you have reminded yourself of these by building positive statements about yourself, you have looked at past mistakes and re-framed them so that they become learning opportunities and finally you have some goals to achieve that will build your self esteem and confidence.
So walk tall, feel proud and smile.
A short story about my own journey:
Personally I have developed my self confident through investing in my continual professional and personal development, it has been extremely beneficial.
I have faced some of the most challenging times recently and I have needed to draw deeply on past experiences. The training and investment I have put into my self development has been a rock to lean on recently.
So I will end with encouraging yourselves to invest in you.
You can find a vast range of courses that will improve your own development and raise your confidence levels in the process. Follow this link to find a course that would suit you.
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