A gentle men with a drawn muscles on back representing self-confidence.

How to build self confidence?

So from Where does self-confidence come from?

 It's Something that we seem to know implicitly whenever we see it, right? It's a guy that can walk into any room in the entire world, and no matter who's in there, he feels comfortable,or a woman who can walk up to a total stranger and start conversation effortlessly. Or, maybe, just someone that you might have met who doesn't have the hesitation, the self-doubt that plague so many people.

But the question remains, where does this self-confidence come from? The common belief and the common myth is that it comes from being built up, right

 It comes from achievement and in doing things really well and having people praise and compliment us and that belief is pervasive. That's why whenever we see someone who is very rich, or very beautiful, we tend to assume they must have high self-confidence, but a quick cursory reflection on your own life will probably reveal that that's not the case, right?
Man standing on the mountain during sun rise.
 I am sure that you have met someone in your own life that has been built up. Their social circle talks very highly of them. They are every, very well regarded in work, but they still feel crappy about themselves. In fact, oftentimes, it's people who receive the most compliments, who are the most lacking in self-confidence, and that's not by mistake.

 So, if it's not from praise and compliments, where, then, did self-confidence come from?

 And the answer is that it comes from raising your self-esteem.

 Now, self-esteem, like self-confidence, is one of those words that tends to get thrown around. People don't know what it means, but basically, it's your sense of worthiness, right?

 As Nathaniel Branden put it, the guy who wrote the book on self-esteem, your self-esteem is your reputation with your self. It is what you think about you, and that is why compliments cannot build your self-esteem. That is what other people think about you. And the truth of self-esteem is I want to talk about three very important things.

1. Your self-esteem can't be generated externally.

Man sitting with a background of charging drawn with chalk.
 First one, being this, is that your self-esteem cannot be generated externally. It can't come from other people. It must come from within you. So no matter what you have going on in your life. If people think that you are very successful, that you're smart, that you got the perfect spouse, or the perfect body, it doesn't matter how much praise they pile on you.

If you are not happy with the decisions you've made, maybe you have taken someone else's path, or you have done everything that you are supposed to do to be successful, and you have achieved it by other people's standards, but not by your own, you are going to lack self-esteem, and your self-confidence is going to suffer as a result. That is the first thing. It needs to come from within you.

2. The second thing about self-esteem, which is so important to raising your self-confidence is that self-esteem. High self-esteem, atleast doesn't compare itself to other people, right?
Confidence meter showing high confidence level.
I am sure you know someone, maybe there's an aspect of your own life, I am guilty of this at times, that you feel that you need to be better, that you need to be the best, right?

 And, so, maybe, you are going to the gym, and you look around, and you are the strongest guy in your section of the gym, and you feel really good, or you look to your group of friends, and you are the funniest, or the smartest, or whatever it is that gives you that sense of pride, that gives you a very temporary sense of confidence, but that's not true self-esteem, because all that has to happen is to put you in an environment with someone who pushes your limits, who is better than you in someway that's important to you, and all of a sudden, that self-confidence crumbles, right?

 So, while you do get a temporary boost from comparing yourself to others, you don't want to make that the fountain of your self-confidence.

3. You need to pick where your self-esteem comes from.

Self esteem meter showing high esteem level.
 Now, alot of people, like I said, implicitly take it from compliments. They implicitly take it from comparisons to other people. That will not last. That only gives you that temporary boost. If you want something that is going to be there, that is consistent, the best source of self-esteem is simply to become the person who does the right thing.

 And what I mean by this is so many people think that their confidence hinges upon good performances and so they go on a social situation, they feel like they need to kill it with every person. Everybody needs to like them.

They need to instantly click in any sort of group that they run into, right? If they are thrust into a new situation, they expect perfection out of themselves, or, at least, to do better than the people in the same room.

That is a sign of weak self-esteem. True self-esteem is more concerned with doing the right thing which, in those situations, is likely going to be expressing yourself, right?

Trying to strike up a conversation, dragging a conversation out for a little bit more than you might feel comfortable with because you feel like it is going to help you grow. Those sorts of things are going to boost your self-esteem over time. So, those are the three things, the basic, basic, basics of self-confidence and self-esteem.

4. Need to build your self-esteem.

Guy with a boxing gloves on hands.
To raise your self-confidence, you need to raise your self-esteem, and self-esteem is how you feel about you. It raises only from internal sources. It can't be from compliments. It doesn't really get benefited by comparing yourself to people around you, but it does need some sort of yard stick.

 And the best yard stick that I can recommend for you is to force yourself to be the guy, to be the girl who does the right thing, whatever that means to you. So, in order to keep this as actionable as possible, what I would recommend is something that I reflected on lately is to write down or say out loud where you have been tending to get your confidence and self-esteem, right?

Are you one of the people that tends to build yourself up and feel really high off compliments that other people give you? Or, on the flip side, you feel really down when people don't give you compliments. Are you someone who needs to compare yourself to other people to feel better.
Self esteem meter showing maximum self esteem
 Write down or say out loud where you have tended to get your self-esteem in the past because it's very helpful to know. And then, write down where you commit. Define the new source where you can get it in the future. This is the important part.

 And I recommend something very, very simple, which is I'm the type of person who does the hard thing even when it's not convenient, right? I do the right thing when it's not convenient. I'm the type of person that strives to be the best me that I can be even when it's not easy.

 Those things are internal. They are comparing only against yourself, and that is going to be the source of high self-esteem that is consistent, that carries with you no matter what room you're in, no matter who you're around, and it doesn't force you to be the kind of person that is jealous of others' success, that tries to bring other people down, or constantly needs to be weighing who else is in the room to determine how you feel.

That is the very basics of self-esteem and self-confidence, and that is the core of it.

5. Do daily exercises and workout.

Yoga and exercise on a beach
At last I would personally recommend you to give some time to your and health and daily workout. From my personal experience I realized that doing daily workout and exercises act as a big booster for your self-confidence.

 Not only that daily exercise will keep you healthy and will build your confidence at a good rate.


 So, I hope that you have found this helpful.

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