More on being confident - steps to greater self-confidence

Everyone has faults and everyone has strengths. Whatever you see as your faults, they don't have to stop you feeling confident! Whatever your strengths, they can be helpful in building up greater confidence!

Steps to greater self-confidence

Consider your good qualities. Many tips on how to get greater confidence focus on the importance of reminding yourself of your special talents and abilities. But now think instead of the qualities you have that might help you to feel more confident about yourself: for example, are you a good teacher, a good friend, a patient person, someone with a good sense of humor? These are all positive attributes which you can use to boost your opinion of yourself.

Find your enthusiasm. We've mentioned before the importance of finding something that thrills you: it's any occupation, pastime or hobby that gives you a feeling of excitement, a buzzing sensation in your gut, the certain knowledge - "That's what I must do." Be passionate - be excited - be committed. To be the best at something, you must commit to it with total dedication. Then you'll find your confidence grows naturally.

Get a mentor. We all need someone who can guide us through the vicissitudes of life, and a mentor is someone who will be with us in that journey. Mentors don't stay with you your whole life - eventually you outgrow them: that's the essence of mentoring - a person takes you as far as you can go with him or her, then hands the job onto someone else.  The confidence that comes from having a mentor is profound, and it's rooted in the knowledge that this person is alongside you and will be there to support you no matter what happens.

Have a role model. It's a different process to mentoring, in that you need not necessarily ever meet your role mode, but you must know something about them to be able to emulate them. Often we project the qualities we wish to see in a role model onto someone, and then admire them for those qualities. These may or may not actually be the qualities that person possesses, but that hardly matters - the psychological purpose of a role model is to give us something to aspire to. This fires up our imagination and can boost our confidence by giving us something to aim for.

Be gracious and accepting of compliments. There is no surer sign of a low self-esteem than someone who bats away compliments or shrugs them off with "Yeah, right" or "It was nothing." This isn't good manners - it's self-effacement, and it is an extremely unattractive habit. You can learn to accept positive strokes, no matter how uncomfortable you may be with them, by practicing receiving them and rehearsing your reaction. As you get more willing to "let them in" you will find that your confidence grows and, oddly enough, you get more of them!

Know that you have important things to say - and say them. You can always follow our advice to act confident even when you don't feel it: rehearse in front of a mirror to get your reaction right and you'll be relaxed when you do it for real. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, you included, and you have a right to express it. When you feel strongly about something, make eye contact, and speak clearly, loudly and firmly.

Look after yourself. This means eating a healthy diet, getting the right exercise, and taking some time and trouble over your appearance. Having said that, confidence comes from within, and although how you look can help you to feel more confident, it's the inner you that you need to work on the most.

Be assertive! Yes, it's hard at first, but nothing boosts you confidence more than knowing what you want to say, saying it and having people hear you. Make sure that you always stand up for yourself when someone puts you down - even a jokey put down can be an aggressive act that merits a calm, rational defense of you, by you.

If you're different, celebrate it! Sexuality, color, appearance, language, nationality - whatever, diversity is a cause for celebration, not regret. Be confident about who you are!

Take action. The simplest things are often the most powerful. And taking action of some sort can be incredibly liberating and confidence-boosting. What's more, these don't need to be big actions that change the world. Small steps, taken gradually and repeatedly, get you a long way. Action can be something as simple as writing a letter, taking a class in meditation - anything that you've been putting off for a while. Procrastination is the thief of time and it surely saps your confidence. Action is the way to boost your confidence and overcome feelings of self-doubt. Let me repeat that: the key to confidence is action.

Don't compare yourself to other people. There's nothing less helpful to your well-being. What do you expect to find? That some people are better than you at certain things, and that other people are better at other things! No surprise there. The truth is this: the only reason people look at others is to reinforce their negative feelings about themselves. The way to avoid this is just not to do it.

Take some self-development classes, whether that's meditation, relaxation, leadership, NLP or whatever. And being a leader is a powerful way to boost you confidence, even if it's the presidency of the local wine society or the chairmanship of the horticultural club.

Focus on your inner voice. You'll hear it making all kinds of outrageous suggestions to you at the best and worst of times - and often these are not helpful suggestions. You might want to censor them or consciously filter them out so that you just absorb the best, most supportive ones, and use you intellect to assess the others and reject the ones that are not true, the ones that don't reflect your real abilities and skills. (Which will unfortunately be most of them, a sad fact but true. Most people receive very negative parenting that reduces their self-confidence and belief in their abilities.)

Last but not least - these are essential steps for greater confidence:

Do not put yourself down. Your contribution to society is as valuable as everyone else's.

Do want you want to do. Don't be put off by others; it's your life, not theirs.

Don't be over-confident.

Don't give in to peer pressure.

Don't give yourself away to others just because they compliment and praise you. Sometimes people with a low level of self-confidence or low self esteem are vulnerable to manipulation! Stand firm! And stand up for not only yourself but also your own values.