How to become self-confident: instructions for the fair half of humanity

Author of the material:

Inna Trofimova

writer, psychologist, gestalt therapist

Many people ask – how to become confident? From those who are ready to kiss their image in the mirror, to those from whom the mirror has escaped. This means that beautiful appearance does not always determine self-esteem. What then? Perhaps intelligence, the ability to present oneself? How can you be confident in yourself if you don’t even understand where this feeling comes from? Is it possible to understand the level of your self-esteem? Are there universal techniques on how to become more self-confident? All this will be discussed.

To begin with, it is worth understanding how strongly this quality is developed. After all, it may seem to someone that she is not very confident in herself, but everything is different. And trying to be more decisive, such a girl risks becoming arrogant and self-confident.

Many techniques have been invented to help you become more decisive and learn to adequately perceive your own capabilities. Despite gender equality, it is still worth taking into account certain specifics of each gender. Therefore, we have collected the most suitable recommendations on how to become more self-confident. These include:

• Self-love;
• Choosing the right environment;
• Self-respect;
• Attention to your appearance;
• Material independence;
• Rewarding yourself for small victories;
• Active life position.

Just seven? - someone will be surprised. Why complicate things? Complete at least these steps, and then we’ll see. You may not have to look for other methods. In addition, we have a separate article for men - “How to become a confident man”, which contains tips specifically for guys.

Take a self-confidence test

Love for yourself.

The first step towards becoming confident is loving yourself. This means loving yourself for who you are, with all your strengths and weaknesses. Maybe not the most beautiful or smartest, the wife of not a millionaire, but a loader, a meter in a cap while jumping from a stool - all this is nonsense! The main thing is to love yourself with all your heart. After all, how can you be confident if you don’t even love yourself? Most likely, every girl knows the example of some friend or acquaintance, about whom they say “no skin, no face,” but for some reason suitors follow her in crowds, or, even better, drive in whole fleets of cars. What is their secret? First of all, self-love!

How to become self-confident: advice from a psychologist

Gaining self-confidence is a long process, so be patient. The tips below will definitely help you if you understand the three principles of their application:

1. Regularity. If you start exercising, do it regularly. Occasional attacks will not produce results.
2. Subsequence . Make a plan to work on your confidence and stick to it.
3. Moderation. You should not rush into the embrasure and take this fortress by storm. Dose loads moderately. And you will be happy.

Upgrade your appearance

Improving your appearance immediately adds 100 points to a woman's self-confidence. We can say that this is the easiest and fastest way to increase self-esteem. Even minimal changes for the better can have a powerful effect.

Ask a friend to record you on video while you are not looking. Then watch the recording and try to evaluate yourself impartially from the outside. What catches your eye first?

Your hair may feel dull and lifeless. Take their health seriously. Maybe your clothes have long since faded and become covered with pills, and you haven’t even noticed. Run to the store to update your wardrobe! Some may have problems with posture, gait, and facial expression. All of this can and should be worked on!

When I did this exercise, I was in slight shock. In the video I have a very angry and arrogant expression on my face. Moreover, at that moment I was in a good mood and did not think about anything bad. I had to seriously work on my facial expressions to take off this gloomy mask.

There is always the potential to become more beautiful! Remember this. Here are a few recommendations that will help absolutely all girls look better:

1. Health is beauty. Get rid of everything that makes a painful impression: excess weight or excessive thinness, skin rashes, plaque on teeth, split ends of hair.
2. Grooming is everything to us. We have virtually no influence on the bone structure and facial features. But with the help of grooming we can make as attractive as possible what nature has given us.
3. Clothes should always be neat. Get some useful gadgets like a lint clipper and a sticky roller for removing pet hair. Pay the closest attention to your shoes: they should be perfectly clean and tidy. Dispose of used items in a timely manner.

Copy the behavior of confident people

Self-confidence has very specific external signs: straight posture, calm, direct gaze, absence of muscle tension, smooth speech. But there is also an inverse relationship: all these manifestations can cause a state of confidence.

Therefore, begin to slowly eradicate habits and behavior patterns that demonstrate your insecurity. This is quite difficult work on yourself. At the initial stage, it requires constant monitoring. Treat it as an interesting experiment. To make it clear to you what exactly you need to work with, I have compiled a special table.

Differences in the behavior of confident and insecure women

Watch movies with your favorite actors playing confident, strong people. Pay attention to their behavior, mannerisms, gestures and facial expressions. Try to adopt something and implement it into your life.

Stop comparing yourself to others

There is always someone who is better or worse than you. Why then waste time on comparison? If it is not in your favor, you will experience disappointment and bitterness. And if it’s yours, then an inadequate increase in self-esteem may appear.

In the age of social media, it is very difficult to fight widespread comparison. Girls are most often the victims. They look at photoshopped photos of Instagram divas and feel inferior.

The only person you should compare yourself to today is you yesterday. If you have become even a little better today, you can be proud of yourself. And if not, then tomorrow you will need to work on yourself twice as hard.

Learn to think positively

It is difficult to feel confident when negative thoughts are constantly swarming in your head. For example, you won’t succeed, you don’t deserve it, no one needs you, you’re worse than others. Nip them in the bud as soon as they arise. You should not argue with them and prove the opposite. Just try to switch and occupy your head with something else.

Negative thinking is a bad habit. Everyone can get rid of it. For three weeks you will need to pay close attention to what you think about. This way, thinking will be restructured, and the need for constant control will disappear.

You will immediately notice how your mood and overall emotional background will improve. Along with bad thoughts, heaviness, pessimism, anxiety, and fears will go away.

Get rid of a toxic environment

Try to minimize interactions with people who undermine your self-confidence. For example, with those who constantly complain about life, gossip, boast too much and deliberately, devalue your successes and values, and treat you with disdain. Next to them, your self-esteem will suffer all the time.

Strive to get into the circle of people who are ambitious, courageous, energetic, enthusiastic and friendly. By spending time together, you will subconsciously identify with them and be charged with their energy.

Stop being jealous and offended

Jealousy and resentment are emotions that negatively affect health. Both psychological and physical. Women are more susceptible to these feelings because they are generally more emotional. Resentment and jealousy greatly undermine self-esteem and make you feel pathetic and worthless.

To cope with resentment, you need to train yourself to solve problems at the moment they arise, and not silently accumulate negativity inside. For example, a loved one showed disrespect to you or took out accumulated aggression on you. But you are sure that you in no way deserve such treatment. It makes sense to discuss the current situation with him, talk about your feelings and see his reaction.

If a person truly values ​​your good attitude, he will behave more carefully. And if not, then you will have to increase the distance between you until the relationship breaks down.

As for jealousy, you need to act according to the situation. Give your partner an ultimatum if there are really serious reasons that make you doubt his fidelity. For example, frequent overnight stays away from home, too close communication with other girls. Let him choose whether you or his usual way of life are more important to him. Just be prepared to break off the relationship if the choice is not in your favor.

If jealousy is mostly groundless and inadequate, you need to work with yourself and not touch your partner at all. Often the cause of female jealousy is the lack of their own activities and hobbies. I want to merge with my partner and spend all my time together. And any of his attempts to spend time separately are perceived as a threat.

Find something you like that will captivate and captivate you. Then there will be no time for jealousy. And you won’t want to waste precious energy on negative emotions.

Strive for independence

Unfortunately, today many women still do not have any career ambitions and shift responsibility for their financial well-being to a real or hypothetical man. With such attitudes it is very difficult to maintain self-confidence at a high level. A person actually admits his own insolvency and takes a dependent position.

If you want to have adequate and healthy self-esteem, be strong and confident, moderately daring and proud, even a little arrogant, you need to strive for independence. A woman who is able to take care of herself and does not look for guardianship from a partner is admired by men. Therefore, invest in your development, grow professionally, set ambitious goals and achieve them.

Learn to accept compliments

Reaction to compliments is an indicator of the level of self-confidence. If for every compliment you want to start making excuses or compulsively praise in response, things are bad. This means that you feel unworthy of high praise from others.

Learn to accept compliments politely and with dignity. Briefly thank the person and smile. You should not convince him, accuse him of flattery, find out details and extract new compliments. Otherwise, he will seriously doubt your merits after seeing such an inadequate reaction.

Make new acquaintances

People you've been around for years are used to seeing a certain side of you. Any changes in your behavior and character will make them wary and surprised. For example, you have been silent and shy all your life, and then you finally decided to become more sociable and learn to defend your opinion. First attempts may be met with hostility.

With new acquaintances, you can create your image from scratch. A stranger will accept you as you appear to him. This is an excellent field for experimentation. Try to immediately demonstrate confidence and calm. Then during communication it will be easier for you to maintain this impression. Yes, at first it will just be a mask, but you have a chance to grow with it forever and make confident behavior part of your personality.

Help others

By helping others, we feel important and needed by society. Only a strong, self-sufficient and stable person is able to share his resources and take care of others.

Try to do something good whenever possible. Even if it is a mere trifle. For example, give up your seat to an old woman in public transport, feed a stray kitten, take a schoolchild across the road. Each such action increases self-esteem and elevates us in our own eyes.

Choosing the right environment.

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Water wears away stones. If someone hears reproaches against him every day, sooner or later he begins to perceive them as the truth. It is extremely important to filter your surroundings, leaving only people you like in it. How to become confident when your friends and acquaintances are constantly trying to humiliate you? It is unlikely that you will be able to increase your self-esteem with envious girlfriends and ill-mannered men. You should be a real conductor of your own life, choosing only those instruments that do not spoil the overall composition and sound.

Self-respect.

Self-love gives rise to another important trait - self-respect. It defines the acceptable framework for how others treat oneself. What words and actions we are ready to forgive and what we are not. This does not mean that they should crawl on their knees in front of us, but we also cannot allow ourselves to be treated with disrespect. Not at work, not in the family, not in the company. The requirement for proper treatment is an important condition for becoming a confident girl.

Take the self-esteem test

Material independence.

Another tip on how to become self-confident is your own income. Life according to the principle “dad works, and mom is beautiful” often plays a cruel joke on his followers. If a girl is able to provide for her financial needs on her own, at least at an elementary level, then there are much fewer reasons to “rub her nose into something.” She no longer has to “beg” money from her parents or loved one for every trip with her friends to a cafe or purchase of another thing. Accordingly, the attitude towards such a girl will be more respectful than towards some kind of backbreaker.

Signs of an insecure person

• Rapid, cluttered, or slurred speech. You are embarrassed to express your opinion, and if this happens, it is clear that you are uncomfortable. The doubtful intonation in the voice of a shy person makes her interlocutors doubt her words.
• An absent-minded look. You rarely look your interlocutor in the eye, and you are generally uncomfortable when people look at you, you are afraid of eye contact. However, please note that when you look into the eyes of your interlocutor, he has no choice; he also looks into your eyes. If you constantly look away, then a person has more opportunities in the meantime to examine all the shortcomings (imaginary or real) that give you self-doubt.
• Clumsiness. When talking, you don’t know where to put your hands, how best to sit, and the like. Because of your chaotic movements, some objects can often fall, you touch your interlocutor with your hands, or you stumble out of the blue.
• Closedness. Girls who feel insecure most often prefer to lead a secluded lifestyle. If this is your case, then it means that you try to avoid the company of unfamiliar people, and other people’s attention, first of all, does not flatter you, but makes you tense.
• Clothes that are too inconspicuous or provocative. Most often, girls who could use more self-confidence prefer to wear things that do not attract much attention - they do not seek to emphasize sexuality or femininity, for fear of looking ridiculous. In more rare cases, there may be another extreme - a girl puts on provocative things, thereby trying to hide her complexes.

If you notice any of these signs in yourself, then you probably need to reconsider your attitude towards yourself. Doubts that periodically overcome you interfere with a full life. However, the good news is that you can get rid of them!

Reward yourself for any victories.

There are failures in every person's life. That's why it's so important to learn how to count your achievements and praise yourself for victories. In the case of girls, this should generally become the norm. Reward yourself for specific achievements. And not necessarily large-scale. Any little thing can be a reason for praise. The main thing is that the praise does not turn out to be many times greater than the effort spent. Otherwise, there will simply be no time left for new achievements. In general, it’s a great way to be confident in yourself and your abilities.

What is self confidence

Self-confidence is a person’s subjective assessment of his abilities as sufficient to satisfy personal needs and achieve his goals. Roughly speaking, when a person wants something and sets his goal to achieve what he wants, he finds within himself the strength, opportunity and motivation to realize his plans.

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With a lack of self-confidence, a person begins to experience doubts and fears, and hesitate. Because of this, the process of achieving a goal goes through a stump, if at all. Sometimes uncertainty completely deprives a person of motivation and makes it impossible to satisfy needs.

Self-confidence is closely related to self-esteem. If self-esteem is healthy and adequate, then there will be no problems with self-confidence. A person knows his real capabilities and knows how to manage them wisely. This allows him to set realistic goals consistent with his capabilities and systematically achieve them.

Read our article about what self-confidence is. It examines in detail all aspects of this quality and its connection with other components of personality.