Self-confidence is the key to achieve everything you want in life. It is when you have confidence within yourself that makes you unique from everyone else. If you can trust your abilities and appreciate the qualities that you possess, then you have already built a raging self-confidence within yourself. Sooner or later you will reap the success that you always aim for in your career and personal life.
Why Do I Feel Shy Around People?
A person who feels shy around people lacks self-confidence. He or she is most likely to feel ashamed because of the negative things they fed into their minds like comparing themselves to other people that they think are better than them. Instead of embracing themselves and learning to accept their flaws and shortcomings, they only cultivate the bad things and use them against themselves.
Oftentimes, these negative feelings and thoughts are unrealistic and will only give them an emotional burden if they don’t change their own way of thinking. However, if you are one of those people who shy away from the crowd, there’s nothing you should worry about because self-confidence can be improved.
Why Is Self-confidence Important?
Self-confidence is important in order to succeed or simply live your life to the fullest. If you are confident, you will be able to take on any opportunities and not allow a single thing to slip away from your hands. In this way, you will be able to improve or reach the full potential of your skills and talents.
Discovering New Things
You will not know that you are good at something if you haven’t tried it. When you have self-confidence, you won’t be afraid to try new things and discover which one works for you best. Whether it is a skill or a talent, building self-esteem is the first step to put yourself in a position that you desire the most, it doesn’t matter if you are new at it or not. If something triggers your interest, there is nothing stopping you from taking it.
Interacting With People Is Easy
Boosting your self-esteem will help you blend with the crowd or even stand-out because you can showcase a positive attitude as you interact with others. You won’t shy away from other people because you are confident enough with yourself, so instead of comparing yourself to others, you focus on what you can give and share the things that will make the meeting more valuable.
Showcasing Your True Self
You won’t be having a hard time being yourself because you are confident about the way you look and feel within. Self-confidence makes learning to love yourself easy and beneficial for your overall health. You stop taking the comments of other people to overrule your emotions because you have already accepted yourself no matter what.
Good Mental Health
Remember that your mental health is the most affected one if you have negative issues about yourself. The bad things you always think about will consume you resulting in depression or anxiety which are serious mental problems that need proper guidance and counseling. But if you learn how to build self-confidence, what you feed in your mind are just positive thoughts and words of encouragement to make your life better than ever.
How to Build Self-confidence?
Change Your Mindset
“Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are weeds that strangle confidence.” – Bruce Lee
Take it from Bruce Lee that negative thoughts will only ruin all your plans in life because it affects your overall confidence. Always remember that you are yourself’s number one supporter and if you turn your back, no one will be there for you anymore. Instead of thinking about the negative things that make you different from others, recognize that as a motivation to make your life better. If you change your mindset from negative to positive, everything will finally fall into place without you knowing you’ve improved a lot.
You can make this possible by finding some time to talk to yourself and give appreciation or acknowledge the best things that you’ve done for the day. You can also change your mindset by writing down all the positive things you see in you. For example, if you have to do something today like finish a task that involves showcasing your skill, instead of thinking about how others would see you if your performance is pretty bad, focus on exercising the presentation and praise yourself every time you did something right. If you focus on these things, you would not notice that you are already enjoying yourself during the day of your performance.
Build A Support System
“Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.” – John C. Maxwell
The No. 1 New York Times bestselling author, John Maxwell emphasizes the importance of building a support system that makes you feel happy with life. The gift of family that has been part of the bigger picture since day 1 will keep your hopes high no matter how hard life gets. Remember that you can only build your self-esteem if you have enough love in your heart. The love that you receive will serve as a stepping stone for you to feel good about yourself. So, make sure that you spend time with your family and friends to refuel you from anything that is draining you. Even a research study assessing the self-confidence of midwives that receive social support is high. The same thing will happen to you.
As you have noticed, it’s overwhelming to receive messages from your family and friends that tell you how much they are proud of you, right? These things will keep you going, so you aim for success all the time. However, you need to be reminded that not all your family and friends are healthy or helpful in boosting your self-esteem.
This is the sad reality for many that the ones you feel most closed to criticize you and bring you down. In this case, respect yourself enough to cut off your connection with these types of people because they will never be beneficial for your growth. As early as now, take some time to decide who among your family and friends should you spend your precious time with.
Look Good, Feel Good
“Things are beautiful if you love them.” - Jean Anouilh
The famous French playwright, Jean Anouilh reminds you that in order to be confident in yourself, you also need to know the answer about how to be beautiful. You have always been reminded that learning to love yourself is the best thing to do and the way you take care of yourself physically will make you feel good about yourself. Of course, it is not just for other people but also for yourself.
How to Be Beautiful? (For Your Face)
Try to look in the mirror, do you like what you are seeing? If not, get yourself together and try improving your appearance. Is it your hair that you want to change, the dark circle under your eyes, or the color of your skin? There is nothing wrong with change. It doesn’t mean that you don’t love yourself, it only means that you value yourself enough to make it look better.
Your hair contributes a lot to your physical appearance and this is not only limited to women but most especially to men. Aside from hair loss, it is a lack of trim that makes men’s hair look ugly, therefore affecting the way they look and feel about themselves. In order to fix this, they should make some changes in their hairstyle. And if going to a salon is not a good option for them, getting their own hair clippers to do a self hair cut is a must. For first-time users of hair clippers, we have prepared a guide for you below.
Steps in Using Hair Clippers at Home
- Hair clippers come with different blade guards that are numbered starting from 0. The number will help you determine the length of hair that you want to trim. (For example, if your hair length is not that long and you just want to barely trim your hair, the ideal blade number would be 0. Or if you want to totally trim your hair, the desired numbers should be 6-8.)
- Wash your hair and dry it afterward to make sure that your hair is not tangled.
- Add cover around your shoulder using a cloth to avoid trimmed hair from falling directly to your body.
- Attach your chosen blade guard and start trimming your hair at the top then move down, or you can also do it sideways. The most important thing is that you are not missing any areas.
- The best method in trimming is to scoop outwards so that the blade will not make any harsh contact with your skin.
- If you notice that the length of your hair is not balanced, use another blade for blending.
- You can also experiment by using different blades for faded hairstyles.
You can even be confident in buying the best hair clippers on Amazon. We have found the most comfortable to use hair clippers that can be maneuvered perfectly for both expert and newbie at-home haircutting!
How to Be Beautiful? (For Your Body)
Are you feeling frustrated about your weight? It is time to do some exercise to maintain or achieve the body type that you desire the most. You will not only gain or lose weight but you will also improve the way you feel about yourself because one study proves that exercise may be a useful treatment for anxiety. With regards to the clothes that you wear, choose the one that you are most comfortable with because it helps you become more confident.
Be Prepared for Everything
“To be prepared is half the victory.” - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
According to the greatest writer of the Spanish language, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, your preparation will lead you to your chosen goal. Self-confidence can only be achieved once you come prepared from anything that may come your way. It is totally impossible to do well at something that you didn’t practice because you are likely to tilt or shy away from things that you have not mastered. It’s like taking an exam at school, you can only pass it if you have studied well. So, in order to acquire self-confidence, make some preparations that will help you master anything that you are about to take.
Accept Your Mistakes
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard
People with low self-esteem are often afraid to make mistakes, it doesn’t matter if it’s big or small. However, you have to take the lesson that Elbert Hubbard, the famous American writer wants you to learn. The agony you can give to yourself is too much if you keep on anticipating those wrong things will happen.
Keep in mind that making mistakes is normal because you are just human and humans are not meant to be perfect. We are just born to live and enjoy life. And to be able to enjoy life, you have to undergo some mistakes to make it right the next time.
Choose Your Battles
“Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.” - Jonathan Kozol
Some things are not worth stressing about most especially if it drains your whole energy, that is what Jonathan Kozol, the famous American writer wants you to know. If it is something that doesn’t awaken your interest, leave it. Asking how to build self-confidence means assessing yourself and the things that you think can help you improve. For example, if you see your friends choosing a college course that really offers big opportunities in their future career, you don’t have to follow their lead and do the same.
Instead, choose a career that makes you alive and happy. Self-confidence can only be achieved if you are 100% sure of fighting the battles in front of you. It is easy to feel confident if you are well aware of what you are doing. Moreover, you can’t win battles all at the same time so choose the ones that are worth your time and energy.
Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
“The reason why we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” - Steven Furtick
The famous lead pastor of Elevation Church, Steven Furtick, highlighted the importance of not comparing yourself to the things achieved by others. Remember that insecurity is one of the root causes of why you don’t feel confident within yourself. Instead of focusing on the things that will help you improve yourself, you keep on looking sideways, checking the success of other people. And this is what drags down your confidence because some people have already achieved much while you are still starting.
However, this does not mean that you are weak and they are better than you. It’s just that some things come at their perfect timing. You never know what they have suffered and gone through before achieving the things that they have now. Instead, learning to love yourself means being happy for their success and making it a motivation that you will soon get the things meant for you. Keep in mind that it is totally irrelevant for your self-confidence to think of the people more handsome, prettier, smarter, richer, and with more achievements than you. Focus on your goals and your strength and believe that you will make it too.
Set Attainable Goals
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” - Karen Lamb
If there is something you want to achieve, you have to start it now, take it from the expert of Oral Communication, Karen Lamb. Procrastination is not ideal for building self-esteem because you will only feel stuck in a situation. You can start your goals now, it doesn’t matter if the result takes months or years to be achieved. Just make sure you start with the little things before you give focus on the bigger picture. This is what consumes the confidence of other people towards themselves because they start by dreaming big and when it is not achieved, they start to feel so low of themselves.
There is nothing wrong with aiming for the larger goal but it would be beneficial to start from the very beginning and see how far it leads you. Begin where you are because the skills and strength that you have now are enough to take the first step. For example, if you want to have a productive day, you don’t have to set a goal for the whole month, take the first step by waking up early in the morning and see what you can do next for the rest of the day. It may seem small right now but you will never know how big the impact will push through in the future.
Conclusion
Make it a habit to do at least one thing that you fear the most such as talking to other people because you will get used to it as time goes by. The most important lesson that you can learn here is that you will only live once, there will be no next time after this lifetime. So, if you let your shyness or fears overrule you, you won’t be able to live the life you always dreamed of having.
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