Do you ever wish you had more confidence? Is your lack of confidence showing up in your Social Media presence? It does, you know. It’s odd how it works, but your personality and confidence (or lack thereof) can be read and felt by your audience. If there’s an area of your life or business that makes you feel uncomfortable and self-conscious, here are some tips to help you gain more confidence:
1. Think about how you’re making other people feel.
Have you ever been in the audience of a performance where the speaker or singer was painfully self-conscious and nervous? Without realizing it, you probably started feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed, too. Humans are affected by the energy of other humans, no doubt about it. That’s motivation to build and improve your confidence so you don’t affect your audience negatively.
2. Just do it.
Eleanor Roosevelt said “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” Do you remember the first time you drove a car or attempted to ride a bike? It felt difficult and your confidence probably took a hit. But as you continued to practice and do the thing, it naturally got easier. It’s the same with other tasks that seem too hard. From understanding how Twitter works to posting your opinion on your Facebook Page, it will get easier as you do….and do some more. Repetition and familiarity increase confidence.
3. Nervousness and excitement are almost the same thing.
The physical sensations of being nervous and being excited are pretty close. Harness that to your advantage. The next time you’re tempted to say “I’m so nervous,” flip it around to “I’m so excited!” You believe what you say more than you believe what anyone else says! The energy of excitement is much more attractive to others than the energy of nerves on edge.
4. Knowledge and skill give you confidence.
If your confidence is being undermined because you’re not sure how to do something, you can fix that. Find training for the skill you lack. The internet has opened up a whole world of opportunities—both free and paid–to increase your skill and knowledge. Google and YouTube are your friends. Just remember that knowledge without practical application is useless. Learn and do, learn and do—not learn, learn, learn. And you don’t have to have all of the answers in advance, learn as you go!
5. Confidence is actually a habit.
It’s a habit of thinking and responding. Allowing careless thoughts to affect your confidence is like poking holes in a bucket and then wondering why the water ran out. To change your thought habits, get plenty of good input. Stay aware of what you’re reading, watching and listening to. What we’re allowing into our brains will either lift us up or bring us down. Personal development is the cornerstone of success.
Have you ever stopped to think that you are cheating others out of the value you bring to the world by hiding behind a lack of confidence? Fitness celebrity Chalene Johnson said that to be insecure is to be selfish. Try that on for size. You owe it to the people you love and the people who need what you have to share to stop being self-conscious (which means, after all, “conscious of self”).
On the other hand, it’s been said that at the average funeral, about ten people cry. Yet you’ve been worried all this time about what people think of you? In another great quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, she says “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”
There now, don’t you feel more confident after reading this? It’s an example of getting some good input and truth into your mind. Go find some more and begin your new mind diet. Confident people are attractive and winsome, no matter how they look. That’s because they’re looking outside of themselves and people are drawn to them. You can do the same, starting now. Enjoy your new found confidence!
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I love your tip on trying to “channel excitement and convince myself that I’m excited rather than nervous.” Going to try this myself 🙂
Great article. Thank you for sharing such an informative post.