Confidence and self-esteem are two important drivers of your life’s destiny. Don’t you think? If one or the other is dysfunctional, it can lead to a host of problems relating motivation and the ability to live productive lives. I’ve suffered for years from low self-esteem and confidence. When I look back at those times, I see that I wasted a good decade being unproductive and failing to launch my life (read here for a glimpse of what I was doing instead!). The self-doubt that comes from these cups being empty can drive someone to drifting through life without focus or the energy needed to create meaningful, healthy lives.
What Is Confidence and Self-Esteem?
Both confidence and self-esteem have to do with trusting your ability to produce results and to be capable in your life. They indicate whether you trust your own judgment. Self-esteem also is how you perceive yourself as a whole and whether that is positively or negatively. They both are about having a personality that you like.
Let’s explore confidence and self-esteem and how to increase them in you today. But first, some philosophizing.
Why Is Confidence and Self-Esteem Important?
As I said above, without these traits in good order, your life is not be all that it could be. In fact, if you lack healthy confidence and self-esteem, you may even be sabotaging your potential or your career. You’ll ruminate on mistakes instead of using them for learning. You’ll be a victim of excessive worrying, and carry an overdose of guilt. These are all side-effects of being without healthy self-worth.
Furthermore, these aspects of self are fundamental to one’s drive to succeed and forming positive relationships. When you don’t regard yourself well, others sense it and probably will wonder if they should either. You won’t put your best foot forward if you think you’re not worthy. How can your gifts and talents be brought to use if you’re too down on yourself, or too distrustful of yourself, to let them show?
What It’s Not
But self -esteem and confidence is more than just thinking, “I’m great, I’m special, I’m good enough.” If you were raised, like me, in the 80s, this mentality was all the rage with parenting. Kids were brought up that they were special (often with no proof! lol). The thing is, it often backfired. When the kids entered the real world, and that world didn’t agree with their “specialness”, it showed them harshly that in fact, they were just like everyone else – so get over yourself and work.
For instance, when I was 20, I hopped into my car and moved to California. I’d been obsessed with CA since I was a girl reading Teen Bop and YM magazines. My parents always told me I was great, I was special, I was such a good person. But deep inside, I didn’t feel like one because I didn’t have a successful high school career. I burned bridges with potential great friends and failed to be good at anything. I never applied myself to an area of my life, except for partying and escaping reality with other teens.
However, when I got to CA, and was all on my own for the first time as an adult, I learned quickly that others saw right through my façade of fake confidence and self-esteem. They could tell I really didn’t believe it. And again, I struggled to have good relationships or set (and achieve) goals (which is the cornerstone of building confidence).
That’s why these tools I share here will help you build lasting confidence and self-esteem. They are action-oriented and get into the identity of you to force change. Because fundamentally, to have good confidence and self-esteem, you need live by action, not just forming thoughts and feelings.
The Importance of Identity in Creating Confidence and Self-Esteem
Personal development expert and coach, Tony Robbins, after all his years working with millions of people, says, “The most powerful force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves.” Identity is, “The culmination of the beliefs that shape how we perceive ourselves. These beliefs control how we think, feel, and interact with the world around us.” They point us towards or away from what to do in life.
We don’t do what we can, we do what we believe we are
tony robbins
To improve your confidence and self-esteem, you have to level up your innate belief system. Along with identifying just what it is you’d like to change in yourself, you need to create the kind of identity that truly believes those traits are who you are.
As James Clear says, you need to build new thinking habits that re-shape your identity verses focusing on the goal, or outcome, only. This means doing things out of your new, better beliefs, so that you prove to yourself you ARE a person who (fill-in-the-blank, such as has good friends or writes a book). ‘Do 1% everyday and it will stack into long term growth,’ James Clear says. Acting in the role of your new belief will, over time, cement that new belief into your identity.
For example, decide what you want, who you want to be, and then create small, daily habits that’s like a vote for being that person every day. If you stay consistent (remember Tony’s quote about being consistent!), you will form a new, better, identity. Practice, practice, practice!
This is where our gift of imagination really serves us. Remember when you were a kid and you could play-pretend you were a doctor or superstar? Apply that playfulness at changing your identity. “What would a person who was in great shape do every day?” or “What would a person who felt happy each day do?” Act it out and see wonderful results in just a short time. I swear by living with this type of childlike wonder. It connects us to grace, I believe, and a kind of synchronicity or magic starts flowing.
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14 Tips for Increasing Confidence and Self-Esteem
So here’s the best tips I’ve found to improve confidence and self-esteem. I wished I’d learned these in my 20s. And I wish that schools would teach this stuff before children graduate so that they’d be better prepared for the real world. So they’d know how to walk a path of personal growth. Don’t you think a semester on this stuff would really serve our youth?
- Stop Comparing Yourself: ‘Comparison is the thief of joy’, they say. There’s a great quote by Jordan Peterson: ‘Don’t compare yourself to others, but only to who you were yesterday.’ What a powerful shift in thinking. Comparing yourself to others only brings about sadness and unrealistic expectations. It’s a distortion of reality. Focus on what you can change and on your unique gifts and dreams and goals. Mind your own business!
- Take Care of Your Body: Diet, exercise, meditation, sleep. We all know this. But it’s so true. These are the foundational things that will increase your energy to enact change. It takes great energy to really change. In fact, great change cannot happen without a great energy shift. You have to get uncomfortable if you really want personal change. Taking care of your body will help support you and get you into a place of physical strength to be capable of transformation. Practice, practice, practice!
- Surround Yourself With Positive People: There’s a saying that you’re the sum of the 5 people you most hang out with. How can it not be? We are sensitive, adaptive creatures and if we hang out with a bunch of Debbie Downers all the time, it’ll eventually rub off on us. Think about who it is that leaves you feeling restored and upbeat after hanging out with them. Who lifts you up with their words and doesn’t drop complaints on you all the time? Spend more time with them!
- Take Stock of Where You Belong Socially: Like above, think about whether you feel connected to people and how they make you feel. Do you feel like you can be yourself and go through growth? Like you’re not judged? Or does your social circle leave you feeling like you have to hide parts of yourself? Similarly, do you socialize enough? Reach out and spend quality time with others. Filling your social needs is an important part of reaching bigger goals.
- Adopt Kindness to Yourself and to Others: Who wants to be known as unkind? Being kind to yourself and others is plain-and-simple just being a good person. It makes you feel proud and positive about yourself, which increases self-worth and confidence.
- Practice Positive Self Talk: Imagine you’re your own best friend. Encourage yourself, speak highly of yourself, and when you notice that self-critical voice rising, ask, “Would I talk to a friend like this?” Hold your own hand through life.
- Face Your Fears: Being able to grow often means facing fear. Change happens outside of your comfort zone and that can mean doing things that make you afraid, such as reaching out to someone you want to spend more time with but who isn’t more than an acquaintance right now. Or starting an exercise class when you’re not used to working out. Getting real with fears will help show you where you hold yourself back so that you can work on moving forward.
- Focus on Learning From Mistakes verses Being Ashamed: ‘Who among us who hasn’t sinned may cast the first stone.’ Right? That’s what Jesus said. We all have failures, embarrassments, and outright regrets. But dwelling on it and holding onto toxic shame won’t change it. All we can do is learn from the past and move forward. Use it all for growth and positive change. Even the most hardened criminal (well, maybe not psychopaths!) can have a change of heart and life.
- Do Small Things that Make You Happy: This one is important. So often we put aside the little joys that can happen daily. My partner said to me recently, “Hey, just take a drawing class instead of always trying to achieve something.” So true. I’ve been hyper focused on daily responsibilities and long term goals that I’ve neglected doing what lights up my soul. Nurturing your little joys stacks up to big joys and feeling good about yourself. My son’s old Waldorf school used to highlight how doing things with your hands, like arts and crafts, brings out the light in our minds.
- Celebrate Small Wins: James Clear, habit changing expert, says that tying a new habit to something positive will increase the likelihood you’ll keep doing it. Also, remember, as Tony Robbins said, we will keep trying to be consistent with who we’ve been. So if you want to change, rewarding yourself for all your effort entices you to keep going. It’s the small wins that are important, too. They are what ultimately make up the big ones.
- Do Things You’re Good At: Confidence and self-esteem are directly related to competence. You don’t have to be a 5 star athlete to feel competence. Do what you love. Do hobbies that make you feel good. Get better and better at them and watch your confidence and self-worth grow. Next, learn to set healthy boundaries.
- Learn To Say No: When you say no to some things, you’re saying yes to others- ideally to what actually serves you. Saying no is good for your mental health because it sends a message that you’re worth prioritizing. So sort out your time and set boundaries that will help you reach your identity goals.
- Set Realistic Goals: Nothing sabotages personal growth and success faster than setting unreachable goals. If you’ve suffered from low self-esteem and confidence your entire life, don’t expect yourself to feel like The Rock next week. Give yourself time to change. Scale down those big goals into bite-sized chunks. You’ll get a mental lift off of small wins verses a sense of huge failure by missing too big of goals.
- Live Without Harsh Judgment on Yourself and Others (Have Compassion!): Who needs to be judged? We are so hard on ourselves. Similarly to above where we treat ourselves like our own friend, scale back the judgment. Have compassion for yourself and the obstacles you’re facing. You’re trying! You’re doing your best and when you fall, you will get back up.
Rewriting Your Story While Building Confidence and Self-Esteem
WE are in charge of our story. What story have you been telling yourself? Is it a case of the “can’t’s” and “not’s”?
“I can’t change, I’m too old. I’m too stuck in my ways.”
Or, “I’m not capable of eating healthy because I’ve tried that and failed so many times before.”
These, as Tony Robbins calls them, are our own TV, or Transformation Vocabulary. That means, they are the internal dialogue we have that will make or break us. They are the words that create our reality.
Thus, taking the time to review what story you’ve been telling yourself is key to changing your self-perception, which is what confidence and esteem are all about. I want to encourage you get out a journal and explore this. It doesn’t have to take long- just 15 minutes even.
First, write what your current self-story is. Dig deep and flesh out those self-limiting beliefs you’ve picked up along the way. For instance, my story has been something like: “I’m not capable of great success because I’m in my 40s and haven’t had a solid career yet.”
Then, write a new vision for yourself, your new story. One that encapsulates your that new identity you want to grow. For me, this could be: “I’ve had great success raising my children and finding a mate who loves me and I him. Now, I’m ready and willing to work hard to create the work life I dream of.”
Finally, with time and consistent effort, these skills will really help you will build competence and become confidence and full of positive self-esteem. Good luck and share your journey in the comments!