Self-confidence is one of the most important things you can learn in your lifetime since it affects nearly every aspect of your life.
Yet many people struggle with it, and because of this, their lives aren't as successful as they could be.
Also read: How to Overcome Shyness and First Date Tips: Mega-Guide
If you lack self-confidence, you probably find it very difficult to be successful in your career, your hobbies, and even in dating.
If you’ve ever:
Then this is for you.
In this post, we'll look at 12 of the best tips that will help you boost your self-confidence.
In this article you'll learn:
Sound good? Let's get started.
One way of gaining self-confidence comes from setting goals and achieving them. Working towards goals builds a mental toughness that you can transfer to all aspects of your lives.
This could be something as simple as setting targets at work and putting a plan into action to reach those goals.
While working toward this goal, you'll hit roadblocks and learn to overcome them. By doing so, you teach your brain that setbacks and rejections are normal.
No one likes to be rejected, but once you get used to it in your everyday life it doesn't affect you as much when it happens in your dating life.
Building self-confidence in this way can take time and is not an overnight process. The good news though is that anyone can do it.
With a little will power you'll improve your confidence and become more successful in other areas of your life.
In my experience, by building my self confidence I was able to transform my life. Not only did I become a more interesting person, but more successful too.
I was able to improve my image, my conversational skills and my lifestyle. My career has also drastically changed, by improving my mindset I was able to add another $100,000 onto my salary a year.
I added $100,000 to my salary while doing the same work I did before, but having confidence allowed me to ask for more money.
If you don't think you are in a position to set goals and reach them, there are other ways you can improve your confidence.
Your mind is the most important asset you possess. Forget luxury clothing, expensive watches, big houses and brand new cars. If you train your mind, you can achieve anything.
For me, I knew I would be successful, I always believed it even before there were any signs of it coming to fruition.
This is one of the things that I believe has made me successful in nearly everything that I put my mind to. Having this laser focus also helps when things are not going your way.
Visualization is a powerful technique that can help you achieve goals. It involves projecting and working toward an image, so that it will come to fruition. For example, picturing yourself in a scenario where you are happy and then believing that is you is an effective way to help you achieve it.
When you have low self confidence, you believe you're in a worse position than you actually are. When you feel like this, visualize the perfect image of yourself where you're happy and it will change your mood.
The more you practise visualization, the easier it becomes and overtime will drive the negative thoughts out of your head.
Visualization is an amazing tool to use when dating.
Have you ever gone on a date where the other person makes a remark or says something which is blatantly rude and it knocks your confidence?
Visualization will blow those negative remarks out of the water, and will put you in a place where you won't give a damn. You'll reflect and just know this person is not the person you want to be with.
People who put others down just to feel good aren't people you want to be with. Visualization, can protect your mental state and protect you from dating the wrong type of people.
The next time you are on a date and someone puts you down for the clothes you are wearing, you can use visualization to think about yourself and think, “no they're wrong. I love my fashion sense”.
Affirmations, like visualizations, are powerful methods that can be used to trick our brain into thinking more positively about ourselves.
Affirmations are powerful statements we tell ourselves that we end up believing. They're positive thoughts that make a huge difference.
I always thought that I was terrible at dating.
As I went on more dates that didn't work out, this compounded my beliefs that I was terrible.
But looking back, this wasn't true.
I was no worse than anyone else, and as I reflected more I began to realise I was the one always carrying conversations and making the effort to learn more about the other person.
In fact, I was pretty good at dating. I just hadn't found someone that had similar interests. Which isn't a big deal.
By using affirmations I was able to change the way I thought about dating and, as a result, become better at it, which led to me finding people on my wavelength who I enjoyed getting to know more.
When thinking about situations you can use affirmations like "How am I so good at carrying conversations?" rather than "I'm good at talking".
Asking ourselves questions is effective because our brain wants to find the answer and interprets the questions as facts. But when we state a fact, our brain then looks to prove or disprove it.
Changing your mind to see challenges as games helps deal with rejections.
If you think of dating as a game and the more rejection you get, the closer you are to the perfect partner, are you going to care when someone says no to you?
Every no, is one step closer to a yes.
By challenging yourself and doing something that scares you it will build confidence. It could be as simple as striking up a conversation with someone or asking the girl you fancy for her number.
Try it, you will fail, but you will build your confidence in the process.
By far the best way I have seen to get over rejection is Jia Jiang's 100 day rejection challenge.
Jia set up the challenge to desensitize himself from the fear of rejection. He does so by setting up challenges like:
It’s a pretty interesting read if you have the time.
Rejection is the main fear we have when dating, so desensitizing yourself from it helps a lot and allows you to become better at dating.
You would be surprised by the number of pretty girls who don't get asked on dates, simply because most people are frightened of getting rejected by them.
Mentoring someone in an area you're skilled at is a great way to boost your confidence.
By helping someone you automatically forget about your insecurities and begin to focus on what you are good at.
When you help others, they often shower you in compliments afterwards. These compliments help you become more confident and this passes over into everything that you do.
The world can be a shallow place. I don't care if you have the best personality in the world, if you look untidy or even dirty, dating will be tough.
You can improve your appearance in many ways.
Learning to groom yourself correctly can go a long way. A shower and a shave while tidying your hair can improve your mood and self confidence dramatically.
Others will also notice too.
If you are self conscious about a part of your body you could get it fixed through surgery or non surgical treatments depending on the severity of your problem.
I always had bad teeth as a young adult and getting braces improved my appearance and confidence levels.
If surgery is a bit drastic for you, you can also improve your fashion.
I love sitting around the house in a pair of baggy pants and t-shirts. But potential partners maybe put off, especially if that's how you turn up on your first date.
You don't have to dress like a celebrity either in expensive clothes. Just go to the store and buy some new items that are in trend and look presentable.
When you dress nice, you feel nice.
You may be thinking what does strength and confidence in dating have to do with each other.
But by keeping yourself in shape you will feel like a man.
If you have never lifted weights before, you're missing out.
Firstly, lifting weights makes you feel good, it makes you look good, and I'm yet to meet a woman who doesn't like a man who is in shape.
When I began lifting, my confidence levels almost instantly turned on to 100%. It's hard to explain, but if you give it a try, you will see what I mean.
A great workout routine for beginners is the stronglifts 5x5 workout. It's easy to follow and helped me pack on a bit of muscle and made me feel like a greek god.
The number of men I see jump through hoops to be considered as a partner for someone is sickening.
You are a man, act like one.
If you're on a date and a woman tries knocking you down a peg, or they want you to perform like a circus animal to appease them, say no!
The more control you have in your life the more self-confidence you will have.
People with low self-confidence who tend to have terrible dates often see themselves below others.
This isn't the case.
You are equal, and are more interesting and a nicer person than you realize.
So don't put yourself down. It doesn't matter if the girl you like is gorgeous, you have something to offer too.
Make this mental shift to seeing the good in yourself and your dating life will improve.
Preparation is key to most tasks in life.
Dating is no different.
You should be prepared with your outfit, the location and even some topics you can speak about if the conversation goes stale.
If you want to do a little more research you could look at that person's social media accounts to see if there is anything they are interested in on there.
This could be a little creepy though so don't overdo it.
If you want to be prepared on your first date check out our first date tips mega guide post.
This is the easiest tip that I'm sharing with you and make a huge massive difference in how people perceive you.
I'm a consultant of sorts for businesses. One thing that drastically improved my sales was speaking slower.
It also works on dates.
Speaking slowly gives you an air of authority and shows confidence. A person with very little confidence speaks fast as they don't want to use someone's time.
Someone with authority, on the other hand, doesn't worry about they as they believe they are worth listening to.
Even if you don't feel too confident right now, give this a go. You'll see others positively respond to you.
Just don't over do it.
Don't speak so slowly that the other person becomes frustrated with you.
Improving your general knowledge makes you more interesting to potential partners.
If there's a lull in conversation, having something interesting to fall back on helps.
I used to suck at small talk and, to be honest, I'm still not a massive fan of it, I would much rather have a meaningful conversation. But sometimes small talk is necessary.
You never know when knowing trivial bits of information like who's dating Ben Affleck these days or the release date of Netflix's biggest show.
Sure, knowing these things won't improve your life, but having something to fall back on when there is a lull in a conversation can help.
As you get more confident in dating, having gaps in the conversation isn't even a bad thing, but when you start dating, you can panic and ruin the date by blurting out something stupid.
Improving your self-confidence is something that everyone should do because it impacts every area of your life.
When you're confident, other people respond to it and treat you better. You make more of the right connections in dating, and your overall self-worth is improved.
I wasn't always the most confident person, but I always had strong self belief. You can too, and by working through the above tips you will become better at dating.
But you'll also get additional benefits.
You'll dress nicer, look more kept, and probably earn more at work.
Work on the above tips over the next few weeks and I promise your confidence levels will shoot through the roof.
Just be sure to report back in the comments below.
About the Author: Mathew Jones is a consultant for DrMajidShah.com. A website that helps others improve their appearance through non surgical methods. When not writing Mathew loves reading and going to the gym.
