Do you hope to walk into a crowded room and create a lasting impression on all the people present, before the main speaker even takes the stage? Well you can, all it takes is one little word and a whole lot of practice. Confidence. It takes repetition, knowledge and self esteem to master. All of which, create a lifetime of benefits.
Repetition
Unfortunately that “21 day habit creation” doesn’t work on raising your confidence. Not to discourage you, but it will take far more than a month to master a noticeable look of certainty. The first step comes in realizing the actions people considered confidence. A few of them include:
• Looking others in the eye
• Smiling
• Talking clearly and concisely
• Having an opinion
With confident people, every action shows reason and authority behind it. Your body language should portray to others that you, above all else, believe in yourself. People that don’t believe in their abilities may not see how their actions portray a lack of confidence.
Those actions might include:
• Avoiding conversation
• Looking down
• Not acknowledging others
• Always “staying out of the way”
• Stammering or fading off in sentences
Only by taking notice of our actions can we begin to see and fix the problems. Take note that trying to notice and change your habits all at once will leave you overwhelmed and discouraged, so take it easy on yourself by fixing confidence issues one by one.
Knowledge
Your best tactic, knowledge defends against low confidence. The best place to start building confidence is talking with people. For example, start asking people questions about themselves (although don’t get to intense). Questioning people about their children / family, favorite pastimes or what they are currently working on will help you gain knowledge.
This provides an arsenal to starting conversations in the future and connecting to people.
Believe it or not, people love to talk about their lives, so why not capitalize on that perfect source of information and learn how to better converse with others in the meantime.
Self Esteem
Probably the hardest of all to master, and the easiest to fluctuate from low to high and vice versa; self esteem issues effect many areas of life.
Low self esteem shows up in these forms:
• Your body image discourages you
• Working hard without much progress
• You don’t feel worthy of attention
Any of those problems can fluctuate from one moment to the next. Within a matter of days, hours or even minutes self-esteem can plummet or rise. Those unexpected fluctuations can cause difficulties if a strong base hasn’t been established through repetition of confident habits and the acquiring of helpful knowledge.
Both of those feed your self esteem and also help stabilize it. In time, negative comments about your performance or character won’t hurt your self esteem at all, and the confidence you have in yourself will draw people to you instead of push them away. It just starts with a little repetition. So why not start practicing now?
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Tess Lackey writes from personal experience, whether it ended in success or failure. She hopes to help others realize their full potential as they work on achieving their own goals and aspirations.