You’ve got to love yourself first!

Self-confidence refers to a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgement. To be self-confident is to trust in oneself, and, in particular, in one’s ability or aptitude to engage successfully or at least adequately with the world.

A self-confident person is ready to rise to new challenges, seize opportunities, deal with difficult situations, and take responsibility if and when unexpected things happen.

Another way of putting is about individuals having a deep conviction and feeling in their own importance and value as a person, irrespective of their performance and behaviour.

I understand none of us are immune from others opinions, but generally self confidence is like a well rooted tree of self awareness and a positive view of self.

There are three important things to keep in mind when working on your self-confidence: validation, authenticity and resilience.

The highest form of self confidence is from the inside out, rather than the outside in. If a person needs validation from outside all the time, they are actually looking to others for affirmation, recognition and approval and that is NOT self-confidence. It means that they gain their confidence through a sense that others are approving of them, their choices and behaviour.

One of the main issues with needing external validation is just how tiring it can be to have to perform for others all the time.

A self-confident person is authentic. Having authenticity is about having a good degree of self awareness and making choices that align with knowing who you are, your strengths, your challenges, and ultimately, your values.

That doesn’t mean that a self-confident person is right all the times or never make mistakes.

A self-confident person does not have a problem in being vulnerable.

One of the key principles of vulnerability is to understand that we are not alone; there is a universality to feelings of periodic anxiety and vulnerability that others feel too, and it can help to be able to share these feelings with trusted others that somehow help us to overcome and defeat them over time.

Lastly, let’s talk about resiliency, an important constituent of self confidence. None of us sails through life without tough stuff happening. Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from setbacks and adversity: to stay committed and increase our efforts when the going gets tough, and have a well developed “bounce back facility”.

A great starting point towards becoming a more self-confident person is by asking yourself simple questions such as: Where do I struggle most? What are my coping mechanisms? Do I expect people’s approval to get things done? Do I get easily frustrate with problems? Do I need to be right all the time? How do I react when I make a mistake?

Questions are great tools that can help you to discover yourself, the way you think, and the way God made you. Your answers might show you areas to improve and it will give you an opportunity to make a decision to change and grow.