If I could give one piece of advice to my younger self, it would be this. I stumbled across TikTok videos about appearing confident which made me realize I wasn’t as confident as I thought I was. This encouraged me to self reflect and change that part of myself. This is what I’ve learned and what’s helped me.
Confidence is all about your mindset. Try telling yourself some of these affirmations every day:
- I am confident.
- I am working to be the best version of myself.
- I am worthy.
- I accept who I am.
I’m aware this task isn’t easy and most will not believe themselves at first, but over time, your mindset will adjust and you’ll start to believe those statements. This is not an overnight process either, the key is to be persistent and patient. Make this part of your daily routine and lifestyle. The more you do this exercise, the easier it will be.
Another important factor is to make it so you have no other choice but to be confident. This will help retrain your mind to believe being confident is the only option, nothing less. What you can do to act upon this is to trust and be honest with yourself. Trust your gut feeling and act on it. Do things that scare you regularly; whether it be as little as making eye contact at work, try it. To readdress, I know this is easier said than done and can trigger anxiety, but over time your anxiety can go down while your confidence goes up.
Things I do to help me appear confident:
- Making eye contact.
- Taking “uh” and “uhm” out of my vocabulary.
- Standing straight by rolling my shoulders back.
- Stop crossing my arms to cover my body.
- Keeping my chin up.
I am still working on this day by day and am not trying to intimidate anyone. Since I am a short, petite, young woman, it makes it easier for others to think they can talk down on me or take advantage of me, but I put that to a stop once I started listening to these tips. Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself. It’s certainly okay to be insecure and timid to an extent. Trust the process and believe in yourself.