5 Strategies to Develop Genuine Confidence
Confidence is your belief in yourself and your abilities.
Here are three important points with confidence.
**More people struggle with confidence than you may realize. People have told me that they are lacking confidence and I would never have guessed it.
**Confidence is dynamic and ever-changing. There are times you may feel confident in your skills and other times that you are questioning if you can do it.
**Confidence can be developed with intentional work and using the right strategies.
Now let's take a look at how to develop it! Here are 5 strategies that have worked for me and many others.
1. Replace limiting beliefs with empowering beliefs. Limiting beliefs are deeply held views of yourself that are holding you back. Here is a 5 step process to get rid of them and replace them with empowering ones:
-Identify the limiting belief
-Question the limiting belief
-Create a new empowering belief
-Make a list of evidence to support your new belief
-Reinforce your new belief
Here is an article with more detail on how to get rid of and replace limiting beliefs: https://www.mattalfonso.com/written/removing-limiting-beliefs
2. Reframe your thoughts. Your thoughts are extremely powerful and will dictate what you achieve and who you become. Your thoughts though aren't always true and many times don't always serve you. The first step in reframing your thoughts is to be aware of the thought that is not serving you. The second step is to pause and take a moment to reframe it. The third and final step is to reframe it to something that serves you. This can be as simple as flipping it to a positive statement. Such as changing the thought of "I am so stupid" to "I am extremely intelligent." If this is not realistic for you then you can change it to a believable statement. For example, let's say you struggle with learning a foreign language. If you have the thought, "I can't learn Spanish." Changing it to, "I am great at learning Spanish" may not be believable. You can reframe it to, "I am an intelligent person and with time and practice I can learn Spanish."
3. Keep your word to yourself. If you say you are going to do something then do it. You don't need to be perfect with this but the more that you keep your word to yourself the more you are building genuine confidence. Tip: These can be small things where you know you can be successful.
4. Use affirmations. Affirmations are positive statements about yourself. They are simple yet effective. Make sure they are in the present tense and believable. Such as I am significant, I am enough, I am accomplishing my goals, I am bold, I am beautiful, etc. If you don’t feel confident yet, you can say, “I am developing genuine confidence.” Allow yourself to feel the emotion of saying them as well.
5. Develop your skills. Let's take a look at public speaking for this. If you are not confident in your public speaking, then ask yourself, "Have I put in the time and energy to develop this skill?" Have you taken time to understand how to structure a speech, how to use your body, pace, etc? Then have you practiced speaking by yourself and also gotten feedback from people you trust? If you haven't then you need to make sure that you do these things if you want to be genuinely confident.
Developing a strong belief in yourself and your abilities is an ongoing process. It takes intentional work and reflection. When you are consistently implementing the strategies above you will start to see this dramatically improve! When your confidence improves you will see an increase in performance and how people respond to you!
