We have all suffered from limiting beliefs, self-doubt and fears of some kind, the fear of failure or of being ridiculed is what stops most people from stepping outside their comfort zone, pursuing their dreams and living the lives that they really want to live. It can be very difficult to break free from limiting beliefs and self-doubt especially if you have confidence issues but until we break free from our fears we won’t be able to achieve our dreams and create the life we really want to live.
Live in The Present
A lot of people develop low self-confidence because of bad parenting, a bad childhood or traumatic life events, most limiting beliefs are developed during childhood. As children we believe in ourselves and think we can do anything, many of us will have wanted to become astronauts or professional footballers as children but then family members or other authority figures put us down, our parents tell us to get real jobs and society forces us to give up on our dreams.
We learn from the people that we grow up around and our early years will influence the beliefs we develop about the world, ourselves and the lives that we live when we become grown-ups. Our parents and other adults we spend time around as children are our role models, we emulate the behaviour we observe from the adults that we grow up around. If a child grows up around negative, depressed adults that suffer from low self-worth the child will learn to emulate their behaviour and develop the same limiting, unhelpful beliefs as the adult holds. The beliefs we pick up create self-fulfilling prophecies and shape our realities.
Many people associate with their thoughts and beliefs as if they were their own and part of who they are but thoughts behaviours are actually learned from the people who raise us so the first step to becoming more self-confident is letting go of the past. Living in the present means forgiving those that we feel have wronged us, forgiving people does not mean we need to let them off the hook. Forgiveness enables us to move forward with our lives, we are the only ones who suffer by holding a grudge over past events.
Since negative thoughts come from other people we may as well start to think differently, to think for ourselves. By practising mindfulness we can start to identify negative thoughts, with the use of CBT techniques such as a thought journal we can begin to isolate unhelpful thinking patterns and reduce the negative impact such patterns have on our lives. We can also reprogram our thoughts with the use of hypnotherapy.
Anxiety and Fears
Anxiety is caused by focusing on the future, if we live in the present it is not possible to worry about what will happen in the future, this focus will reduce the amount of anxiety we suffer and mean we are better able to deal with things in the here and now. Problems will occur less frequently and become much smaller. By living in the present you will discover that there really is nothing to fear but fear itself.
Take Care Of Yourself
Exercise releases all kinds of feel-good hormones gets you out of the house improves your health and appearance so regular exercise is very important if you want to increase your confidence levels. By grooming and dressing nicely you will begin to feel successful and confident, you will probably find people reacting to you more positively if you are well groomed and nicely dressed, seeing people react to you positively will help to increase your feelings of self-worth and confidence.
Change Your Social Circle
If you want to see where you are in life just look at your social circle, the people we associate with are just reflections of us. If you want to improve your situation you need to start associating with people who have already gotten where you want to go. Don’t associate with family or friends that ridicule and put you down, find yourself more positive, supportive friends.
Improve Your Posture
Communication is about 80% body language so if you want to appear confident you are going to need to stand and sit confidently. Improving your posture will instantly improve how you feel, keep your back straight and don’t slouch, make a conscious effort to stand straight and walk tall. Negative body language will make you a target for bullies and predators, bullies pick on the weak so change your body language and appear more confident. Fake it till you make it, we all create our own reality and anything is possible so you may as well act confidently, by faking it till you make it you will find that you quickly begin to feel more confident and gain more respect.
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