23 Ways to Boost Your Confidence Today
I know there’s a wise adage about keeping things simple, but as I reflect on how to keep high levels of confidence, it’s not simple. There are too many little things that can cumulatively knock us off our game and bigger ones (see point 15) – at least at certain times of our life – and we’re rarely immune to global events like market/economic downturns and wars too.
I’m also reminded of the Haitian proverb: “Beyond mountains, there are mountains,” which means that another challenge presents itself as you solve one problem. This can really test your resilience and deflate your confidence. Hopefully, you try to solve that problem too, but you can probably remember times when you’ve caved in for a period of time.
I’m working on my next book and below is a tool I’m creating called the Confidence Checklist. What am I missing? Please email me your ideas. Needless to say, I want you, reading this either in my newsletter or on LinkedIn, to get a sneak preview of something I truly hope will help you enormously right now and during times when – as they say in the UK – you’re having a wobble (with your confidence).
The good news is there are MANY things you can do to feel more confident right now. Even one next step from this list will make a positive difference for you today:
1. Have a visual of what building confidence looks like. Picture your confidence as if…
a) You’re building your own home
b) You’re piecing together your own 3D mosaic
2. Do a Basic Maintenance Check to sustain good habits and avoid problems with…
Your health
Key relationships
Your professional life
Your financial life
3. Have an empowering morning routine that energizes you physically and mentally
4. Be as consistent as you can with daily/weekly habits that boost your confidence on your Habit Tracker (inc. health habits = a must for long-term confidence)
5. (Get Out of Your Head and) Live in the present. At peace = be yourself in the present.
Accept what is happening now (stop resisting or denying it)
6. Be well prepared – for success (and, ideally, for failures as well)
7. Have a Sufficiency mindset:
a) Know that there is enough and remind yourself: “I am enough”
b) Make as big a difference as you can with what you have
c) “What you appreciate appreciates.”
d) Collaborate, partner, share, and reciprocate.
(Ideas courtesy of Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money)
8. Trust your instincts. When you let go and be who you are, it puts you in the Zone.
9. Confident humility:
a) Take full responsibility for and focus on what you can control.
b) DO YOUR BEST (outstanding) work – then you can always hold your head up high (this is VERY important since nobody wins every game)
c) Do everything with either acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm (or stop doing it)
d) Detach emotionally from the outcomes of your efforts.
e) Have humility and grace with everything you can’t control.
10. Build your professional competence
11. Spend more time on your zone of excellence (= what you do best and love to do)
12. Take action without waiting to feel more confident – stop thinking and believe you already know what to do and how to do it.
13. 4% growth. Do the things that nudge you outside your comfort zone.
14. Fuel the right fires (and quiet your inner critic)
a) Turn up the volume on the voice that wants you to be better – you become what you think about most of the time
b) Fuel your blessings – Appreciate what you have and have a gratitude practice
c) Fuel your new identities (on your habit tracker)
d) Fuel your ability to say no a lot more
15. Don’t fuel the wrong fires that will undermine your confidence: AVOID…
a) Envy
b) Being too much of a people pleaser
c) Trying too hard
d) Living in the past and future
e) Believing you can’t get where you want to go
f) Repressing negative feelings
g) Crises such as: alcoholism, drug addiction, chronic stress, noise, lengthy commute, A job you loathe, unemployment, dysfunctional marriage, stupidly high expectations, poverty, debt, and financial dependence, loneliness, spending too much time with negative people, overreliance on external validation, constant comparisons with others, thinking like a victim, self-loathing, chronic sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety and rage (list courtesy of Rolf Dobelli)
16. Surround yourself with people who want you to succeed and recognize what it takes to be successful.
17. Solicit and follow through on constructive feedback
18. Scale up if it healthily builds your confidence and you’re not mindlessly chasing ‘more’
19. Seek proof that your empowering beliefs are true – and notice what you do right/celebrate successes.
20. Be kind to yourself. Progress not perfection.
21. Catch and rescript fears and unhelpful mindsets: e.g., “After I worry about asking anyone for anything, I will remind myself: why not me?”
22. Decisiveness. Commitment. Action. Success. Repeat.
23. Be persistent and keep building. Brian Tracy: “Your persistence is a measure of your belief in yourself.”
When you can approach confidence as if you are building and sustaining your own beautiful ‘home’ – and doing your best to avoid messes – you can address it effectively and, finally, not rely on luck or things beyond your control to enjoy a lot more of it!
Most importantly: take action on one step now. And please let me know what I’m missing.
To living with confidence!
Matt
Matt Anderson
Founder & President
Matt Anderson International
1177 Oak Ridge Drive, Glencoe, IL 60022, USA
Phone: +001 (312) 622-3121
matt-anderson.com
