Need to Build Up Your Self-Confidence? You’ve GOT This!

Continuing with this month’s journey toward self-discovery, our topic this week is self-confidence, which is really just trusting in yourself … trusting in your own abilities, qualities, and judgment. It’s also something that many of us lack at one time or another.
 
There are several elements to self-confidence. It includes self-esteem (confidence in your abilities), self-respect (confidence in yourself), and self-worth (confidence in your value as a good person). For an in-depth discussion of self-worth, check out this article. One way to build self-confidence is by noticing, understanding, and accepting our own self-worth by focusing less on our physical abilities and talents and more on our values and who we are at the very core.

We all have the ability to improve our self-confidence, but it can be hard. If something has happened to reduce your self-confidence, it may take time to rebuild it, and that’s OK. By starting small and finding new successes, you can develop more confidence over time to build up your ability to take on more intense situations.
 
What can you do to become more confident? I’ve found that positive affirmations are one way to grow self-confidence, boost self-esteem, and remind yourself that you are strong and worthy. Try to create positive affirmations for yourself and others. Put them on sticky notes, and post them everywhere as reminders of all that you (and they) are. Here are some of my favorites:

• I am enough.

• I am becoming someone who loves me.

• I am loved.

• I am worthy.

• I am a perfectly imperfect work in progress.

• “My partner” is always kind to others.

• “My son” is motivated and eager.

By increasing our confidence, we can become stronger in our commitments to our values and beliefs. Remember when we focused on our core values and beliefs to develop our personal mission statement last month? Confidence is also part of our core.

With confidence, we are able to grow. We can make decisions without wavering, take calculated risks, enter new relationships, and try new experiences. When you feel confident in yourself, the world becomes a place filled with opportunities and adventures.
 
It’s what allows you to say, “I’ve GOT this!”