4 Ways to Increase Your Confidence

One of the most powerful assets in your mental arsenal is to increase your confidence – to feel good about yourself so that you can attract the things you want and so that you can give off an aura of being in charge and being passionate about what you’re saying.

But if you’re naturally someone who struggles with self-confidence, how can you simply ‘switch off’ that self-doubt and become more confident. Confidence is what turns thought into action – which is kind of what we’re all about. 

Understand What Confidence Is 

Confidence is a very broad term that gets thrown about a lot with careless abandon. This is a bit damaging because we tend to think of it as a single term that encompasses so much about who we are. We either have ‘good confidence’ or we have ‘bad confidence’.

In reality though, confidence is much more contextual than that. You can be confident in one domain and you can lack confidence in another. Maybe you think you’re ugly but you know you’re a fantastic writer – does that make you confident or not?

So you can make yourself confident simply by focusing more on the things you’re good at in order to spend more time ‘at the top of your game’. At the same time though, you should also make sure you remember that your ability can improve in most areas. If you think you’re ‘bad’ at something, then remember that you’ll get better with practice and that everyone is bad to begin with. We’ve seen how neuronal connections strengthen as they fire and this is how you can become great at any given sport or activity over time.

What about your looks? Well, you can improve those in a lot of ways too. But it’s also useful to remember that everyone is different and that beauty is a very subjective matter. If you focus on your good qualities and own what you’ve got, you’ll be attractive to a lot of people. 

Take Challenges 

As mentioned, it’s useful to learn and to develop the things you’re not good at. This is why the hypothesis testing to become socially bulletproof is so useful – you’re exercising your social skills, just like you exercise a muscle.

As you get better in these areas, you’ll find that your confidence naturally improves because you have more strings to your bow and fewer areas that you consider to be flaws. But more important than this even is the psychology of simply trying new things and taking on new challenges. Each little ‘win’ will flood your brain with positive hormones and reward you and that will make you more inclined to try again. Try learning small things like juggling or learning to count in another language, each time you have a little victory it will improve your confidence and help you become better at taking on newer challenges.

Meanwhile, the failures you encounter will help to make you more accustomed to sometimes picking yourself back up and more desensitized to the feeling of failing at something. Again, this builds confidence.

If you’re looking to increase social confidence and self-worth, one of the very best things to do is to throw yourself into a challenging and outward-facing job. You’ll then have no choice but to make calls, great clients and learn new things and each time you do, your esteem will grow. 

Visualize Success 

Before trying something new, visualize yourself succeeding. This can help you to activate brain areas as though you really had succeeded and that will help to quash any doubt and boost your confidence. You can enhance this further by listening to some empowering music and reminding yourself that it’s a challenge and not an obstacle.

Better yet, if you keep practicing this it can eventually become habit – meaning that you’ll automatically visualize yourself succeeding in future when taking on any new challenge! 

Power Poses 

Power poses are positions you hold that have been shown to boost testosterone and thereby confidence. Try standing up and holding your arms over your head in a ‘V’ shape as though you had just crossed the finish line in a race. This is a universal stance that symbolizes success and it can really help to increase your drive and determination. 

Invest in You 

Finally, invest in yourself. If you treat yourself well for long enough, you will feel as though you deserve to be treated well. What’s more, wearing nice clothes, maintaining good health and having a great home all help to build that internal picture of who you are and give you more self-esteem. It’s not a waste of time and money to buy a good suit – it’s an investment.

Next week we'll talk about staying positive.

Know What You Want & Go After It

In the last couple of chapters, we’ve focused on using CBT to reduce stress. And we’ve seen how this can indirectly lead to advancements in your career thanks to things like the law of attraction.

But what about motivating yourself toward something? What if you’re not frozen by fear and stress but simply by tiredness and indifference? What if you don’t know what it is you want out of life, or how to structure a goal so that you can get there? You can’t very well work toward what you want when you don’t know what that is! 

The first thing we’re going to do is to introduce just a very subtle shift in the way you approach these ideas. And specifically, this will mean having a vision and not a goal.

What is the difference between a vision and a goal?

A vision is much more abstract but at the same time, more tangible.

A goal is to lose 15 lbs in 10 weeks. A vision is to be the same you, but fitter, healthier and more attractive – running outdoors with a healthy looking tan and waking up every morning with tons of energy to get up and attack the day.

Which of those things is more motivating? For most people, the answer will be the vision.

The other great thing about visions is that most of us already have them, even if we don’t know it. If I ask you what your goal in life is, then you might not be able to answer. But if I ask you to just imagine your perfect life, then you might find it easier to do. Perhaps you’re sitting on a beautiful beach somewhere? Perhaps you’re living in a massive mansion? Maybe you’re rich in a skyscraper somewhere?

If you’re still struggling to come up with a vision that you can work toward, then some other questions to ask are things like: who are your role models (and what do they have in common)? When was the last time you were truly happy? What did you want to be when you were a kid?

It doesn’t have to be super concrete – wanting to be rich, wanting more time with your family or wishing you weren’t at work is fine! And if you do have something really concrete – wishing you were a famous rock star – then that’s fine too.

From here, the next thing to do is to take that vision and break it down into steps. This is another important point and it’s once again something that a lot of people get wrong. If you are working toward a goal rather than a vision, then you might, as per our previous example, be working toward losing X amount of weight in N amount of time.

This is a fine aim but it’s far too distant and too outside your control to be useful. When it comes to the crunch and you need to force yourself out the door to exercise, it’s all too easy to just tell yourself you’ll catch up on what you’ve missed later. You end up putting it off or making excuses and by the time that amount of time has passed and you haven’t achieved what you were hoping, you just feel disappointed, disheartened and possibly depressed. Eventually, this leads to you giving up entirely!

So instead, we make steps toward our vision. This means coming up with a plan first and often you’ll find it’s easier than you think to accomplish the impossible – it just requires a bit of creative thought. For example, if you want to be a rock star you might take a less obvious route such as creating your own YouTube channel and posting your music regularly. If you build up a big enough following and you have enough obvious skill, then eventually this is highly likely to lead to an offer for a recording contract!

In other scenarios it might be a very easy set of steps – in order to lose weight you might eat no more than 1800 calories every day and workout five times a week for 30 minutes. If you want to write a best selling novel, your goal might be to wake up one hour early and write for 40 minutes before work.

These are now incredibly simple steps that are highly within your control. You either fail or pass but it’s entirely down to you. And if you do fail? You can simply try again the next day. Each day is a fresh challenge and there is no putting things off. Ultimately, this makes a goal much easier to stick to – especially if you use the chain technique a lot of people use: creating a string of X’s in a calendar so that you will find yourself not wanting to break the sequence by missing a workout or writing session!

This will seem detached from the goal at times but if the steps are good, then taking them every single day, week or month on a consistent basis will mean you’re getting gradually closer to your aim.

Now all that’s left is to motivate yourself and to get yourself in a mind set where you’re willing to put in the time and work to get to where you want to be. How do you get yourself to get out of bed to go for a run at 5am when it’s pouring with rain outside?

The answer is that you need to use a slightly altered form of CBT by focusing on the emotional reasons behind what you’re doing. In other words, you need to think about the vision and you need to feel the vision. This is what will give you the release of the correct neurotransmitters to have the motivation to do it. You can also focus on what it is you’re trying to avoid.

So if you’re thinking about running in the morning and you can’t find the willpower to do it, the answer is just to make the connection in your mind so that you link that step to the outcome you want. Visualize that version of yourself who is fit, healthy and ripped and picture yourself running in the sun during the summer. Think about how it feels to never have this low energy and think about the alternative – getting gradually less and less fit and feeling gradually worse and worse with nothing that you can do to fix it.

And if you try this a few mornings and you find it doesn’t work, then another consideration is to try setting yourself up some kind of video or script that you can read or watch when you wake up to do that for you. Feel the emotion, know that the step you’re considering is what can get you there and then take the next step!

Next week we'll talk about increasing your confidence.

Thinking about Failure & Risk the Healthy Way

Previously we discussed the powerful impact that just being a little more logical about stress at work could have. We then looked at the law of attraction and at how this makes you far more successful over time as people look at you as the person who is calm and in control.

But why is this? Why is it that most people aren’t better able to control their emotions and stay calm? Why is ‘panic’ our default response?

The answer is that our emotions have evolved in a much more dangerous time than we live in today. We are naturally risk averse because that is the attitude that would have given us the best chance of survival out in the African Savannah.

Let’s say you see an animal on the horizon and you don’t know if it’s a cat or a lion. In the wild, it really wouldn’t make sense to treat the unknown as a cat. Rather, it makes much more sense to assume the worst and to run.

But today that’s just not the case. Today, the ‘worst case scenario’ is really not that bad and is certainly not severe enough to put you in physical risk. The worst case scenario is your boss shouting at you, or a short period of financial hardship.

Risk aversion then is what gives you your advantage once you can get over it and it’s what will help you to seem the calmest and to make the ‘brave’ decisions. At the same time, it can be very beneficial to apply a little cognitive restructuring in order to change the way you perceive risks and challenges more generally. Think of these as opportunities to learn and to grow, to become stronger, and to give life some interest and excitement. When you look at them like this, you’ll be able to thrive rather than collapse under pressure.

Very often, it’s taking risks to ask someone out, invest in money, quit your job and start your own business, propose to your partner… all these things that give life meaning and color. And even if they go wrong, at least you tried.

And if you don’t learn to perceive challenges this way? Then the stress will never go away. There’s always an underlying sense of stress because that’s human nature.

The hedonic treadmill is a state of perpetual discomfort that we all tend to fall back to, even when times are good. It’s what is believed to keep us working and trying but an unfortunate side effect is that we are never quite content and never able to really try anything bold and brave. The REAL risk is that we stay frozen by fear, or that we stayed weighed down by all the admin of everyday life. The real danger is that you stay doing the same job that you don’t enjoy every single day and that you never experience the contentment, the challenge or the beauty that life has to offer. That’s what you should be stressed about and you should use that to push you towards your goals – even when life is hard and life is stressful. As the old expression goes: it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. There’s never a good time. So just bite the bullet and go for it! 

Next week we'll talk about going after what you want.

"Dressing" for Success

Earlier we discussed how to become less stressed at a situation at work – by using thought challenging to break down the worst case scenarios and by coming up with contingencies. You’ve changed your perception of the situation by applying a little logic and in doing that, you’ve become much more calm and composed. We’ve also seen how we can change our response to new social situations, making ourselves incredibly calm and relaxed when talking to new people so that we come across as fearless.

This is where things start to change.

In the introduction, I mentioned very briefly the ‘law of attraction’. We saw how simply changing the way you feel about yourself would also change the way that others react to you. Let’s take a look at that in some more detail… 

What is the Law of Attraction?

It might seem strange but most of us will buy more expensive gifts for our wealthier friends. This is proven by statistics and surveys and it’s surprising seeing as you’d think we’d want to buy more expensive items for the people who couldn’t afford them on their own.

But the reality is that wealthier people have more things and have a more expensive quality of item on display. To get them something they’ll like and to get them something that will fit in, we need to spend more on them. That and they probably spend more on us than our poorer friends, so we feel obliged to reciprocate.

This is an incredibly simple example of the law of attraction working. When you have more nice things, you actually attract even more nice things to you.

The same happens with money – you have to spend to accumulate and simply having more money means you’ll make more investment.

But it also works with what you believe about yourself and how you act. If you believe you’re highly capable at your job, if you genuinely aren’t stressed by things going wrong and if you act accordingly; then you’ll quickly find yourself rising through the ranks and getting to the top. When you have belief in yourself, so do other people.

One reason for this is that confident people tend to look more confident thanks to the way they dress and act. If you are very confident you might walk with a straight back and chest puffed out and you’ll probably buy nicer clothes and spend more time on your hair.

Simply doing this will make you look like someone who is more important and who is more successful. Now other people will assume you are more important and more successful and unconsciously your bosses will be more inclined to want to give you more responsibility.

They’ll also feel more confident sending you out to meet clients, while your colleagues might start turning to you for advice – because you look like you know what you’re doing. It doesn’t take long until doing all these things will make you the ideal candidate for that raise or promotion and then you become more successful.

The same is true for a guy approaching a woman in a bar. If he doesn’t believe in himself and hasn’t trained himself to be calm and relaxed, then he’s going to be sweaty, nervous and unattractive as a result. If he comes over and he believes in himself though and can control his stress response, he’s going to seem fun, confident and therefore attractive.

On an unconscious level, he is sending a signal to the woman that he is a good genetic bet for her offspring – he must be or why would he be so confident around her? There’s obviously something about him that makes him confident, whether that is wealth, strength, health or intelligence. This makes him more attractive and the woman’s neurotransmitters do the rest. Hello oxytocin, hello testosterone! 

Change from the Outside In

We’ve focused a lot so far on how to change your mindset from the inside out but you can also change it from the outside in. How? By simply treating yourself a little better – dressing better, looking after your health and investing some cash in your own happiness and your own development – you can help yourself to feel more confident and look more confident to others.

There’s an old saying that you should ‘dress for the job you want’. Likewise, it they say that the amount you spend on your haircut directly correlates with the money an employer is likely to entrust you with.

So spend that bit of time in the morning to make sure you’re looking your best. Exercise. And take care of your health. Women – try wearing a bold shade of lipstick to show that you’re not shy and not content to shrink into the corner. Guys – don’t go into work without bothering to iron your shirt, it just sends a signal that you don’t respect yourself enough to bother – or that you’re so disorganized that you couldn’t find the time or the energy to do it.

Changing from the outside in is never enough on its own. But when you change both inside out and outside in, then you’ll find the change is even more astonishing.

Next week we'll talk about healthy failure and risk.