A lack of confidence can ruin your chances of succeeding in the workplace. Learn how to be more confident and stop letting your fear of failure hold you back.
As children we fear nothing. We’re all going to become football players and pop stars. We talk to everyone and anyone that we come across.
However, somewhere along the path to adulthood, that youthful confident evaporates.
Some of us are affected worse than others. Low self-confidence can hold you back in the workplace, as well as in your social life. However, it doesn’t have to. Low self-esteem is learned and can just as easily be unlearned.
Regain control of your destiny and learn how to be more confident.
How to be more confident: 5 positive changes that will boost your self-esteem
Kill negative thoughts
We have between 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts every day. Approximately 80 percent of those thoughts are negative. These thoughts can damage our confident and convince us not to try through fear of failure. However, 85% of the things that we worry about never actually happen. In order to increase your confidence, you need to push and challenge yourself to try new things and must therefore learn to banish these negative thoughts and self-doubt.
Step out of your comfort zone
The further out of your comfort zone you venture, the larger it will grow. Much like when we were children, we must be adventurous. It is easy to stop yourself from doing something through fear, but the things that we fear are rarely as scary as they seem. You should start small and gradually move on to bigger things.
Fill your mind
Philosopher Francis Bacon once said that knowledge is power and that is true in this case. Low self-confidence often comes with a low sense of self-worth. Learning something new is a great way of overcoming this. Whether you want to spend 10 minutes a day reading through Wikipedia entries or learn a new language, find something that you enjoy doing and commit to it.
Take risks
Similar to stepping out of your comfort zone, you should also be willing to take risks. You should always expect to be successful, or you’re setting yourself up for failure. However, when you fail (everyone does at some point), you should pick yourself up and go again.
Stand tall
The little things often make the biggest difference. Studies show that simply acting confident will make you a more confident person. Making small changes, such as standing up straight, relaxing your muscles, making eye contact and remembering to smile will make you appear confident. Eventually, these things will become second nature and your confident persona will become part of you.
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