14 Essential Tips to Build the Confidence You Need to Succeed

On a beautiful sunny afternoon, Richard Branson boarded a plane. But he wasn’t impressed with the airline hospitality; he thought airplanes should be more comfortable with better service hostesses.

An idea bloomed in his mind. He could start his own airline company with all these great features.

Immediately he landed. He called Boeing and negotiated a deal to borrow airplanes for his new business. In a few years, Virgin Air was global. One of the best airlines in the world.

Now to you reading this.

How many ideas have you passed on just because you lacked the confidence to follow through on them? How many times have you watched what you desire pass right in front of you just because you couldn’t reach out and grab it?

How many times have you wallowed in regret for not being able to do what you really wanted to do? It’s time for that to end.

Studies show that people with high levels of confidence progress at a faster rate than their fellow counterparts. This is obvious because others will take you seriously only when you appear to believe in yourself. Massively!

No matter what you want to do;

• Get a job or promotion.
• Make a sale.
• Attract the opposite sex
• Win people to your side. Just name it

You need to exude confidence before you can get this thing! No worries if you have zero confidence at this present moment.

Because I have good news.

Tips to Build Confidence For Success

Studies show that confidence is like a muscle and it can be built. No one is born confident(!). Though I can tell you, it won’t be easy. But it’s well worth the effort trust me.

And the first step to growing your confidence is to;

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” – Louise L. Hay

1. Start by Forgiving

It’s true you have failed to be your best self. You have piled up a pretty load of mistakes. Well so has everybody else! Now’s the time to let it all go.

Your confidence happens to built on your self-love and self-believe. How much you love yourself and believe in your personal abilities are both extremely important, which is why you must let go of all the feelings of self HATE, self DISGUST and simply forgive yourself. Sincerely!

Realize that everything that’s happened is in the past, and you are set for a brighter future.

2. Love Yourself 

Why aren’t you doing this!

Highly confident people don’t hate themselves. They rarely give a dollar about the opinion of others because they are in love with themselves. And that’s what really matters.

“Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.” – Roy T. Bennett

You can’t believe in your abilities to succeed unless you fall in love with yourself, and there is no better time in your life to do this than right now right here.

Say it to yourself ‘ I LOVE MYSELF.’ Turn this into a self-actualizing mantra that you repeat to yourself all day long.

It sounds hollow, but it works. With time you start to believe it, and your confidence soars. To be confident, you have to love yourself. There is no other way!

“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.” – Helen Keller

3. Take Hold of the Bosses Body Language 

Have you noticed how a confident boss walks and talks? He walks with his head tall and his shoulders high. His posture is inch perfect!

He stands tall with an open body language. Beaming with a sincere smile and makes eye contact with everyone. Walking in like he owns the place.

Studies show changing your body language to mirror confidence gives you an instant boost of confidence. And there is no reason you can’t start using it on your confidence right now.

Here’s how –

• Stand tall with your shoulders held high
• Don’t slouch but make your chest wide and prominent
• Smile and make eye contact with everyone
• Walk 2x faster
• Talk in a loud and firm tone so you never have to repeat yourself.
• Have a rubber band on your wrist and snap it whenever you are fidgeting.

4. Work Out

Let’s even forget all the million health benefits of this right now.

Several studies show that people who exercise on a regular basis are far more confident and happy than those that don’t. Starting with a daily ritual of 30 minutes exercise will improve your self-image and self-esteem remarkably.

You start to feel more confident and relaxed. And that’s not all. When you exercise your brain releases endorphins (happiness hormones) which give you an immediate boost every time you work out.

Add it to the fact that working out keeps you in great shape. And it gives you more energy to be able to project a better and stronger confident body language.

5. Take Charge of Your Self-Talk

The way you talk to yourself goes a long way on how confident you become. Most times we make a mistake when we think of the future. Mistakenly we link our past performance of failures to how we believe we will perform in the future.

Our thoughts go negative and BAM. You conclude “I can’t do this.”

“ But Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” – Peter T. Mcintyre

Being confident doesn’t mean you suddenly have no fears. No. Negative thoughts of fears come around, but instead, you face it with faith and preparation.

When your thoughts start going sour, all you have to do is believe that it’s okay to fail and make mistakes.

Stop fearing to be wrong because if you fear, then you take no action. Lose lose lose.

Just look at it this way. Is someone else acting confident in that area? If so. Then all you have to do is prepare and have faith. Say it to yourself that you can do it, then prepare as best as you can, focus on your skill and you will act confident.

It all lies in your ability to catch those negative thoughts and turn them into positive.

6. Visualize 

This is a way to reinforce your self-talk to make it more positive. You know we humans actually think in images and you self-dialog your brain translating these images to words.

If you visit performance Academies, often you will often see athletes lying down with their eyes glazed over.

What they are doing is called visualizing. Most people get this thing wrong and visualize only the outcome they want. Yeah, that works too but not much.

Latest studies show that visualizing the whole activity including the very difficult part you are most likely to pass over is 20% more effective.

Here’s the deal. After catching your negative thoughts and planting the positive ones. Proceed to visualize it in vivid detail. Close your eyes and see yourself actually do that thing. Feel your heartbeat rise, feel the tension build, hear the cheers or criticism come at you and step through it. Take action in your mind. Do this over and over and over again then do it one more time.

Doing this over and over again boosts your confidence massively.

I told you it wouldn’t be easy, but it’s still worth it.

7. Get Rid of Negative People

There is no greater mistake than hanging out with negative people who suck the joy and fun of life out of you.

One step you can take right now is to decide to cut all your engagements with negative people by half. At your office, playground and school, cut it by half and half again. It’s simple. You can’t be confident when you stay with negative people who think of nothing but failure.

No amount of willpower will save you from emotion contagion. Do the smart thing. Go get new friends who are very positive and goal oriented. People who are headed towards places. These type of friends will change you, challenge you and increase your levels of confidence and achievement.

If you have a bad mentor too. It’s time to change it. Don’t let any weed into the garden of your mind!

“To establish true self-esteem, we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives.” – Denis Waitley

8. Shift to Gratitude

Successful and confident people are masters of gratitude. They know everybody has his or her own fair share of failures and accomplishments. And it’s what you choose to focus on that matter.

Shift your focus to gratitude! Start thinking of your past accomplishments and see how far that raises your confidence, instead of wallowing in self-pity of past failures and mistakes.

Make a list of things you can be grateful for – past accomplishments, your family, your great friends, your job and the income etcetera.

There are myriads of things in your life you can and should be grateful for.

It’s not the happy people that are grateful. It’s the grateful people that are happy, and happiness is what makes you more confident.

9. Compliment Others 

Everyone is drunk on themselves. No sane person will ever refuse a sincere appreciation, as a matter of that they will revel in it.

Since everyone is drunk on themselves, a way to be more confident is to give everybody what they want, and that is praise.

Have a great sense of humor and appreciate people. Say thank you. Say you love their outfits. Say you value their help. This makes people be at ease around you, and you can act more confidently as a result.

A daily practice of giving compliments to people makes you instantly likable and makes you a lot of friends. And it makes you more happier and confident in your abilities.

10. Be the Icebreaker 

Try to always be the icebreaker. Be the first to ask a question, voice your opinion or drop a comment.

The trick is to build as much positive feedback as fast as possible so you can always look back on them to boost your confidence.

Sit at the front of every classroom or meeting. If you don’t have a question, ask your friend if he has one and ask it for him or her. As you do this often you start to believe in yourself on a different scale entirely ‘I am not that bad’ ‘I am actually confident’ and then BAM. You are confident.

11. Focus on Expressing Yourself

There was a time I loved to do things to please others. And when they criticize me, I feel bad and never do that thing again. I got a life of shyness and unhappiness as a result. Served me right!

But when I threw my cares out the window and focused on expressing myself as a self-loving human being everything changed.

When I fell in love with myself. I just did not care about the others’ opinions anymore. I was busy loving myself, and all I want to do is express myself. Whatever your opinion is. Good for you!

Most people approach a scene with a mindset to please and wow people. That’s self-limiting! What you are doing is putting your confidence and happiness in the hand of others. And they don’t have many plans for you.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Washington Thurman

Why not adopt a mindset of expressing yourself? Come alive, strive to do your best and be content with it. Don’t care what others say or try to please the people who won’t even cry at your burial.

12. Build up Your Risk Muscle 

What goes hand in hand with confidence? Yes. It’s taking the risk.

You need to build up your risk muscle right from now. But first. You need a goal!

Find out what you really want to do. Get that big goal, then break it down into small slices. Take immediate action on the smallest one you can do right now.

Start making small victories here and there and level up after that.

Once you have tackled the small task successfully, exercise your risk muscle and tackle a larger one and a larger one after that and a larger one after that one still.

You brain releases dopamine which makes you feel good whenever you complete a task. So take the time to integrate the victory into yourself and praise yourself accordingly no matter how small the accomplishment.

13. Commit to Daily Improvement

There happens to be a link in between confidence and competence. Remember you called on your mom to tie your shoe lace as a kid because you lacked the competence to do it.

Same as you have a teacher beside you throughout the time you learned driving.

With time, you didn’t need any of these people anymore because you have developed the competence and with it comes confidence. You became good at it.

“You don’t have to be great to start. But you have to start to be great.” – Zig Ziglar 

If you commit to constant improvement on a daily basis in every aspect of your life – job, communication, productivity and performance; by learning new things everyday in that aspect, and becoming more skillful everyday – your confidence increases with it, and people will be surprised it’s actually you.

You don’t have to possess great confidence or power to start. But you can start to acquire great confidence today by constant and never ending improvement!

14. Read Personal Development Books

This is just an extension to the point above.

The best favor you can do for yourself is to read a self-help book every week. This will be the best investment you can ever make in yourself.

Doing this means you get to read 52 books a year. You become more than empowered to be confident and successful. Your knowledge, skills, and value go off the chart!

Check out all those who made their money in a legal way. One thing is common to them all, and that is their passion for never ending learning.

The Big Picture 

I know you have more than enough instruments now that you can put into immediate use. From loving yourself to focusing on expression yourself and then concluding on constant improvement.

As I said earlier, confidence is like a muscle and by exercising everyday with this tips. With time it grows till you become so confident others get jealous of you.

If I’m going to give you one great advice, that would be to do these four things first:

• Find a way to love yourself by all means
• Change your friends to confident folks
• Have a sense of gratitude and
• Focus on expressing yourself.

These four points are what I think you should take seriously at first and then proceed to use the other tips.

Over to You –

What will you do with these tips for building confidence? Will you forget, ignore, or else, implement them in your life? Whatever it is, comment below and let me know. Thanks for reading.