10 Ways To Be Confident

Confidence is a skill.

Like any skill, you build it or you don't.

Many people think confidence is reserved for naturals, and you either have it, or you don't.

This is a fallacy.

You aren't born confident.

All those naturally confident individuals you can think of have developed their confidence our years of trial and error, taking action and learning and developing.

If you want to improve your confidence, you need strategies you can implement on a daily basis. Today, I'll give you ten ways to improve your confidence.

These strategies will also make you better with people, which goes hand-in-hand with confidence. The better you are with people, the more confident you become, and the more confident you become, the better you are with people. It's the perfect feedback loop to cultivate.‍

Becoming a better speaker is the most immediate way you can become a more confident person.

When you work on speaking clearly and confidently, you will feel more confident. People will respond to you more favorably, which will boost your confidence. This creates a synergist feedback loop of better speaking, which leads to more confidence, which leads to a better response, and so on.

It's a magical thing.

The best way to improve your speaking is to practice on camera or with a mic.

Record yourself talking about a topic, then listen.

Try making a short video a day. After a couple of months, you're speaking skills will improve drastically.‍

When you read, you develop knowledge that makes you a more interesting person. When you become an interesting person, you become a confident person. They go hand in hand.

More knowledge gives you more to say in conversation, more interesting facts to share, and you become a better conversationalist in general.‍

Most people suck at listening.

This is a tremendous opportunity to build your relationships and impress people with your "being interest in the" skill.

Since most people suck at listening, you are slowly losing them when you are talking to them since their attention is waning.

So keep it short and be strategic with your statements.

Focus on the other person. Ask them questions. Then more questions.

It's a huge confidence booster to become genuinely interested in people since this skill will make you stand out. Most people are too self-absorbed.

Your confidence will also soar because you'll always know how to make people feel important and heard.

Bonus tip: Read How To Win Friends and Influence People. Consider reading it every year at least. It's that important.‍

‍The clothes make the man, it is said.

There is some truth to the importance of dressing well.

When you feel that your clothes and outward appearance are high, you will naturally feel more confident of your appearance (and you won't worry about it).

This is a double-edged sword, though. You don't want to become too invested in your appearance, as this can lead to adverse outcomes in your psychology and may end up backfiring if you develop too much of a perfectionist attitude with how you look.

Wear the clothes that let you feel confident as a byproduct so you can forget about it. Your subconscious will bring you the confidence boost.‍

Stand up with your chest out and your chin high.

Sit upright with your chest out and maintain the proper lumbar extension.

Avoid slouching over in your chair or lounging back.

Proper posture exudes confidence. And since your mind follows your body, developing proper posture will lead to more confidence as a natural byproduct.‍

Look people in the eye. Hold their gaze.

Nod your head often when listening to them.

And smile.

Smile smile smile as much as you can. The more, the better.

Practice in the mirror or on camera until you develop smiling and holding eye contact as a habit.

The more you do it, the better receptivity you'll get from people, and that will translate into more confidence.

Confident people have intense hobbies and passions.

They pursue mastery.

This brings out a kind of confidence that is only understood by those that cultivate it.

I can't explain why, but some of the most confident people I've come across are very good, even world-class, at something.

Every compliment you give someone brings you a jolt of feel-good energy.

There's something about the skill of making other people feel good that explodes innate confidence. I'll admit, I have no idea how or why this works, but it does.

So compliment people often, and you both will feel good as a result.

The Boy Scouts had it right: one small good deed a day can change your life.

This is similar to the compliment effect in which doing things for other people brings you confidence the more you do it.

You're also making the world a better place each day. What's better than that?

One roadblock to building confidence is the expert fallacy and imposter syndrome.

People mistakenly believe that you need to be good at everything they do.

This is a fixed mindset that needs to go.

You don't wake up great. You can become great through constant effort and lots of learning.

And everyone starts as a beginner. Everyone.

Learning, by default, is figuring out what things don't work. How do you figure out what doesn't work? You do things and make mistakes and learn from them. Then you adapt to become better.

You learn.

Approach everything in life as if you are a complete beginner.

Cultivating a beginner's mind will remove the limiting beliefs associated with imposter syndrome.

You won't be so hard on yourself as a beginner because you get that it's a process, a learning process.

This is a massive confidence booster because it removes the expectations and fixed ideas around many things in life.

These tips will help you in more ways than just building confidence.

The key is to remember that this is a process of learning and skill acquisition.

You are trying to build your skill of confidence. There are many angles to get you there, so open your mind to the experimentation process and be willing to try things that don't work.

Be willing to learn, which involves making mistakes and figuring out what does and doesn't work.

The more open your mind and the more willing you are to take action, the faster your results will come.

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