What is confidence?
Confidence can be many things, from how you look and how you feel, and can determine actions you may take. It is important to have confidence as it will make you feel good about yourself, and even help certain situations. Many people mistake confidence as cockiness, however confidence is just knowing your self-worth.
How can confidence benefit me?
Confidence will make you happier
Healthier
Able to have honest and healthy relationships
You know what you deserve and what you don’t
Confident in your ability to do certain things
Boosts self-esteem
Freedom
Less fear and anxiety
How will my relationships be with confidence?
Whilst in a relationship, confidence is so important. It is important to understand and see your self-worth in relationships and confidence will do just that. Confidence is for your benefit, you’ll not put up with things you don’t deserve and you will be able to understand exactly what it is you do deserve.
Many relationships can cause people to lose their confidence. Being in love and being treated badly can make you feel like you deserve it but you may not want to leave or are scared to. Whereas if you are confident, you’ll be able to say this is not ok and leave for your own sake.
How can I build my confidence up?
It is important to note that confidence won’t occur overnight. It’s a process, but a beautiful one. You’ll learn things and see things about yourself that you never knew before and you will be so much happier for it. The first thing you need to do is identify things that maybe lack confidence. Once you identify things that stop you from being confident, you can then work on your overall sense of confidence. Some things you can do include;
Stop comparing yourself to others – Everyone is beautiful and unique in their own special way. Comparing yourself to other people is only going to make you feel bad about yourself rather than celebrating you.
Tell yourself something you like about yourself every day – One day at a time, you can look at yourself and tell yourself you are beautiful. Some people may find this silly, but you have to be kind to yourself and love you.
Surround yourself by positivity – If you have negativity in your life, it’s going to be hard to have any sort of confidence. If you have friends that knock you down, they aren’t really friends and it is only going to make you lack the confidence you deserve. People you spend time with can really influence your thoughts and feelings and either make you feel good or bad about yourself.
Focus on yourself – To gain better self-confidence, it is so important to focus on yourself rather than others. It doesn’t mean to be selfish, it is just to better yourself and true friends will understand and try to help you in any way.
How can lack of confidence affect someone?
Someone that lacks confidence can have their relationships affected, their body and mental health affected also. It can affect relationships as you may find it hard to trust someone, especially when you compare yourself to others and feel like they could leave you for someone ‘prettier’. As well as this, it can badly affect your mental health causing issues like depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia.
Lack of confidence could range from how you look to how you feel. Many people have a lack of confidence when they start to compare themselves to other people and look up to influencers who have this ‘perfect image’ that everyone should look like. It is really hard to gain confidence when society has an expectation on how people should look, and therefore can affect us in many ways.
How can I stop comparing myself to others?
The main thing to stop comparing yourself is to learn to love yourself. When you love yourself, you won’t feel the need to compare yourself because you’ll know what you bring to the table. You will understand that someone is going to love you for you, and will never knock your confidence and make you start to doubt yourself. You can try some self-care routines which include;
Yoga
Eat healthier
Go to the gym
Meditation
Be kind to yourself
Take breaks
Connect with nature
Focus on yourself (health and emotions)
What is the difference between cockiness and confidence?
Confidence is different to cockiness as cockiness is more of a “I’m better than everyone” type of attitude. Cocky people tend to feel that they are right about everything whereas confident people know what they can bring and can accept that they may be wrong on occasion. Confident people understand and see their strengths as well as their weaknesses, whereas cocky people always need to validate themselves and to others to come across like they are the best.
Why is confidence crucial when you feel like giving up?
There may be situations where you feel stuck and feel like things are not progressing and this can cause you to doubt yourself. It is easy to think that giving up is the easy option, but it won’t make you feel better. It is so important to have confidence when you are struggling so that you have healthier connections and you learn from these things. Instead of saying you can’t do something, tell yourself you are doing the best you can. That’s all you can do. You need to learn to love yourself and understand that you are human and that we all make mistakes, it doesn’t make us any less worthy of love and the confidence we all want and need in our lives.
Conclusion
Confidence will not occur overnight. It is a process, and one where you will learn and see things from a different perspective and you will have the ability to accomplish whatever it is you put your mind to. Having confidence will make you a healthier person in every way, and it will benefit your relationships and how you are treated in them. Take your time, and it will come.
