There are millions of people in the world with immense potential for both happiness and success. However, they don’t achieve either. Indeed, no doubt you’ve known someone who, despite being intelligent, worthy, and virtuous, sabotaged their own opportunities out of fear. This is because lack of self-confidence prevents them from living the life they want and for which they have everything they need.

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t – you’re right.” In other words, the beliefs you hold about yourself can make you sink or swim. For this reason, it’s essential to become aware of self-sabotage and work on your self-esteem. In this way, you can stop being your fiercest critic and become your greatest admirer.

How to increase your self-confidence

It gets rather tiring hearing those well-worn phrases that invite you to love and accept yourself and to fight for your dreams and believe in yourself, but without telling you how to do it. In fact, how are you going to start loving yourself now, having spent years hating your flaws? How can you do it if, in the depths of your interior, you don’t really feel that you’re a valuable person?

There’s no magic wand capable of increasing your self-confidence in an instant. The only one with the key to open that door is you. Furthermore, to achieve it, you have to generate several changes. However, with motivation and perseverance, you can increase your self-confidence and you’ll see how it radically changes your life. Here are some guidelines.

Change your inner dialogue

Through your thoughts, you send messages to yourself. You recriminate, congratulate, and judge yourself on your actions. This internal dialogue is often automatic and you don’t realize the amount of negative communication that you send to yourself throughout the day.

If you want to increase your self-confidence, you have to change the way you talk to yourself. Start being indulgent, understanding, and loving with yourself. Talk to yourself about what you do well and focus on your mistakes as opportunities for growth. Because, if you’re constantly beating yourself up and punishing yourself mentally, it’s impossible for you to believe in yourself.

Think of a child whose parents continually point out their faults and assign them a negative label. The little one will grow up feeling insecure and worthless. On the contrary, if the parents reinforce their successes, and support and guide them in their failures, the infant will feel safe and loved. This happens with your thoughts in the same way.

Create a list of affirmations and repeat them to yourself in front of the mirror every day. Capture in them what you want to achieve, using the first person and present tense. For example “I’m a confident person. I trust in my abilities and I live without fear”. The brain believes what you tell it. Therefore, repeating these sentences every day will help strengthen your new way of thinking about yourself.

Act as if what you want is a reality

One of the most effective tools to create change is to start acting as if what you want is already a reality. Therefore, you should start to behave as a person with high self-esteem would. For example:

• Walk upright and look straight ahead when you walk down the street.
• Accept challenges and carry them out as if you fully trust in your abilities. Because, if you continue to be stuck in your feelings of insecurity, you’ll never give yourself the opportunity to develop your potential. Instead, by trying new challenges, you’ll discover that you’re much more capable than you thought and your self-confidence will increase.
• Start setting boundaries even if you feel afraid. For instance, you may fear that others will reject you if you refuse their requests or express your opinion. Do it. Tell yourself that it doesn’t matter if they get angry. It’s your right to take care of yourself.

Self-confidence is built

Finally, be constant and persevering in your actions. Remember that all change requires time and you’ll need a period of adaptation until these actions arise naturally in you. You make your path by walking it and you build your self-confidence by practicing it. Talk to yourself in a positive and constructive way, give yourself the necessary opportunities to develop your potential, and always put yourself at the top of your list of priorities.

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