Confidence. What is it? How do you get it?

By May Anderson

It seems like it is this mystery feeling that some people have and some people don’t. In the past, I have asked myself several times, how do I get some of that? Do you want to know the secret? It is all in how we talk to ourselves. Are we constantly pointing out the things we did wrong or are we looking at all the things we did right?

“I remember sitting in a high school class, I was very shy back then because of my lack of confidence. I was so jealous of these two girls in front of me who could talk to these cute boys. How did they even know what to say?”

Whether you lack confidence in public speaking or in your skills or maybe even at home, you can gain more confidence in any area of your life using these 4 simple tricks for the next three days.

Trick 1. Avoid saying anything negative to yourself

You know that voice that turns on when you do something good. The one that says, Ya-but I could have done better. Or maybe I should have done this instead. Turn those off. For three days, you do not listen to the ya-buts or the should-haves. These are called shame pigs and we do not like them. Everything you do the next three days, do it without shame or guilt.

Trick 2. Say kind things to yourself often.

If a shame pig does sneak in somehow, kick it in the butt by repeating three kind things to yourself. Make sure these three things are true, relevant, and most importantly timely. You don’t want to be living back in high school and reminding yourself of how awesome you were then. You want to be reminding yourself of how awesome you are right now! So find three things in the last hour that you did right!

Trick 3. The 90 second rule.

For 90 seconds, every day, for the next three days, talk to yourself (yes I’m being serious), and tell yourself for 90 seconds things that you think you did well. Set a timer. This is a hard exercise. But find some time to be alone and you can write it down or say it out loud. Start out by telling yourself that you are beautiful and then dive deeper into all the things that you did well that day. It could be things as simple as, “I woke up in a good mood.” Doing this will help you recognize the things that you really do very well day-to-day.

Trick 4. Compliment someone else.

Each day, find one thing that someone else did that you admire. You can let them know, or you can keep it to yourself. (I’m always a fan of letting others know when they are doing well.) But this will help retrain your brain to focus on the good and see what people around you, including yourself, are doing right.

At the end of the three days I want to know how much improvement you made. There are tons of articles out there helping you gain confidence overtime, but these are things that can help you become confident immediately. Let me know if this worked for you!