I remember the very first sales call I ever made. I went into the meeting I had scheduled at a career center, spoke to the decision maker, handed him a catalog and started to bolt out of there. He stopped me and told me he was actually interested in what I was selling, and wanted a quote.
I was so nervous that I really had no clue where to go next, despite my 6 weeks of training.
Spending all day long, 5 days a week, making cold calls and getting rejected 9 out of 10 times, I quickly built up a ton of confidence. I wasn’t just gaining confidence in my ability to sell and belief in what I sold, I was gaining confidence in myself. This completely transformed me for the better, and I wouldn’t change the experience for anything.
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Our self-confidence is directly tied to our happiness. If we are in a state of insecurity, thinking negative thoughts about ourselves, and having negative beliefs surrounding us – we aren’t giving ourselves the happiness and peace of mind we all deserve.
Luckily, we are all fully capable of greatly increasing our confidence as soon as we decide to make a priority.
What Is Confidence?
Confidence is just a frame of mind. That is all it is. Our mindset is created through our thoughts and experiences, and most importantly, our interpretation of these.
Luckily, we can change our mindset at any time, about anything. It isn’t easy, and doesn’t happen overnight, but it is well worth putting time into.
The beliefs that makeup our mindset are just thoughts we have had over and over again, typically charged by an emotion. Many of these beliefs were created when we were very young.
For example, you may have struggled connecting to others as a young age, and were told you were “shy”. If we have the feeling of struggle, along with being told this feeling means we are shy, we will likely develop “I am shy” as one of our beliefs.
This is how our beliefs tend to be created about any and all of the things we think, see and experience in life.
But if we can create it, we can destroy it and create a new belief in its place. That is what happens over time when we work on growing our confidence. We start to have new thoughts, charged with new emotions, telling us positive things about ourselves and what we are capable of.
Here are 5 ways to completely transform your confidence.
1. Adopt A Challenge Mindset
So how did I become so much more confident so quickly?
I was put out of my comfort zone all day long. I was rejected over and over. I learned that it didn’t matter what people said or thought of me – it only matter what I said and thought of myself.
As I gained the confidence in myself, people started responding to me differently. The energy I was putting out was so much more positive, and therefore I got more positive responses from my prospects.
When we do the things that scare us, that push us, that we initially felt like we couldn’t do – we come out feeling more confident. Our self-esteem grows. I decided early on while working in sales that nothing was going to stop me from being successful. I was simply going to do whatever it took.
One of those “whatever it took” changes was shifting my mindset. I had to decide that every uncomfortable situation, every awkward sales call, every intimidating presentation was for my growth.
This is a deep, core belief that I hold. We can go through life’s challenging situations and see only the negative and allow it to defeat us, or we can learn to see it as an opportunity.
We can remind ourselves that these situations are the only way we can grow our confidence. We can remind ourselves of how great it will feel once we’ve overcome the challenge.
One of the biggest things to remember with this is that every time we conquer a challenge, it becomes easier for next time.
Early in my sales career, I interviewed for a management position I was not qualified for. I knew I wasn’t qualified, and it was obvious that there was a more experienced employee who was on track for that promotion. I interviewed anyways.
I didn’t let the fear of getting rejected stop me. I didn’t care what my coworkers would think. I talked myself up so much in the days leading into the interview, that I literally gained more confidence in those couple days than I had gained in months on the job.
I told myself over and over that I was the best person for the position. I practiced what I would say to justify this theory.
Even though I didn’t get the job, I saw this experience as one of the best in my career. It taught me that I can face any challenge if I shift my mindset. I can become anyone I want to become if I change the thoughts and beliefs in my own mind.
If you develop a habit of seeking out these challenges, and facing them with a positive mindset, you will be on your way to gaining confidence every step of the way.
2. Reading
One of the most common habits of a successful person is reading. Warren Buffet famously pointed to a pile of books when asked in an interview about the key to success. He stated, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”
Even 15 minutes of reading per day has been linked in many studies to success in high school students.
Here are 5 books to boost your confidence right away!
Not into reading books? Podcasts are another great way to build up your confidence, by listening to inspirational content. Similar to reading, it helps shape our thoughts and influences our mindset.
3. Practice Positive Self-Talk
The thoughts we have become the reality all around us. We have got to pay close attention to the thoughts we have about ourselves in particular. Once we can ban negative self-talk, we will greatly lessen the number of thoughts that crush our self-esteem.
Since it is extremely difficult to monitor all of our thoughts, a great place to start is by monitoring our emotions. Our emotions are the product of our thoughts. When you feel yourself slipping into a negative mood, or feeling badly about yourself – that is the moment you’ve got to catch yourself.
What thoughts created that mood? How can we eliminate those thoughts and replace them with positive ones?
Over time, this becomes much easier to do. I recommend starting with paying attention to the thoughts and beliefs that follow, “I am” and “I am not”. Once we can quickly catch ourselves when we have thoughts like, “I am not smart enough for this”, we can turn them around. A thought like that is nothing.
It literally means nothing until we think it enough times and tie emotion to it to create a belief. If we can catch the thought in time, we can turn it around before our emotions get involved and we can start creating new beliefs.
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Practice getting into the habit of positive self-talk. Challenge yourself to picking out one thing you love immediately upon looking yourself in the mirror. A sticky-note on your mirrors can help create this habit.
Little habits like this help replace your negative self-talk habits, and over time it will just come naturally.
Journaling can also help you create new beliefs. Set aside a few minutes a day just to write down the things you love about yourself. Turn around your negative beliefs about yourself, too. When we write things down, we start to remember them and program them into our brain.
4. Become Your Own BFF
I am huge on this one. Before I dove into the world of personal development and mindset work, I really didn’t look forward to time alone. I always wanted to be surrounded by friends, and anytime I was alone I turned to TV or social media scrolling to distract myself. Sad, right?!
But for most of us, this is how we spend our time. Being alone with the thoughts in our minds can often leave us feeling down. Most of us are our own worst critic. We treat ourselves MUCH worse than we would treat anyone we loved.
Practice thinking of yourself as your own best friend. Build yourself up instead of tearing yourself down. Say the things to yourself that you would love to hear others say about you.
Take the time to dress yourself like you love yourself. That doesn’t have to mean racking up credit card debt on shopping sprees. Replace underwear, socks and anything else with holes in it. Pick up some new, super comfy pajamas. Try everything on before you buy it to make sure it fits you well. Little by little, build a wardrobe that fits your ideal life.
Does wearing lipstick make you feel more confident? What about heels? Start to pay attention to these little things, and make them part of your regular routine.
If you were your own BFF, wouldn’t you pamper yourself a little? Take a long bubble bath. Get a mani pedi. Book yourself a massage. All with the intention set beforehand that you are spending the money on you because you freakin’ love yourself.
5. Evaluate Your Environment
It is time to take a step back and evaluate the environment you surround yourself with. We have the choice to change a lot of this, and small shifts can make a huge difference.
Pay attention to how the music you listen to makes you feel. When you are down, do you listen to down music that just makes it worse? This “downward spiral” can often be oddly satisfying.
That is because it is the easy way out. Instead of deliberately shifting your mood through upbeat, happy music, it is often easier to stay down. Let’s shake up the status quo and choose music that makes us feel great.
According to Forbes, listening to Jay Z before an interview can boost confidence. But just about every genre has someone badass. Hello Miranda Lambert.
What about TV? I personally stopped watching the news, and reading news articles, soon after starting my personal development journey. I would often find myself in a downward spiral of negative thinking, or getting swept up in the latest scandal.
The news prays on our fear, and many of us begin to live in a state of anxiety because of a kidnapping that occurred halfway across the world.. Not a great way to produce positive, confident thoughts.
Social Media is another culprit. If you find yourself feeling down after scrolling past photo-shopped pics on Insta, maybe it’s time to take a break or set boundaries around time spent on there.
Same goes with your inner-circle. This one is tough to swallow, but we’ve got to evaluate how we feel after spending time with people. Do your friends make you feel uplifted? Do they improve you as a person and boost your self-esteem? Do you feel happy and energized around them?
If not, it might be time to make some tough calls. We’ve got to protect our energy over everything else. Negative people bring even the most confident people down. When you’re on your way up, it is super important to pay close attention to how our time is being spent and with whom.
Like Warren Buffet said about reading 500 pages a day – while most people CAN do it, most people WON’T.
It goes the same for all of these confidence boosters listed. We are all capable of doing these things to deliberately improve our self-esteem, but most people won’t. The status quo, comfort zone, and regularity are just easier. Most people take the easy way out. Will you?
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