Don’t fake it till you make it, instead you can learn to be a more confident person. But what does confidence earn you? What does it take to be confident?
Although some people may be more “naturally” confident than others, the good news is, it’s a quality than can be cultivated. As you work toward being more confident you’ll start to realize that you’re becoming more sure of yourself in all areas of your life. Confidence allows you to lose self doubt as you’re sure in what you know, and you’re not intimidated to learn what you don’t know. Confidence also affords you more happiness. Confident people are more content with their decisions, less anxious about where they’re headed in life, and more adaptable to different situations which allows them to spend their time enjoying what life has to offer.
What are some habits that build confidence?
- Psychologist Joan Rosenberg suggests that allowing yourself to feel your full range of emotions is a great way to begin building confidence. This allows you to be more aware of what’s happening and what you feel, instead of avoiding your emotions. Essentially, the more you practice this the more emotionally intelligent you become in identifying how you feel and finding healthy habits to handle the feelings.
- Be prepared. Going into situations with preparation shows that you not only care, but you are trustworthy and reliable. This practice not only affords you rapport from your peers but it allows you to flow freely through situations and you become less anxious to ask questions about areas you may not fully understand.
- Believe in yourself and rely on your strengths. This means instead of faking your way through situations, start applying yourself and the skills you’re already great at. Perform research, and build knowledge while asking questions along the way, by doing this you begin to go away from the age old “fake it till you make it” trope, and subsequently begin to rely on your true skills as you build more.
- Put yourself out there. When it comes to building confidence, you must be willing to experience discomfort. This means you take risks, big or small. More often than not, the risks we dont take are the small onese that would put us slightly outside our comfort zone. When building confidence, taking these risks are essential to growth. It may be simply becoming more assertive, or asking quotations in a group of people, or even laughing freely. When you start to remove limitations of what you can and cant do, you become more confident, because you begin to understand, you’re your only limitation.
All in all, becoming confident takes willingness to challenge your own status quo and not giving up. If you put in the work and have patience, you’ll begin to realize that giving up your old habits was worth the confident person you’re becoming!