How to Build Your Self-Confidence: 7 Steps to Greater Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is so important for an individual. How we see ourselves colors everything we do. With increased self-confidence, we will have the confidence to try new things and to expand our horizons generally. Self-confidence helps us to attain our goals because we have more confidence to go after them and are less dejected if we encounter failure along the way. With self-confidence, we still believe we can do it.

Self-confidence is not something that we all have an abundance of naturally. Some of us are more confident than others. Self-confidence is also something that is not static. One’s level of self-confidence changes with time and varying circumstances. Self-confidence levels can dip at times, leaving one feeling unsure about themselves or even bad about themselves.

It is at these times of lowered self-confidence that it is especially important to practice techniques that lead to increased self-confidence. And practicing these techniques even when one is feeling an abundance of self-confidence will help to prevent self-confidence from dipping.

So what can we do to feel more self-confident? The following is a list of techniques to practice in your daily life to help combat low self-esteem and to instead bolster your sense of self-confidence.

1. Practice Daily Affirmations

Practicing daily affirmations is one way to bolster self-confidence. An affirmation is a positive statement, usually brief. It is a grouping of powerful words put together. It can tap into both our conscious and subconscious minds to help us attain positivity. We can either speak the affirmation out loud, or say it in our own minds. The affirmation to boost self-confidence should be affirming in our best qualities and attributes. For example, saying to oneself, “I am beautiful,” or “I am a unique individual with special qualities all my own,” reinforces self-confidence and a positive outlook toward oneself.

2. Drop the Perfectionism

Perfectionism is not a good thing. It causes one to feel less than and bad about oneself and one’s accomplishments. If your goal is perfection, then you have set yourself up for failure. Perfection is truly rare in the real world. People and things are imperfectly wonderful. Perfection is largely a myth. It is an unattainable goal. It is also a goal that depletes your sense of accomplishment and competency. Trying to do something that cannot be done lowers your feelings of self-confidence. So drop the perfectionism. That will go a long way toward increasing your self-confidence.

3. Set Attainable Goals

Setting goals for yourself is an important means to boost your self-confidence. But be mindful that you are setting attainable goals, and not lofty, impossible goals. Goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. As you accomplish your goals, you will feel your self-confidence building. Like building a credit history by successfully engaging in credit transactions, you will be building an accomplishment history that shows proof of your abilities and competence. This acts as a positive history that boosts your self-confidence as you go along.

4. Surround Yourself With Supportive People

Surrounding yourself with positive, supportive people is important. The attitudes of those around you affect how you feel and affect your level of self-confidence. If you spend your time with negative people, it will be difficult not to start to become more negative yourself. Those around us create an atmosphere, and like osmosis, we take the vibes up into our own beings. If we are around people who criticize us, it is hard to simply brush off those criticisms. They end up playing back again in one’s mind, and sometimes at the worst time possible, like when we are feeling down on ourselves. Criticism by others, especially those close to you, gradually chips away at your self-confidence. Listening to criticism erodes your feeling of self-worth. If you cannot get the person who is criticizing you to stop, by talking it over with them and telling them how their criticism makes you feel bad, then it may be best to cut off contact with that person or, if that is not possible, minimize your contact with them.

On the opposite side of the coin, being around people who say positive things about you is uplifting and boosts your sense of self-confidence. These are the people you should make an effort to surround yourself with: positive people who can be a positive force in your life and increase your feelings of self-confidence.

5. Engage in Positive Self-Talk

What we say to ourselves in our own minds greatly affects our sense of self-confidence. Negative self-talk makes one feel bad about oneself and decreases one’s feelings of self-worth. After all, this is criticism from you yourself, someone who should instead be acting as your own best friend. Negative self-talk can become a bad habit. It takes effort to rid your mind of negative self-talk, but it can be done. First, catch yourself when you are making negative statements about yourself. It can be helpful once you have caught yourself engaging in negative self-talk to take an action, such as clapping or pinching yourself. This can help to reinforce the fact that what you are doing is wrong and should be stopped. Once you have caught yourself in negative self-talk, replace the negative statement with a positive one. This habit may take some time to master, but with time and practice, it can be done. It is well worth the effort and will do wonders for your sense of self-confidence.

6. Focus On Self-Care

Self-care is an important component to creating our feelings of self-confidence. Taking care of ourselves, both physically and mentally, signals to ourselves that we are important. It is difficult to feel our most self-confident if we are tired or just not feeling at our best. Physical self-care, like getting enough sleep and eating nutritionally sound meals, will go a long way to ensuring we feel good physically. Mental self-care, like using positive affirmations and practicing relaxation activities such as listening to relaxing music and meditation, will go a long way to ensuring we feel good mentally. Looking our best is another aspect of self-care that boosts self-confidence. Taking the extra time and effort to make sure we look nice—our hair, our clothes—is well worth it. It is a simple way to have a positive effect on one’s sense of self-esteem. So take the time and make the effort to focus on self-care, and feel your self-confidence grow.

7. Trust the Universe

Worrying and feeling self-confident are diametrically opposed. The more one worries, the less they feel able to handle what may come their way. Worrying can become a bad habit, a habit that can be hard to break. But there are things you can do to decrease your worrying. One technique that is helpful is repeating a positive mantra to yourself when you begin to worry. A mantra is just a word or phrase that has a positive meaning for you. Breathing deeply and counting slowly to ten when you begin worrying are other helpful techniques to decrease worry. Telling yourself that you are going to try your best to trust the universe can go a long way to easing your sense of worry. Trusting the universe, that inner feeling that we can handle what comes our way, is a psychological choice we can practice that will start to become a habit in time. It is a choice that will over time build your sense of self-confidence. 

Self-confidence is a crucial factor in our ability to succeed in the world around us. Without self-confidence, we are less likely to forge a path to follow our dreams. We instead lag behind in our action plan, feeling self-defeated. Low self-esteem is disempowering. Happily, self-confidence is something that can be increased. With time and practice, using these tips, you will be on your way to boosted self-esteem and a wonderful and empowering feeling of inner self-confidence!

Ten Ways to Make a Choice Easier

Choosing between alternatives can be a difficult endeavor. Sometimes we are simply unsure of which way to go. In a choice between two (or more) options, both options may be problematic, so we are between a rock and a hard place, so to speak. Or both options can seem good, leaving us unsure of which one is the better path.

At times we may find making a choice so difficult that we agonize over it. This can be very stressful. Because this choice is one factor in the situation that we control, we bear the weight of responsibility on our shoulders.

Decisions are a part of life. Sometimes making a choice between options is a difficult and stressful experience. Our choices can have far-reaching consequences. Sometimes it is just hard to know what road to take. The road not taken can haunt us down the line.

Happily there are techniques we can practice to make the process of choosing between alternatives an easier experience. There is really no need to stress about our choices. Making difficult choices is a part of life’s experience and we can become more comfortable with it and develop habits that make it a painless process for us. Try the following techniques to be on your way to making stress-free choices.

1. Tune Into Your Intuition

When we are stumped between two (or more) options, trying to tune into one’s intuition can be helpful to lean one toward one option or the other. Not all of us are in tune with our intuition, or know how to listen to it. Intuition is part of your subconscious mind and can give clues that can help your understanding of a situation. One way to tune into one’s intuition is to let one’s thoughts flow, just flow without conscious direction on our part. This can be easier to do in quiet moments. Practicing relaxation techniques like deep breathing and listening to relaxing music can help to ease one into a relaxed zone where the mind flows and one can listen to its insights.

2. Make a List of Pros and Cons

Another action that can help one make a difficult decision is making a list of pros and cons for each option. This helps us to break down the options and further analyze them. Taking the time to write down a list of pros and cons is worth it to aid us in better understanding the situation and the ramifications of choosing each option.

3. Discuss the Situation with Someone Trusted

Discussing the situation with a trusted friend or advisor can help to shed further light on which option is the better choice. Bouncing off of someone else with our insights and ideas can spur the other person’s insights, giving us a fresh perspective. It can also spur us to delve further into our own ideas about the situation, thereby developing further insights about which choice to make.

4. Research Your Options

Researching aspects about the choices available is wise. There is no such thing as too much information, so it cannot hurt to do some due diligence in researching various factors about each choice. This can give us valuable information to use to help us make a decision. The information we gain can also jog our own further analysis on the topic.

5. Give Yourself Time

“Sleeping on it” is another avenue that can help to give one clarity when making a difficult decision. Giving ourselves some time to process our thoughts on the options can help them to crystalize in our mind and provide more clarity. Rushing a difficult decision, especially an important one, does not feel comfortable. It can cause further stress to us. It is less stressful and more productive to take some time to thoroughly weigh our options in a relaxed fashion.

6. Visualize Potential Outcomes

Visualizing what the options will end up being like can be helpful in figuring out which option seems to be the better one for us. Visualizing involves imagining what the result would be if we picked each option. You can close your eyes and picture in your mind what would happen if you chose an option. Drawing a picture is an exercise that can assist in developing your visualization.

7. Take a Break From Analyzing

Taking a break from your efforts to make a difficult choice is another helpful technique to making that decision. If you can distract yourself from the issue for a time, you can then come back to it with a fresh mindset. Taking a break and distracting yourself from the decision-making process enables you to have a mental reset, looking at the problem with new perspective.

8. Don’t Expect Certainty

Remembering that there are factors beyond our control sends the message to us that waiting for certainty before finalizing a decision is a mistake. We may never feel certain about the choice we are making, and that is okay. We cannot expect to get to the point of certainty in our feelings when we do not have a crystal ball. One cannot predict the future and one cannot control all the factors affecting the outcome. Our goal can instead be to get to a place where we feel comfortable with our choice, and feel that it is a good choice. This does not mean that we are sure it is the only choice that makes sense. It means that we have made a choice that feels right for us, even with acknowledging that there is some uncertainty as to how it will ultimately turn out.

9. Get Comfortable with Uncertainty

There is no need to feel stress when we experience uncertainty. It is helpful to remind ourselves that uncertainty at times cannot be avoided. We do not have all the answers. The goal needs to be to make the best decision one can based on the information at one’s disposal, which is at times incomplete. That is why waiting for a feeling of certainty before making a decision wastes time and creates stress. That feeling of certainty will most likely never come. We need to make our decisions anyway. With practice, one will get accustomed to making choices and moving forward even in the face of uncertainty. With experience and perspective, we will become more comfortable in dealing with the feeling of uncertainty and it will no longer create such stress for us.

10. Take a Leap of Faith

Finally, making that difficult choice involves taking a leap of faith. Once you have done your due diligence and spent time analyzing the situation and your feelings about your various options, it is time to make a choice. And in making your choice, you should also choose to trust the universe. There is so much beyond one’s control in this life. Placing a general trust that things will be okay and that we can handle whatever comes our way enables us to make decisions without worry and stress.

Making choices can be a difficult endeavor. But there are ways to make it easier. Practice these techniques, and you will be on your way to making your choices without experiencing stress and difficulty.

Ten Steps to Boosting Motivation

Motivation is one of those things that one can never have enough of. It is that magic ingredient that leads to our get-up-and-go and passion. Having more motivation is beneficial because it spurs us to action. It makes accomplishing things easier and channels us to increased productivity. Yet sometimes we can go through periods where our motivation drops.

Motivation can be a phenomenon that comes and goes. It is a rare bird who is always motivated. But do not despair if you feel a lack of motivation. Our feelings of motivation are not static, but rather fluid. Our level of motivation ebbs and flows, depending on a host of factors. This means that with some attention on your part, you have the ability to increase your motivation.

Some factors affecting our level of motivation are beyond our control. But there are factors within our control and things we can do to increase our feelings of motivation. Below is a list of ten things you can do to pump up your motivation.

What is motivation exactly? It is that feeling of purposefulness. Motivation is that force within that drives us to accomplish goal-oriented behavior. Motivation can be a seed that grows within us. The more we accomplish, the more motivation we can feel. Motivation is that base that our accomplishments are built upon. Motivation can see us through dark times, enabling us to have the drive to go on. Motivation can propel us to success.

So what can one do to increase their motivation?

1. Make Increasing Motivation a Goal

Realize that increasing your motivation is a goal that you have. Make that admission to yourself. Without a focus on bettering your drive in life, how can one expect an increase in motivation to just happen? Firstly, you should pay attention to your desire to channel your innate motivation more fully in your life.

2. Incorporate What Makes You Happy Into Your Routine

Being in good spirits is helpful in increasing both our energy level and our feelings of motivation. Think about what in your life makes you most happy. Then try to incorporate elements of those things that make you most happy into your daily routine. For example, if you enjoy socializing, find ways to socialize more, utilizing pockets of time or incorporating socialization into other areas of your life such as work.

3. Set Goals for Yourself

Set goals for yourself. These goals should be concrete and attainable. You should not set goals that are unrealistic for yourself, because this will sap your motivation and may make you feel like giving up. Major goals should be set in incremental steps, so that each step is something realistic for you to be able to complete.

4. Write Your Goals Down

Writing something out helps it to become more concrete in your mind. The written item acts as a reminder. It also gives us a chance to tweak our thoughts as we put them in written form.  Lists are great. They help us to organize and prioritize our goals. The act of writing out our goals itself is an action that we are taking toward our goals. It is a first step to taking further action to attain one’s goal. It feels good to take an action toward one’s goal, however small.

5. Practice Visualization

Taking the time to visualize oneself attaining one’s goals helps one feel more connected to that goal, which increases motivation to attain the goal. Visualization involves imagining in one’s mind what success in an endeavor would look like. It is a way to remind ourselves of what the end goal is and what its benefits are. This keeps us in touch with the goal and why it is our desire. That spurs motivation to accomplish our goal.

6. Regularly Review Your Goals

Regularly assess and review your goals and where you stand with them. If you do not check in with the goals you have set out for yourself, it is easy to lose touch with them and consequently lose your motivation. It is important to remind yourself of your goals periodically, and also to think about the reasons for your goals, why you set them in the first place.

7. Replace Negative Self-Talk With Positive Self-Talk

How we feel both physically and psychologically affects our level of motivation. Watch for any negative self-talk, which can deplete one’s feeling of confidence and along with it, one’s motivation. Do your best to replace negative inner statements with positive ones. With practice, we can choose which thoughts to follow in our minds and delve further into. So try your best to cut off the negative thoughts and delve into those positive thoughts that you are doing your best to generate.

8. Optimize Your Energy Levels

Watch your energy levels. It is hard to be motivated to take action when one is tired. Physical energy is important in order for us to tap into our full reservoir of motivation. Maintain good sleep levels and healthy eating habits to optimize your energy. This will have a positive effect on your level of motivation. Energy needs an outlet, and it spurs one to action. Channeling your energy towards your goals will increase your motivation levels, especially as you get more accomplished along the path to conquering your goals.

9. Acquire a Taste for Being Busy

Try your best to subscribe to the theory that “busy is happy.” If you can learn to enjoy being busy, you will be able to accomplish more. That success in accomplishing tasks will in turn encourage you to have more motivation to try to accomplish more. The feeling of scratching items off of your to-do list feeds into your sense of self-confidence. And higher self-confidence allows you to set goals without getting caught up in anxiety that you may not attain them.

10. Drop the Goal of Perfection

Being a perfectionist can sabotage our motivation and lead to procrastination. All of that pressure to be perfect creates a barrier to action. We develop anxiety about making our next move. But if we drop the goal of perfection, and retool our goals to be in line with the reality that there is no such thing as perfection anyway, we can stop the sapping of our motivation. We can stop psyching ourselves out of trying. The goal should be to make our best effort, and that is good enough.

So remember, motivation is something we can increase in ourselves with some effort on our part. Motivation is a crucial factor in how much we accomplish. It is a base that we build from in our journey to move forward and attain our goals in life. As such it is well worth the effort of focusing on factors that can boost our motivation. Motivation is that feeling that gets us out of bed in the morning, giving us get-up-and-go. Motivation is the fuel that ignites our passions and leads to great accomplishment. Best of all, boosting one’s motivation is possible.

Follow these guidelines and soon you will be on your way to increased motivation!

How to Feel Good About Oneself

 It can be hard to feel good about oneself. We all face times when we criticize ourselves. But some of us criticize ourselves much too much. This can affect our sense of self-esteem, and have us feeling like we are no good. That is a real shame. We are all valuable as individuals, with our own unique qualities. We were made as we are, and it is glorious to celebrate oneself just as you are. 

There are things we can do to help to get us feeling good about ourselves again. The mind can play tricks on a person, and negative thinking can snowball and leave one feeling down in the dumps and like there is something wrong with yourself. But there is nothing wrong with you! You are a human being, with flaws and imperfections like everybody else. We are human, and that means we will make mistakes. We are also not perfect. In fact, perfection does not really exist in the real world. It would be nice if it did. But this is the real world we are in. Mistakes happen and bad things also happen. Life is like a roller coaster, with ups and downs. So we cannot expect perfection of life or of ourselves. That would not be accepting the reality of living in the real world as we do.

So one of the first steps to feeling good about yourself is to remind yourself that we humans are flawed, and that day-to-day life is flawed too. We are imperfect, and life is imperfect. We need to remind ourselves that we are living in the real world, not a dream world. So our expectations cannot be of perfection, or we will be continually disappointed, in ourselves and our life.

Keeping our expectations in line with the realities of real-world living will help us to avoid feeling constantly disappointed in ourselves. We should remind ourselves that we are trying our best. That is what matters in a world of constant uncertainty. When we give ourselves credit for trying our best, we can feel good about ourselves even when things do not go our way. 

We should also remind ourselves that we cannot control everything in our lives. We have only limited control of what happens to us. We can control our efforts, and ensure that we are trying to move forward in our lives toward our needs and wants. But we cannot control the fact that obstacles my arise, blocking our best efforts toward a goal. When this happens, sometimes we may tend to dwell on the problem and our sense of regret. This is a mistake, because it will hamper our future efforts to continue to move forward. When an obstacle comes our way, as it likely will at times, it is best to once more remind ourselves that we are living in the real world where this can and will happen. It happens to everyone at some time or another. The key is not to dwell on the problem, but to focus on how we might be able to move around the obstacle and then to continue on our path to our goal.

Moving toward our goals will increase our sense of self-esteem. Those feelings of accomplishment as we achieve steps toward our goals boosts our sense of confidence. And the fact that we are trying our best is at the heart of feeling good about oneself. It is imperative to keep trying, even in the face of obstacles that life throws your way. Keep keep trying. This will help you to feel good about yourself and not dwell on the problems, but instead to keep your focus on your goals. 

Moving forward in life and making efforts to reach one's goals feels good. It helps a person to stay active, mentally and/or physically. This discourages one from getting caught up in negative thoughts, which are more likely to happen when we stagnate. By focusing on other, positive things, we pull ourselves out of the bucket of negativity that one can fall into. It is easier to avoid negative thinking when one is distracted by healthy, positive activities.

It is important to be aware of one's negative thinking if and when it does start to creep in though. It is better to tackle it head on and nip it in the bud, before it multiplies and drags us down into feeling bad about ourselves. When a negative thought about you creeps in, remind yourself that you are human, and as such you are imperfectly wonderful. It is wrong to pressure yourself by expecting perfection, of yourself or of your life. That thinking can only lead to misery, because it is unrealistic.

Now is the time to say positive statements to yourself, to buoy yourself up and build your sense of self-worth. Remind yourself that you are trying. Remind yourself that it is okay that you are not perfect, that is expected. Remind yourself that you are unique and wonderful, just as you are. It is a great habit to get into, making positive statements to yourself about yourself and your life. This can counteract the habit some of us can fall into of negative thinking. So bathe yourself in positivity, and watch yourself begin to glow with self-esteem!

By being careful to temper your expectations with the constraints of the real world, you will stop setting yourself up for constant disappointment. And by developing a habit of making positive statements to yourself, you will be able to drown out and crush that negative thinking that makes you feel down about yourself. Feeling good about oneself is possible for everyone! It takes some effort on one's part, but it is well worth the effort to rid oneself of that voice that jumps to criticize oneself, which can lead ultimately to feelings of worthlessness.

So make some changes in your thinking, and you can see your sense of self-worth blossom. That wonderful feeling of self-confidence can make your days more enjoyable and also more productive. Negative thinking interrupts our focus on moving forward. It creates its own hurdle blocking us from reaching our goals. By being aware of our negative thinking, and counteracting it with focusing on what we can do to reach our goals, and by replacing it with a habit of positive thinking, we can reduce and even eliminate the negative thinking that diminishes our self-worth.

Everyone has the potential for feeling good about themselves. With time, patience and new habits, self-esteem will grow and confidence bloom!

Hello Again

I just want to say hello to everyone again. I started this blog in 2018, then life got in the way. I stopped publishing articles. But I realized that I miss being able to express myself and be creative with my blog. I just celebrated my birthday, and I made the decision to restart my blog from 2018, SunBright Soul. I am so very happy to begin anew again with this blog. I welcome you back, and I hope that you will join me in this journey toward the light. 

In the past five years much has happened, some positive occurrences and some negative. Such is the roller coaster of life that we find ourselves in. There have been times of happiness and times of grief. One thing that transpired was I became a teacher. But after a year teaching, I lost my voice. My voice just would not come out. It became very weak. I could not project. And it was uncomfortable for me to speak. It became very difficult for me to teach with that situation. So I ended up leaving the teaching profession. I was sad to do so, as I loved teaching. But I am much more comfortable in a job in which I do not have to speak so much and am not constantly feeling the need to raise my voice. 

It was a sad transition for me, and I miss having a voice that would project well. Now when I speak to people they ask am I okay, or say, "Get well soon, feel better," even though I am not sick. It is just my voice that makes me sound ill. I still have discomfort when I speak very much. And one of the saddest parts for me was that I can no longer sing. I used to sing, and I was proud of my singing voice. Singing was a very enjoyable hobby for me. It brought me great joy to sing. When that was no longer possible for me, I felt sad and lost. I had not realized how much singing meant to me and what an important part of my life it was. Singing cheered me up and served as my creative outlet. Now that outlet was no longer available to me. 

And so I began to search for another creative outlet. That is when I thought of my former blog, SunBright Soul. I realized I missed pouring my heart and soul into writing, and sharing that writing with all of you. I feel it is important for people to have a creative outlet. It helps one just to get through difficult times, knowing there is a way to express your feelings. It helps me to stay motivated in this life of ups and downs, knowing that I can fall into a creative flow and take my mind off of my sorrows. 

I hope you will join me in my renewed journey with SunBright Soul! I am looking forward to sharing motivational and inspirational writings, and sharing my experiences with what comes my way. I hope too that you will share your feedback with me, comment and contact me with any questions or insights. 

I would like this blog to help others to be empowered to be their best selves. That is my goal for SunBright Soul. In sharing my insights and experiences, I strive to help others. If nothing else, I know it is helpful to me when I feel that I am not alone in a situation. Like my vocal issues. By sharing my experience with the loss of my voice, I hope to let others facing a similar experience know that there is hope and you will come out on the other side, stronger. 

In sharing our experiences we can forge a bond with others, and can support one another through our trials and tribulations. Life is filled with challenges and hurdles to overcome. It is so much harder if we try to surmount the obstacles on our own. I feel that like they say, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Together we are stronger than on our own. And sharing our thoughts and experiences with one another helps us to not feel alone. We are reminded that we all face challenges in this life. And we realize that we are not alone, that we can be there for one another in our difficult, and also our happy, times. 

I am hoping that SunBright Soul can be a place of hope and sharing. A place you can come to to feel better, to spark your motivation. I know how hard it can be to stay motivated. I have suffered with depression most of my life. I do my best to power through it, with the help of my medication. We can all be too hard on ourselves at times, myself included. That inner voice can tell us all sorts of negative things. And instead of being our own best friends, as we should, we can end up being our own worst enemies. That is sad. And that is something that one can work to change. 

I want SunBright Soul to be a dose of positivity and hope in a world that can bring one down. It is important to strive for a positive outlook, to remember that there is always hope, whatever our situation is. The sun will be shining tomorrow, and tomorrow is a new day. Life is never perfect, but it is good. It is worth getting up and out of bed in the morning and striving to live one’s best life. The more we give of ourselves, the more we get back. 

So welcome back to SunBright Soul. Get ready to join me in a journey toward positivity and light. I am so happy you are here. We are stronger together. And we will find the light together. Thank you for sharing this journey with me. And hello again :)