Top 5 Things That will Zap Your Self-Confidence

Your self-confidence is a tenuous thing. One minute you are on top of the world, and the next, you feel like a walking pile of garbage. You may not realize that little, everyday things can affect your self-confidence in a big way. Many factors can influence your self-confidence, here are the top five things that can negatively impact your confidence.

 

Not Eating and Drinking Properly

 

When it comes to our moods, research has shown that we are what we eat. A diet that is packed with nutrients can help to reduce any anxiety that we are feeling, boost our mood, and help you feel more confident. If your diet is currently loaded with sugar and caffeine, you will experience severe mood swings and energy spikes that can lead to a dip in how you feel about yourself. 

 

Your Body Language

 

Social psychologists believe that if you lack self-confidence, you should fake it until you become it. If you are having trouble with your self-confidence, take a look at your body language. If you find that you are slouching, slumping, or standing in a stopped position, this can all lead to lowered self-confidence. Studies have shown that our body language can affect how we feel about ourselves. 

 

Fear

 

Fear has the power to completely stop you in your tracks or make your dreams a reality. Fear is nothing more than False Evidence Appearing Real. In other words, when you are working toward your goal, you may find that your mind is providing you with false evidence that you may think is real but can quickly throw you off course. It is essential that you acknowledge this fear and carry them with you instead of running away.

 

Your Inner Voice

 

Your inner voice is extremely powerful. However, you can choose to listen to it, ignore it, or give it a different narrative. Because the subconscious isn’t able to distinguish fact from fiction, when your inner voice tells you that you can’t do something, you believe it. 

 

Stress and Pressure

 

Our natural fight or flight mechanism automatically kicks in when we are under pressure or stressed. When our survival is actually threatened, this mechanism is excellent. However, if this response kicks in because you are always worried about things like money, work, or family, the adrenalin and cortisol running through your system can eventually make us sick.

 

Building and maintaining your confidence is a process that takes time and effort. Learning the factors that can affect your confidence will allow you to take action to keep your confidence from taking a hit.

4 Factors That Can Affect Your Self-Esteem

Self-esteem plays a significant role in your life. Your self-esteem has a profound impact on the choices you make in your life. It determines what you consider yourself to be capable and worthy of doing. When you have low self-esteem, you are at a higher risk of not fulfilling your real potential in life. Numerous factors can influence your self-esteem. These four factors can either build up your self-esteem or pull it down. 

 

Your Childhood

 

Your childhood is one of the leading contributing factors to your self-esteem. During your childhood, as your personality and everything else is developing, everyone you encounter has the potential to influence who you become, this includes your self-esteem. For example, children that grow up in unstable households tend to have lower self-confidence and self-esteem and often end up carrying that burden with them throughout their entire lives. 

 

The Media

 

Our complete obsession with the media, whether its social media, television or print ads, contributes to the widespread self-esteem issues that our society faces. The instant access to social media is especially damaging to young minds with the constant pressure to look and act like public figures, celebrities, and their peers.

 

Friends and Family

 

The people that you spend time around have a considerable influence on your self-esteem. Your friends can help you build your self-confidence, your self-image, and self-respect, or they can bring it down. Unfortunately, there are those in our lives that will purposely try to harm our self-esteem to build themselves up.

 

Your family can also positively or negatively affect your self-esteem. Feelings of inadequacy when it comes to providing for your family can contribute to low self-esteem while working together as a family and building one another up, can contribute to a healthy self-esteem.

 

Work Environment

 

The majority of your time is spent at school or at work. The environment tends to influence every aspect of your life, including your self-esteem. If you have a stressful and overly demanding position, it can often contribute to low self-esteem. Working in an encouraging and productive environment can have a positive influence on your self-esteem and can help you grow stronger. 

 

Many factors can influence your self-esteem. Every part of your life can affect it, but the person that has the most control of your self-esteem is you. Start giving yourself good messages about who you are and stop beating yourself up in order to improve your self-esteem.

 

3 Ways Your Limiting Beliefs are Holding You Back

Limiting beliefs, whether you realize it or not, have a profound effect on our lives. They can affect your life in so many ways, and none of the ways they can affect your life are good. When you can let go of your limiting beliefs, you can change your life and start living the life that you've always wanted. Here are three ways that your limiting beliefs are holding you back from realizing your dreams and living the life you want.

 

They Taint Your Experience of Living

 

When you are constricted by your limiting beliefs, you will do far fewer things over the course of your life. For example, if you believe that roller coasters are dangerous, you will probably never ride one, and you'd miss out on the thrill that so many others have experienced. No matter how great your life is at this current moment, you are holding onto beliefs that are stopping you from experiencing life to the fullest.

 

They Make You Inefficient

 

The limiting beliefs that we are holding onto cause us to find an alternate path. If we believe that the best route won't work for us, we can spend a ton of time following a less direct way to work around our limiting belief. You may have always dreamed of being a teacher but believe that you can’t make a living as a teacher, so you do everything but teach. Save yourself time and deal with the beliefs that are holding you back rather than giving up on what you really want. 

 

They Can Cause You to Unintentionally Harm Others

 

Your beliefs are more like a virus and less like math because they are more likely to be caught then they are to be taught. Even if you have the best of intentions, you can infect others with your limiting beliefs. The limiting beliefs that you pass onto others then affect them for the rest of their lives. You need to take some time and consider who you are infecting with your limiting beliefs and how those beliefs are affecting them and their own potential to live their best life. 

 

Limiting beliefs can be incredibly destructive and will always keep you from achieving the life that you've always wanted. If you want to change your life you need to identify your limiting beliefs and start taking the necessary steps to overcome them.

 

How Being Passionate Makes Your Charismatic

Charisma is possible the truest and most impressive aspect of confidence. If you’ve ever met someone who has true, natural charisma, then you’ll know what this is like. They talk in a way that makes everyone want to listen. They are engaging, attractive, magnetic and just generally enthralling in a way that many of us only dream we could be!

 

If you can’t think of anyone in your own life, then watch Will Smith being interviewed, or Obama, or Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.

 

These people are highly charismatic and it is immediately apparent. But how can we emulate that? How can we capture that lightning in a bottle and use it for ourselves?

 

The Key to Charisma

 

As luck would have it, there is actually a relatively simple and proven formula to charisma that you can simply emulate.

 

And it comes down to gesticulations. You see, all the people who are rated as highly charismatic have been found to gesticulate more than average while they talk. This means they will use their hands to convey a lot of what they’re saying and they also tend to move around more as they speak.

 

This makes them seem charismatic because it creates a situation where their body language is reflecting what they’re saying and creating a single, congruent message. Compare this to someone who speaks enthusiastically but all while crossing their arms and looking very stressed!

 

If you want to convey that same charisma then, you need to move around and gesticulate as you talk.

 

But guess what? You can’t just fake this. If you do, you’ll become self-conscious of your hands and your gestures and that’s a situation that’s now even worse than where we started!

 

Instead, you need to let it happen naturally and the way you do that is by being highly engaged in what you’re saying. And the way you do that is by being passionate about what you’re talking about.

 

When you are truly passionate, you can’t help but gesticulate because you’re so excited for what you’re saying.

 

It comes out of you in every way possible and all self-doubt and all concern fades away – because what you’re saying seems so important that you’ll be 100% focussed on it.

This is why finding something that you’re truly passionate about it highly important. When you are truly passionate and excited, confidence and charisma happen naturally.

 

How the Right Role Model Can Enhance Your Confidence

Choosing the right role model can improve your life in a vast number of ways. In fact, this is an incredibly potent tool for improving the way you come across to others.

 

The problem? Many of us have either no role models at all, or we have the wrong role models.

 

In either case, we’re comparing ourselves to the wrong people. Social comparison theory from psychology tells us that we’re always comparing ourselves to someone. In fact, this is how many of us assess our own happiness and our own success.

 

That is to say that we don’t judge what we have on its own merits, but rather we judge it by comparing it to what others have. You feel good because you have a widescreen TV. But then you feel bad because you realize the neighbor has an even bigger one!

 

If we weren’t comparing ourselves to others all the time, we’d be more content!

Problem is, most of us are comparing ourselves to the heavily doctored and carefully selected images that are put out on social media and to the celebrities that are practically entirely fabrications. No wonder we’re low in esteem!

 

So, the scenario might well be that your sense of self-worth is coming from a comparison you are making between yourself and a celebrity who is heavily airbrushed and a billionaire.

 

The Right Role Model

 

Carefully choosing a role model can change this. It can give us realistic aims while still providing us with some motivation and the right goals to set about improving ourselves.

 

The right role model will be someone who is perhaps more successful than us in terms of their career or the way they present themselves. But at the same time, they are also similar to us and what they represent is just within our reach. By being this way, we are pursuing someone who provides us with that little bit of incentive and motivation but at the same time, confidence and inspiration in terms of what we can become.

 

In short, you’re looking for someone who is like you but just a little ahead.

 

And don’t follow false idols. Remember that even the people who you respect a whole lot are only human and they have their faults too. Remember that behind the Instagram account is a real-life person who has their bad days too!

 

How to be More Independent

If you want to be more confident, then you also need to be more independent.

After all, self-confidence is all about having faith in your own ability and your own decisions. If you don’t know how to be alone, or don’t feel you can do things without the help of others, then you won’t have true confidence!

 

The problem is that many of us struggle to be alone, or to do things for ourselves. Part of this comes down to a sheer lack of practice. If you went straight from living with your parents, to living with a partner, then you may never have truly experienced fending for yourself. And living with friends isn’t necessarily much different.

 

Likewise, some of us will spend all of our spare time with others, to the point that we don’t have much identity or much purpose when left to our own devices. If you can’t stand the thought of spending an evening alone, then you need a quick boost in independence. So how do you get it?

 

Practice

 

The first way to be more independent is… to practice!

 

One of the best ways to do this is to drop yourself in at the deep end as it were. That means packing a bag and heading off on a trip alone for a couple of weeks. The more of an adventure this is, the better. So that might mean backpacking and talking to strangers, or it might mean travelling somewhere where no-one speaks the language.

 

It might just surprise you what you’re capable of when left to your own devices!

Another way to practice is just to avoid the temptation to call for help the next time something goes wrong. DIY is a great place to experiment with this. Has the toilet stopped flushing? Do you have a hole in the wall that looks unsightly? Instead of calling for help, bring up YouTube and try to sort it yourself. This is hugely empowering and can do wonders for your esteem, as well as making you far less dependent on others.

 

Find Your Identity

 

Simply spending a little time alone is also a good idea. Even if you live with a partner, try to spend time apart just to pursue your own interests.

 

Finding a hobby is actually one of the most important things you can do to boost your independence, as this way you’ll always have something to entertain your thoughts.

 

How to Communicate More Confidently

We have many opportunities to demonstrate our confidence or otherwise, but perhaps the most obvious example is when we are talking to an individual or a group.

 

Those who have low self-esteem or confidence are likely to mutter, to stutter and to avoid eye contact. Those who are highly confident and sure of themselves will speak loudly and proudly.

 

So with that in mind, how do you go about communicating as confidently as possible and helping to ensure your message comes across well while also making you look sure of yourself and of what you’re saying?

 

Speak Slowly

 

The first tip is to talk more slowly. When we are nervous, we will often speak more quickly without even realizing it. This is a result of neurotransmitters being released which slow our perception of time and which encourage rushing.

 

Simply slowing down then will greatly increase your sense of calm and authority. Not only that, but by giving people longer to hang on to what you’re saying will let your words have more impact and drama. This also suggests a trust in what you’re saying – it shows you aren’t worried people will stop listening – whereas rushing makes us seem like we’re worried people are just going to move on!

 

Watch any big celebrity talk on TV and you’ll notice they tell lots of stories and they always build suspense and use rhetorical questions. They’ll use repetition and leave big gaps. This takes huge confidence, but if you can pull it off, then you’ll have an audience eating from your hands!

 

Make Eye Contact

 

One of the most important things you can do to demonstrate confidence as you speak is to maintain eye contact. This is true if you’re speaking with just one person and it shows that you aren’t afraid to meet their gaze and to speak to them as equals. It’s also true if you’re speaking to a crowd however, in which case you need to look at everyone and to ensure they are all following and included.

 

Be Congruent

 

Finally, remember that communication is only somewhat verbal. More of what we mean is conveyed through body language and this is why it’s so important that your body language reflects what you’re saying. Be passionate and let your arms do the talking along with the words you’re saying. You’ll appear more honest, more confident and far more engaging!

 

How to Deal With Toxic People

If you have chronically low self-esteem, then there’s a good chance that this came from other people. 

 

The nasty thing about insecurity, jealousy and low esteem is that they are contagious. If you aren’t confident in yourself, then it will often cause you to become destructive and mean. You might put other people down in order to feel better about yourself and you might try to prevent others from fulfilling their potential because you don’t want to be left behind – even if this is happening in an unconscious way.

 

At the same time, low self-esteem can mean you talk other people out of taking chances or following their dreams. This is not out of malice: in this case it simply comes down to the fact that you don’t have much faith in the ability that anyone has to change their fate.

Chances are that you’ll know people like this in your life and that they could be the reason for your low self-esteem and confidence. Most upsettingly, there is a better-than-average chance that this came from your parents.

 

The number one way to raise a happy and confident child is to love them unconditionally and to believe in them 100% and support them 100%. You need to be confident in yourself to do this.

 

So, what do you do now if you’re trying to fix your low esteem but you’re surrounded by people who are dragging you down?

 

The Best Advice

 

The tip you’ll often read is that you should simply cut off contact with toxic or destructive people.

 

I’ll say that you should take this advice if anyone is being purposefully cruel or belittling. You don’t have time in your life for malicious people.

 

But if someone is doing it unintentionally, you shouldn’t just write them off: chances are they simply need help.

 

What you do in the meantime is to surround yourself with more people who are positive, supportive and who do love you unconditionally. And you always remember to view what the toxic, negative people say through a lens of logic and reason. If they are putting you down, is it because they have a genuine point? Or is it because they themselves have low esteem?

 

Finally, try to build them up too. That means you should ask them why they feel the way they do and do everything to support them. You can pull each other out of this funk, that is what friends are for after all!

 

How to Get a Physique That Will Make You Confident

If you struggle with low confidence and esteem, then you should see a therapist such as a cognitive behavioral therapist. They will be able to talk you through the deep-seated issues that are causing you to feel low in esteem and will build you back up.

 

This is the most fundamental and effective way to address what is really a very serious mental health issue. But in the meantime, that isn’t to say that there aren’t smaller and easier changes you can make to boost your esteem.

 

And sometimes, this means focussing on the external aspects. It means looking at surface level aspects of your self that you might not be happy in.

 

The bottom line? Transforming your physique can offer a massive confidence boost. That’s because it will impact on the way that other people react to you, it will fill your system with more positive hormones and neurotransmitters to make you feel good about yourself and it will mean you can take care of yourself physically.

 

So how do you do it?

 

The Best Physique

 

In order to get the kind of physique that will make you feel highly confident, you need to focus on an aesthetic physique. Whether you are a man or a woman, you want a body that you can feel good about and that will make itself known even through clothes.

 

For guys, that means focussing on the inverted triangle physique. That means wide shoulders, big arms and a narrow waist. This makes you look physically intimidating and it is a shape that women are naturally inclined to find attractive.

 

For women, it means developing the hip to waist ratio. This suggests strong genetic material. They should also try to develop a tone physique, so that they are proportionate while slim.

 

In both cases, the best way to accomplish this is with a combination of resistance training and cardiovascular training. And that can even mean combining the two in a manner that is known as concurrent training.

 

The point is, you shouldn’t focus simply on one or the other. Men who only focus on weights will risk looking strong while still carrying a gut. Women who focus only on CV will find they actually don’t burn fat as quickly as they would if they combined it with weights. And in fact, women who squat are so well proportioned that it has become a meme!