How to increase self-confidence in 6 steps

Several keys and strategies to improve in this important aspect.

Confidence in yourself (self-confidence) is necessary for you to achieve the goals you set for yourself and is key to your well-being, as it is closely related to self-esteem.

People who have confidence in themselves manage to develop their life projects or professional projects because they are individuals who know how to take certain risks, make difficult decisions, and are highly resilient, that is, they know how to overcome the negative situations that may arise in throughout his life.

Self-confidence and self-esteem are not the same

Many people think that self-confidence and self-esteem are the same. But although the two concepts are related, they are two different terms with clearly differentiated implications.

Self-confidence or self-confidence is the appreciation of the abilities you possess and focuses on the beliefs you have regarding the ability and ability to succeed in a given context. While self-esteem is the general feeling of how valuable you are as a whole and refers to your appreciation of yourself.

If this difference is not clear to you, imagine a salesperson or salesperson who knows that he does his job very well. He has no doubt about his great ability to seduce clients and he knows that he has the gift of people that not everyone has. Thanks to this, he performs his work perfectly, so he fully trusts himself when carrying out this task.

Now, this person has low self-esteem, because when he comes home after a long day of work, he thinks: “I don't have a partner, nor can I save enough money to buy a house. I am a failure ”. As you can see, he trusts himself and knows that it is a great commercial. Now, he is not comfortable with himself, and regardless of whether his assessment is correct or not, the overall image he has of himself is negative.

Self-confidence: the theory of self-efficacy

One of the great theorists of self-confidence is Albert Bandura, who formulated his theory of self-efficacy (which roughly means something very similar to self-confidence) as part of his Theory of Social Learning.

Her research on the social learning of human beings allowed her to identify other cognitive components that facilitate the process of change and influence the formation of intentions and motivational self-regulation. One of these components is perceived self-efficacy or the perception of self-confidence.

Bandura affirms that the development of self-confidence is made up of four components:

Execution achievements: past experiences are the most important source of self-confidence information since they allow verifying the real domain.

Vicarious experience or observation: refers to modeling, that is, seeing (or imagining) other people successfully executing certain activities

Verbal persuasion: Verbal persuasion is important, especially for those who already trust themselves and need only a little more confidence to go the extra mile for success.

Physiological state of the individual: Individuals often interpret states of great anxiety as signs of weakness or poor performance. In contrast, humor or positive emotional states will also have an impact on how one will interpret experiences.

How do you improve self-confidence?

But what steps can you take to improve self-confidence? Here is a list of 6 steps to improve your self-confidence:

1. Live situations positively

As you have seen, for Bandura, verbal persuasion is a very important element in the development of self-confidence. So be positive even if you are going through a period when you feel that things are not going your way. Stop focusing on problems and focus your energy on solutions and positive changes.

Low self-confidence is often associated with thoughts of failure and negative thoughts that mediate between you and your goals. If you are constantly repeating to yourself that you are not up to it, all you will get is a "self-fulfilling prophecy." So even in unpleasant moments, motivate yourself.

2. Be prepared

It may happen, for example, that you have to make a presentation at the university and notice that you do not have enough self-confidence. In this type of case, what really works is to prepare your presentation well so that, when the day comes, you fully trust your possibilities.

Another example may be that you have started working in front of the public, and as part of your work, you have to give a welcome speech to customers. Since you have never done this type of task, you may not have full confidence in yourself. In this case, you can prepare your speech well, and in this way, you will feel comfortable and safe in front of the clients.

Whatever is on your target list, being well prepared and feeling like you are mastering what you do increases your self-confidence.

3. Make a list of what you have already accomplished and remembered it

As in the first point, difficult times can make you doubt and cause your confidence to be eroded.

And it is that life is full of changes, and sometimes it is difficult to stay up. In cases like this, it is ideal to have a list of what you have achieved so far in relation to your goal since visualizing your progression can help you motivate yourself in difficult times.

4. Act

The engine of self-confidence is action: if you dare to act, then you gain self-confidence. Bandura, in his theory of self-efficacy, tells us about "execution achievements", that is, experiences constitute the most important source of self-confidence information.

It may happen that, even before acting, you are already visualizing failure. Well, remember: if you do not act, you lose 100% of the opportunities to achieve what you want.

5. Accept any past failure

And what happens if you act and it goes wrong? Well, execution achievements are our perception of our victories and failures. By perception, I mean the assessment you make of the events that have happened. If it has gone wrong, you have to accept it and also see the small successes, which surely are, even in the failures.

Self-confidence only develops if we manage to overcome the obstacles that we put ourselves: on the one hand, resignation (which has to do with acting), and on the other hand, criticism. Seeing successes as the sum of our failures can help us gain self-confidence.

6. Observe successful people

Bandura's theory of self-efficacy claims that vicarious experience or observation is another key element of self-confidence. Observing or imagining other people carrying out certain activities successfully can positively influence self-confidence.

This is one of the techniques used in coaching to increase clients' confidence, as it is useful when the latter do not have great knowledge of their own abilities or have little experience in the task to be performed.