Dr. Vesna Grubacevic holds a PhD in Clinical Hypnotherapy, is the author of the best-selling book, Stop Sabotaging Your Confidence, and multi award winning practitioner and trainer with Qt. She is passionate about helping others to improve their confidence, emotional and mental wellbeing, and success.
Are you lacking confidence in interviews, social situations or in relationships? Have you lost belief in yourself and wish you could regain it? Would you like more self-belief and confidence to live a happier life?
Confidence is a positive emotion, which reflects our level of self-belief. The greater your belief in yourself, the greater your level of self-esteem and confidence. With confidence we feel more comfortable to go to interviews and meetings, meet new people, go on dates, speak our mind and take action to be healthier and happier in life.
Lost Your Self Belief and Confidence?
Most people have had confidence and self-belief at one time or another in their life. For example, you may have felt very confident when you succeeded at work, a hobby, playing sport or achieving a goal. Or you may have felt confident during a period of time in your life when things were going really well for you. Any time you succeeded in the past, you had the self-belief to follow through with confidence and action.
Sometimes, we can lose belief in ourselves, and therefore our confidence. Common types of events that can sabotage our self-belief and confidence include:
- missing out on promotions or interviews, retrenchment, poor performance reviews
- divorce, separation, relationship break-up or conflict with family and/or friends
- being overweight, poor body image, physical/emotional/mental health challenges.
Regain Your Self Belief and Confidence
Here are some things you can do to begin regaining your self-belief and confidence:
- Have Clarity
Confidently asking for what you want begins with clarity. If you are unsure about what you really want in your career/relationships/life, it makes it harder to ask for what you want and to take action to achieve it. Clarity will give you more confidence and self-belief to take action, and achieve what you want.
- Give Thanks
If you ignore your successes and achievements it may demotivate you, and sabotage your self-belief and confidence. When you achieve a small win, any success, a milestone or goal, acknowledge yourself. This will boost your confidence and encourage you to keep succeeding, and to take further action. Showing gratitude to yourself will also strengthen your self-belief and confidence.
- Be Generous
Make sure you understand your and other people’s needs, and reciprocate. When you give generously and without resentment or expectation, other people will be more willing to meet your needs in return. This will help you to create more fulfilling personal and professional relationships. Those that give gain satisfaction, confidence, self-belief and more.
- Ditch the Rut
Get out of a rut and build your confidence by doing different things and mixing things up in your life – get inspiration from nature, movies, books, music, conversations and your imagination. Do something different e.g. enjoy a day trip to a new destination, meet new people, enjoy new hobbies and experiences, take a different route to work, etc. By doing things outside your comfort zone, you will build your self-belief and confidence.
- Be a Go Getter
Instead of waiting for other people to initiate going out, catching up, calling you and arranging things, be proactive. Surprise your family, friends and partner by initiating spontaneous phone calls, offering to catch up or hosting an event. Rather than waiting for things to happen or hoping for things to happen, being a go getter will build your self-belief and confidence.
- The Right Mindset
Most people feel more confident in some areas than others. Think about past or recent situations where you have felt strong levels of confidence. Perhaps you felt most confident when you had success at work, playing sport, with close friends, when you are talking about a familiar topic or doing your favourite hobby.
The good news is that if you have ever felt confident in any prior situation, you can feel it again. All you need to do is to recall that situation when you wish to feel confident again.
Begin by putting yourself in a confident frame of mind – think about a time in the past when you felt really confident. Then you will feel the same confidence you felt at the time, and be in the right mindset to take action. This will help you to perform better in interviews, on a date, at work, with your family, friends and partner, when playing sport or in any situation.
Enjoy using these tips and start noticing the difference these make to your self-belief, confidence and success.
