9 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR CONFIDENCE IN LESS THAN 10 MINUTES
We could all do with a boost in confidence from time to time, couldn’t we?
In this blog post, I’m going to share with you 9 simple ways you can increase confidence and self esteem in less than 10 minutes.
Because, let’s face it, we often neglect our mindset work because we feel like it’s going to take too long to see results or we have more important things we need to focus on.
Prefer to listen? Press play on this episode of The Confidence Show podcast 👇🏼
But the thing is, when we work on increasing our confidence every day - even for just 5 minutes - we begin to build solid confidence foundations that we can rely on to help us be more productive, be visible online and go after our goals.
As soon as we neglect our mindset work, our confidence levels drop quite quickly and then it takes a lot more effort to start building them up again.
Trust me on this one, I speak from experience.
To make it easy for you, I’ve put together these simple tips for more confidence that can be implemented right away and take less than 10 minutes to do.
Get Dressed Up
This isn't about impressing other people. This is about dressing to impress yourself.
I don't know about you, but when I’m working from home, if I'm just sitting in my onesie or my dressing gown, I tend to feel a lot less productive. I won't put as much effort into my work because I don't feel like a boss. I feel lazy AF.
When you feel unproductive, lazy, unattractive, your confidence drops and when your confidence is low, it’s harder to find the motivation to actually do the stuff you need to.
When it comes to getting dressed up, I don't mean dressing up like you’re going out out, I mean wearing an outfit that makes you feel good, that makes you feel comfortable in your own skin. Whether it’s jeans and a top, a dress or a tracksuit, it doesn’t matter. This is about YOU feeling confident.
When I first started my business, I'd be so wrapped up in getting client work done immediately I would just wake up, pick up my laptop, stay in bed and work for hours before I even thought about getting dressed.
At the time, I felt like I was being productive but now, looking back, I realise I was just being ‘busy’. I wasn't actually doing the core tasks that would help move me forward. I was trying to do all the things and making things really complicated for myself which comes from having a lack of confidence.
So get up, get dressed and make yourself feel good before you settle into your daily tasks.
Get High (Vibe)
The easiest way to do this is to create a playlist on Spotify full of all your favourite songs that make you feel confident AF. Then hit shuffle and dance around.
It really is that simple! Music makes you feel good and when you feel good, you feel more confident. You can listen to the My BIG Vision playlist here. This playlist is full of empowering songs that make me feel like I can take over the world.
This is my go to confidence boosting activity before video calls, live trainings, client calls, creating content - anything that requires me to show up with a tonne of energy. I can go from imposter syndrome to confidence queen in the space of one song.
I told you I’d make this easy for you….
Read Your Feedback
Create a folder on your phone or laptop full of positive comments and messages you receive from your followers, your clients, friends - anything that makes you feel proud of yourself and when you need a reminder of how awesome you are, open up this folder and read back through the lovely words people have said about you.
You could do this every morning as you're drinking your coffee or sitting on the toilet!
We often forget about all the lovely feedback we get and tend to focus on the one negative comment we received. Focusing on the positive is gonna help you feel more confident in yourself and your abilities.
After months of working on a recent launch, I felt really disheartened when no-one signed up to the programme I was promoting but instead of sitting in self pity, I read through all the comments, messages and emails I’d received from people throughout the launch and focused on how much I’d supported people instead of the fact no-one signed up. Doing this allowed me to instantly shift to the next thing and carry on moving forward.
Write an Empowerment List
This is my favorite type of journaling and actually a term I came up with myself. An empowerment list is essentially a list of all the positive things about yourself or a certain area you want to focus on.
So, in terms of increasing your confidence, one of the best lists that you can write is 25 things I love about myself. It can be a hard exercise to do if you’re not used to talking about yourself positively but, with practice, it soon becomes much easier and you’ll notice your confidence levels begin to increase.
For more examples of empowerment lists you can write and to learn how to get started with journaling, you can download my 80 page workbook, Mindset Work: How to Be Confident, here.
Perfect Your Posture
Now, I’ll admit, I’m a sloucher. Being taller than my friends at school meant I spent years trying to slouch to appear shorter than I am and now, as I work from my laptop, my default position is to slouch.
But that doesn’t make us feel confident, does it?
Roll back your shoulders, sit your back up straight and hold your head up high. It’s pretty hard to lack confidence when you're doing this because it's such a powerful position. It instantly makes you feel confident. And there's literally no excuse that you don't have time to do it.
Repeat Positive Affirmations
I repeat affirmations in my head all day, every day. They constantly change based on what I’m trying to work on or how I’m feeling in that moment but they’ve had the biggest impact on my life.
Between the ages of 18-20, I was too afraid to leave the house. I have a phobia of sick (Emetophobia) which caused major anxiety, fear and regular panic attacks. After nearly being fired from my job a few weeks before my 21st birthday, I realised I needed to do something about the fact I wasn’t living my life.
This is when I started repeating positive affirmations to myself: I can do this, I can achieve anything I put my mind to, I am capable.
Within a year, I’d gone from barely leaving the house to socialising with friends every weekend, I’d been to my first festival, travelled to Austria, Spain and Germany and I’d quit my 9 to 5 to travel around the world, solo.
Although I found it really difficult to repeat positive affirmations to begin with, they truly helped me to change my life for the better. Even now, affirmations are my go to when I’m anxious, when I need to feel confident or when the negative beliefs start to show up.
When you first start repeating things like “I am confident”, it may feel uncomfortable as your brain doesn’t believe it but the more you do it, the more that belief will start to become true for you and the more confident you’ll feel.
To help you start your day feeling confident, you can access a 5 minute guided visualisation inside The Confidence Kit. It’s less than 5 minutes long and you can listen during your first alarm snooze, whilst you’re brushing your teeth, doing your makeup or even in the shower.
Your Tribe Creates Your Vibe
If you want to feel confident, you need to surround yourself with people who have the self confidence you want. They say you're the product of the five people you spend the most time with so if you're constantly with people who complain, who bitch about others, who are full of self doubt or have no desire to move forward or develop themselves personally, you'll find it harder to grow.
If you surround yourself with people that are always looking on the good side, who are always feeling positive, who are happy, who feel confident in themselves, you're going to start to pick up on that positive energy.
I'm not saying that you should cut the negative people out of your life completely because a lot of the time it's people that are friends and family and people that we can't or don't want to cut out. But just be mindful of how much time you're spending with them.
If you know that you're going through a period where you are doubting yourself or you are lacking some confidence, don't go and hang out with the people who constantly put themselves down. Go and hang out with confident people.
Smile
When you're smiling, you feel happy and when you feel happy, you feel more confident.
Try this one now. Think of something happy or something that makes you laugh and smile your biggest, cheesiest, grin.
How does that make you feel?
Take Action, Even When You’re Scared
This is arguably the hardest but most effective way to increase your confidence. Doing the things that push you out of your comfort zone is uncomfortable and scary but once you’ve done them, you’ll feel proud of yourself which’ll in turn, increase your confidence.
I've briefly touched on my story above, but at 20 years old, when I got to the point where I realised I wasn’t living my life, I made the decision to say yes to everything, especially the things I didn’t want to do like going to the pub with friends, going to Tesco on my own or getting on a train.
I was going to say yes to the things that scared me because I realised I didn't have a life. I looked back on the previous 18 months of my life and realised I had literally done nothing. I knew I didn't want to get to the point where I was 80 years old and looking back on my life with regret about never having lived.
I can tell you that taking action is the hardest, but definitely the most effective step in these nine ways to increase your confidence because of how I managed to transform my life in such a short space of time. You can hear more about my journey in this podcast episode.
Let's recap those nine ways to increase your confidence:
Get dressed up in something that makes you feel good
Dance around to your confidence-boosting playlist
Read through all the wonderful comments in your feedback folder
Write an empowerment list of 25 things you love about yourself
Sit up straight and perfect your powerful posture
Repeat positive affirmations like ‘I am confident’
Hang out with confident people who make you feel good
Smile!
Take action and push yourself out of your comfort zone