3 Ways to Develop Rock Solid Self-Confidence
By Jermaine Harris
June 10, 2014 • Fact checked by Dumb Little Man
How can you make the leap from a shy ‘people pleaser’ to someone who has an unshakeable self-confidence? I believe that you need Rock Solid self-confidence for 5 major reasons.
- You need to be confident enough to overcome the inevitable anxiety of new situations and move forward with a comfortable, calm state of mind.
- You need to be confident in meetings and conversations so you can freely express your views with authentic honesty.
- You need to be confident enough to put yourself first. Not in a disempowering, selfish sense. In the sense that when you develop yourself and your mindset, everyone you come into contact with benefits.
- You need to be confident to take the opportunities that lie outside of your comfort zone, embracing fear as opposed to finding an escape.
- Finally, you need to be confident so you don’t waste time with jealousy. You want to be confident in your own skin, without getting bogged down by ‘comparisons.’
Personally, I have lots of fun breaking out of my comfort zone and developing my confidence and I have a blast developing the confidence in other people as well. There is no ‘secret sauce’ to self-confidence but there is a collection of actions you can take, which if combined regularly will get you there. You may not be as confident as Will Smith by following these 3 steps but I am certain that you will develop your own personal level of Rock
Solid Self-Confidence.
1. Manage Your Mind in Every Moment
You are feeling overly nervous prior to events like presentations or meeting new people because you are approaching it with the wrong mindset. The beauty of our mindset is we can shift it at any given moment. Take the following situation as an example: you are sat down in your pyjamas going through your bills at home when a friend calls you desperate for you to accompany them to a wedding party because they have been let down. Anyone in their right mind would feel anxious being put on the spot like that, right? The trick is to bring yourself out of the ‘chilled out at home’ mindset and get into the ‘confident, party conversationalist’ mindset. You can do this by doing something small by firstly chatting to your friend about what great people are going to be there. Then you could turn on your favourite up-beat song at full volume and dance whilst you get showered and changed.
When a new situation is thrust upon you it is important to realise that your brain isn’t going to be happy about it. Tease your brain into the right state of mind until you are ready to rock up and be the life and soul of the party. Of course, this may not be easy at first and with practice you will become amazing at bringing your mind into the right ‘state’.
When faced with a situation where you just; ‘don’t feel in the right frame of mind’, ask yourself: “what small action can I take right now that will get me closer to the mindset that I need?” The brain is like Google, ask it questions like that and it will give you the answers.
2. Start a ‘Dream Factory’
How can you possibly be full of confidence if you have no life direction in which to make progress? You don’t have to be overwhelmed with details, just ask yourself questions like “what do I want my life to look like?” and “How will I know when I am living my dream lifestyle?” Take a pen and paper and write everything down. When I say everything, I mean everything. Write detailed long paragraphs about what you can see, hear, smell, touch and most importantly feel in your dream life. In an ideal world you would then start every single day by reading about this dream life and visualizing it, adding to it whenever you want.
Starting every day like this will allow you to imprint a feeling of rock solid confidence onto your subconscious mind based on the fact you will intuitively know what actions to take to make progress in this new life direction.
3. Deliberately Stop Caring about the Opinions of Other People
If you really want to develop Rock Solid self-confidence you are going to have to realize that the only person you are trying to impress is yourself! True confidence comes from setting your own expectations and then doing everything in your power to live up to them. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by attempting to match the expectations of other people. I am not suggesting that you don’t get involved in healthy competition with other people in certain situations as that can be a great motivator. However, if, for example you are a runner and you record a personal best time but still come third, you should experience an increase in confidence not become disappointed as a result of comparisons.
In everyday life be proud of who you are and what you are doing. If you want to quit your job, start a business and pursue a dream, do it. Regardless of what anyone else might ‘think’.
I am sure that this list could have been 15 items long but I wanted to give you the 3 top ideas that if acted upon every single day will result in rock solid self-confidence. I challenge you to step out of your comfort zone right now and go and improve your confidence.
Jermaine Harris
Jermaine Harris is an Online Life Coach, Author & Speaker. He is passionate about empowering others to change their lives in the same way he did. Check out his blog at http://jermaine-harris.com/blog