Urgh! Fake it till you make it can actually be terrible advice. After all, it's just adding extra pressure in a situation where you already feel worried and out of place. Happily, you don't have to fake anything because there are some actions you can take that will instantly boost your confidence, for real. Read on to find out what they are.
Smile
The thing about smiling is that it actually releases chemicals in the body that boost our mood. Of course, an increased mood means we will be happier in whatever situation we find ourselves in. While happier and more relaxed, people are nearly always more naturally confident than those that are unhappy and stressed out.
Unfortunately, some of us can have an additional barrier that stops us from smiling whenever we'd like. Of course, it's when we have issues with our teeth and are ashamed of our smiles!
The good news is that if you find yourself in such a predicament, there is something you can do about this. It is to get your teeth fixed so you can smile as much as you want. A task that may include getting braces to straighten a crooked smile, or even having implants, which function like natural teeth, to replace any that need to be removed. You may even wish to have a teeth whitening treatment too. Something that can really give you the brightest whites smile that is bound to boost your confidence from the moment the procedure is complete.
Walk in the room like your favorite star
We all know that the way we hold ourselves and give off body language signals as we enter a room and meet people for the first time can affect how confident we feel. However, when we aren't feeling great, or get a little nervous, it's easy to tense up and start a cascade of behaviors that can lead to a severe drop in confidence. Such as hunched shoulders, looking at the floor, and even fidgeting with our clothing.
Happily, there is a way to prevent engaging in these types of behaviors, even when they are unconscious. It is to imagine how your favorite movie or music star would hold themselves and emulate them. Something you can find out about by watching a video of them at an awards ceremony, or even one of their music videos if they are a recording artist. Just study how they hold themselves, pose, and walk. Yes, at first, it may seem a little like faking it, but I can tell you that the confidence boost you feel is totally real, and this, in turn, will affect how you act and the way others interact with you.
Remember a compliment
It is very easy to get lost in a swamp of negative thoughts, especially when we are under stress or tired. Unfortunately, if you get swallowed up and start believing these thoughts at a time when you need to show confidence, it can seriously affect how you act.
The good news is that there are some strategies you can use if a case of negative thinking strikes. The first is to remind yourself that just because you are thinking those thoughts, it doesn't make them true. After all, our brains are not truth creating machines, but though creating machines, and that means we do not need to take everything that passes through our mind as gospel.
In fact, some meditations and mindfulness practices are designed to help strengthen this belief. Tools that can be very beneficial to use until the habit of not believing everything we think is established.
Additionally, taking some action to counter negative thoughts can help a great deal. One partially effective way of doing this is to recall compliments that you have received consciously. In fact, if you like, you can write these down and place them in your purse or wallet. Something that means they are easy to access and read when you feel a tirade of negativity coming on.
Also, just remembering that there are plenty of positive things about your personality, and appearance can be enough to loosen that self-criticism and boost your confidence.
List your achievements
In a similar fashion to remembering compliments, do not forget that you have plenty of achievements under your belt! In fact, it can be all too easy to only the problem or hurdle that is directly in front of us. Something that can have us questioning our abilities to persevere and succeed.
However, if you meet each new challenge, standing firm on the foundations of your other successes, you will be going in at an advantage. A situation that will build your confidence and can also make succeeding in your current task a lot easier as well.
Take a "so what" attitude
Finally, if all else fails, it can be constructive to take more of a so-what attitude. What does this mean? Well, it's all about pulling your focus from what you believe others are thinking about you. Instead, you focus your attention on the actual tasks that are in front of you. Whether that is holding a conversation, dancing at a function, or even asking for help.
In fact, the so-what attitude is about using our anxiety to our advantage and allowing thoughts about what could go wrong to come in. Then instead of letting them stop us from what we have to do, we say ‘so what’ I’ll deal with it if it happens and then carry on anyway. A tactic that can help you have the courage to do what needs to be done, even if your confidence isn't as high as you’d like it to be.
In fact, the great thing about the 'so what' method is that you can use it to train your brain over time. This works because you are not placing as much importance on the worrisome and catastrophic thoughts that can negatively impact your confidence. Something that means the more you use this either on its own or in connection with the other tactics, the more your confidence will grow.
*contributed post*
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