Confidence is defined as full trust, belief in the powers, trustworthiness, reliability or certainty. Self-confidence would then mean that you have full trust in yourself or a belief in your abilities.
For some people, self-confidence is a given; it was fostered and nurtured. Self-confidence is not something you’re born with simply because we don’t have a self to begin with. It develops as we grow and evolve.
So if you don’t have self-confidence or if you want to have more self-confidence, there’s hope! It just has to be fostered and nurtured.
Here are several, real and effective ways of fostering and nurturing your self-confidence:
1) Practice a Self-Confident Body Language
What do people see when they look at you? What do they feel? For example, having a slouchy posture tells people a number of possible things: you’re tired, you’ve given up, you don’t feel very self-assured, you don’t think much of yourself, etc. Having a confident posture looks and feels completely different. Having a particular posture and being aware of it are two different things. If you have a slouchy posture and you don’t feel it, what kinds of signals are you sending other people? What are you saying with your body that you don’t want to? And how can you tell others with your body language that you feel self-confident?
First you must be able to feel your body language. You can learn to do this through becoming aware of your breathing, how you hold your body in space; even the pain and tension you feel is part of feeling your body language. This is why Neuro-Structural Care is so powerful. It helps you be more self-aware and it helps you to change your posture to a more natural, confident body language.
It’s a process of feeling your body language and then adjusting it to what you want. And if you feel tension or pain when you straighten up or bring your shoulders back, stretch, breathe and work out the kinks.
2) Feng Shui your surroundings
Structure is an integral part of our lives. We’re surrounded by it and bound by it. How organized your space is around you and how well you can make sense of it all affects how confident you feel. Take some time and organize your living space and your work space. This is also something that Neuro-Structural Care can help with. Your body is a structure; the more you can make sense of it, the more confident you will feel.
3) Listen to inspiring music
Goethe once said that “We are music frozen in time and space”. Music makes us feel; it can bring us to tears; it can uplift us; it can energize us and it can relax us. These days there’s ample opportunity to listen to music while you’re on the go or at home. Get yourself a playlist of music that will inspire you or relax or help you feel more self-confident and powerful.
4) Expect to fail
Often when we are attempting something new or we have a goal in mind, we can run into roadblocks. Our mindset is so important in these times. Dave Urichuck says “Fail stands for First Attempt In Learning”. Our expectations can get us into troubled waters when we don’t achieve what we were expecting or hoping for. This can chip away at our self-confidence. What if, in our plans for success, we included the possibility that we will hit roadblocks, that we will fail sometimes, and that these times are for us to learn something about ourselves or our strategy, that we can then apply to our next attempt?
5) Break a sweat – Heart pumping action helps you feel vitality!
Getting your life force energy moving can be very stimulating not only because you’re moving your blood, but also hormones are getting secreted, genes are getting turned on and your intellect takes a rest for a while. This stimulation will get your energy up and running, helping you feel like you can take on the world!
6) Expand your comfort zone
The comfort zone (control zone) keeps us from experiencing and feeling MORE. When we encounter something that seems insurmountable or extremely challenging, we lose perspective and we lose self-confidence. Stretching our comfort zone helps us be more resilient and feel more capable. To stretch your comfort zone, do something everyday that scares you. It could be saying hello to a stranger on the street; it could be having a challenging conversation with your partner or co-worker. It could also be changing how you think about something.
7) Let your inner self out
We have an unlimited supply of energy and self-confidence at our finger tips. Sometimes we just need to get out of our own way. Are you able to see how you stifle yourself? What can stifle us oftentimes is our beliefs, those conscious and unconscious bits of programming that we have learned to feel are real. Optimized Neuro-Structural Care is designed to help you reprogram your beliefs and their physical anchors in your body so that you can fully express your inner self without holding back. Self-confidence through freedom of expression is available to you. We just have to get out of our own way.