Self Confidence Exercises

As a gifted five year old, current F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton was an exceptionally talented kid at school. He was also the smallest kids in his school and was bullied and racially abused by his school mates. Not to take the circumstances as a victim, he dealt with it with extraordinary strength of character at that young age. He took lessons in martial arts and went on to become a black belt holder by the age of twelve. Later on he reported, “It was a horrible time but I told my dad I wanted to start karate so I could learn to protect myself. The bullying stopped and more importantly, I developed self confidence. Some people have naturally high levels of self confidence, while others can definitely develop it. Marcus Garve stated that, “If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.”  

 

Self confidence gives you that freedom to make mistakes and deal with failure without feeling guilty or hopeless about the situation. People who are uncertain about themselves lack in self confidence. This can have devastating effects in your life and result in lower self esteem. Your work might suffer; social life can become painful, meeting new people can become a struggle and can have terrifying experience facing stressful situations. In a nutshell you might be struggling to live a life of your own. But as you require physical exercises to keep your body healthy, your mind also requires exercises. This helps to develop self confidence and personality. 

 

 

Exercises For Building Self Confidence

• Self confidence gets affected when you think too much about your past failures and negative events. Instead, remind yourself of the past occasions that you have faced successfully and handled well. Think of the positive things that you have done right be it big or small. 

 

• At the end of each day, write down any experience in which you have received positive responses and compliments. If your boss appreciates you for your work, jot it down on paper; if your mother tells you that you are the best child write it down in your diary. 

 

• Challenge yourself and take risks. Face the situation that you have been avoiding for a long time. Pen down observations about your advancement. For instance, if you were contemplating a job change for a long time and not doing it for fear of interviews, make an effort to schedule one interview. 

 

• Meditate for at least 10 minutes a day and exercise for 30 minutes daily, reflect on your positive things. Remove self doubts from your mind, visualize and imagine yourself as effectively performing a task which you fear doing. For instance if you have stage fear, Imagine yourself as a victorious public speaker.
• Avoid writing anything negative about yourself. At least record one positive thing about yourself each day and acquire the habit of praising yourself.   

 

• When you start your day make positive statements about yourself. Repeat these positive statements several times in the day. You can say to yourself, ‘I am improving every day’ or ‘I deserve to be happy and successful’ or ‘I am confident in handling whatever comes up today’. 

 

• Gain knowledge and experience by reading current happenings, books, magazines and updating yourself with latest developments. Diversify your interest, travel to new places and gain experience, develop new skills, and perform your work efficiently. 

 

• Make changes to your physical environment. Rearrange and redecorate the furniture of the room. Paste quotes and pictures of successful people and keep reading them again and again. Read autobiographies of successful people.

 

• Keep your body language positive, look and feel confident. Always walk straight, with your shoulders straight, chin up and chest out. Have an authentic, warm and friendly smile on your face. A positive body language sends out positive signals. 

 

• List all the goals that you want to accomplish in life and then take one step at a time. Break these goals into smaller reachable goals. Concentrate on self improvement and self development. 

 

• Keep your cool and calm in every situation in life. Too much of emotional outburst can spoil the situation and make things difficult to handle. Hence take things in your stride and handle it smoothly. 

 

• Do not think or worry about what others think about you. Stop imagining and bothering about unreal things and situations and blaming yourself for being wrong so often. 

 

You can follow this confidence building exercise by writing these things. Fill in the blanks in the following sentences: 

• The best thing that I can do is …
• Something that I have accomplished is …
• One of my best character traits is…
• I am proud of myself for….
• I am working to improve…