12 Proven Techniques to Build Self-Confidence

There are three approaches to building self-confidence:

1. Using your mind

2. Utilizing your body

3. Purging confidence saboteurs.

My research findings suggest that 96 percent of C-level executives want to be more confident in at least the most high-pressure situations they face. I have received similar responses with entrepreneurs, high-end sales professionals and world-class athletes. A healthy self-confidence – scientifically known as self-efficacy – helps you be your best under stress, and almost everyone wants more of it.

BUILD SELF-CONFIDENCE BY USING YOUR MIND

1. USE CONFIDENCE-BUILDING SELF-TALK

It’s easy to say and hard to do, but you can learn how to consciously control some, or most, of self-talk. Your mind is always listening and programming itself like a computer based on what it hears. To be confident, make sure your inner dialogue is programming more self-assurance.

To learn more, click here.

2. TALK TO YOURSELF IN THE SECOND PERSON

This is profound new research: You can increase your confidence and probability of success when performing under pressure by talking to yourself in the second person instead of the first.

First-person self-talk begins with “I.” Examples include, “I’m ready!” and “I can rock this!” Second-person self-talk begins with “you” or by stating your name. For example, “You’re ready!”, “You can rock this!” “You’re ready!” Learn more by watching the video or reading the full article here.

3. VISUALIZE

It might be surprising to learn you can consciously strengthen your confidence much like a muscle. In doing so, you stimulate and fire neurons, which makes the muscle contract. Each time these fibers contract against resistance, they multiply and grow, ergo your muscle gets stronger.

Similarly, every time you think of a situation you were confident in, you stimulate the neural network in your brain where your confident memories reside. Every time this confident neural network is stimulated, its neurons thicken and make more dendrite connections. Thus, they get stronger, and your confidence grows. You can learn this powerful confidence-building technique by clicking here.

4. DEVELOP ROUTINES

Virtually all Olympic and professional athletes use pre-event and pregame routines to help them be their best in competition. Kobe Bryant, MVP of the 2009-2010 NBA finals, followed the same routine before every free throw. Four-time Olympic medalist Lindsey Vonn, known as one of the greatest female American skiers in history, visualized the perfect run before each race. And in the starting gate, she always clicked her poles together the same way before starting. Why do Olympic and professional athletes work to perfect routines? Because it helps them perform better. Routines can do the same for you. To learn more about developing a routine that might benefit you, click here.

5. OPENLY GIVE + RECEIVE COMPLIMENTS

Strengthening and weakening confidence is complex, yet there’s one simple way to build it: Learn how to fully receive a compliment with an open heart. Hardly anyone in Western culture fully absorbs compliments. Deflecting runs deep in our culture and starts at a young age. For a touching story about my four-year-old daughter learning to open her heart and let compliments in, click here.

6. PREPARE WITH OBSESSIVE DETAIL

Warren Buffett’s and Peyton Manning’s secret success strategy is the same: They prepare obsessively. Peyton Manning is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, and Warren Buffet is one of the best stock investors the world has ever known. They both plan fanatically, and because they do, they notice details that others don’t, and they create more opportunities from these observations. To learn more, click here.

BUILD SELF-CONFIDENCE BY USING YOUR BODY

7. GET FIT

In addition to improved mood, happiness and self-esteem, one of the many benefits of exercise, backed by research, is a boost in assurance. For more, click here.

8. HIGH POWER BODY POSITIONING

Harvard professor Amy Cuddy’s groundbreaking book, “Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges,” provides research proving that certain body postures change the hormones that leave you feeling more or less powerful. To learn about the high-power body positions that create presence and confidence, click here.

PURGE SABOTEURS

9. LEARN THOUGHT REPLACEMENT TO REFRAME YOUR DESTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS

Uncontrolled negative thoughts not only hurt your confidence but your relationships, happiness and professional life. Learn to stop negative, destructive thoughts and build self-confidence with a simple four-step process. I’ve used this method for three decades; it’s powerful if you continuously apply it. To learn this technique, click here.

10. LET GO OF PERFECTION

Are high performers perfectionists? Often, yes. Perfectionism certainly helps you become good or great at what you do. However, perfection is unattainable. The downside is that type A people are often anxious or fearful, and that can lead to depression. It’s easy to feel like a failure because you can never achieve flawlessness. To learn more about the relationship between self-confidence and perfectionism, click here.

11. CHOOSE FRIENDS CAREFULY

Negativity is like a highly contagious virus – it’s hard not to catch it when you’re exposed. Choose to be around positive people who build you and others up. We are all influenced by those around us. Choose your friends carefully!

12. MASTER FEAR

Do fear failure, rejection or other qualms that limit your success, relationships and happiness? Most of us do. Irrational fear distorts perception. Imagine wearing red-tinted glasses – everything you see and perceive is red. It’s the same with fear. When you look through a lens of fear, everything you see and perceive is tainted with this emotion. To learn the six-step process, click here.