Following a fashion trend occasionally refreshes your appearance and keeps you looking attractive in an updated style. Regardless of what change you make, a new style can boost your confidence. When you look good, you feel good and more ready to take on the world!

Consider these easy ways to boost your Self-Confidence by periodically making some changes with your style:

1. Get a new hairstyle or cut. Nothing rejuvenates your style and boosts your confidence like a totally different look with your hair.

• If you normally wear your hair long and straight, consider a short, curly style.
• On a related note, you might even consider making a switch in hair color.

2. Wearing clothing in the season’s most popular colors and prints. When you bring your look up to the present, it’s refreshing and serves to give your self-confidence a real lift.

• A new shirt or blouse in the season’s most comfortable fabric can give you that up-to-date look.
• Although it’s best to avoid buying an entire wardrobe every season, purchasing one or two carefully selected clothing items in the newest colors and prints can freshen up your appearance.

3. Accessorize to establish your style. Accessories tend to be less pricey than clothing, yet make a powerful statement in terms of your appearance. Be bold in your accessories and you’ll feel bolder as well.

• With a scarf in a trendy color, a necklace in the newest style, or earrings that glisten brand-new, your attitude and self-esteem will rise when you add these small updates to your overall style.
• For men, consider classic cufflinks and ties in the latest prints and colors to express your fashion sense with accessories.
• With accessories, you can take a basic wardrobe and bring some real character to it to show off your sparkling personality.

4. Take care of your complexion. Regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman, you stand to benefit greatly by taking care of your face and skin.

• Because your face is so integral to your appearance, your facial tone expresses one facet of your overall style.
• Consider getting a facial every 3 months to revive your face, tone up your complexion and refresh your overall style.
• In turn, you’ll experience a real increase in feeling good about yourself.

5. Polished shoes and ironed clothing are the best style accessories of all. Something as simple as polishing your shoes will bring a spring to your step. Taking a few extra minutes to iron your clothing brings crispness to your style that adds to your feelings of confidence.

• Details like this can earn you the accolades of being a “sharp-dressed” man or woman. Others take notice in a positive way and you earn respect simply with your sharp appearance.

Making some simple style changes in your appearance will rejuvenate your overall look. When your style is updated, you feel revived. Bring your look alive this season by trying some of these easy style updates. You’ll look better and your confidence will bloom.

photo credit: SweetOnVeg

How to Get a Better Self Confidence

When you believe in yourself and you’re sure that you’ll succeed at something, you have self-confidence. Throughout life, your level of self-confidence might fluctuate when you’re faced with challenging situations. However, you have the power to build your self-confidence.

Although parents can encourage young children to believe in themselves, as an adult, only you hold the keys to strengthening your own confidence.

If you find that you’re feeling less self-assured than you’d like, you can step up and take action to shore yourself back up. Review the following strategies to find inspiration.

Take personal responsibility to build your self-confidence using these methods:

1. Select a mentor. If you want to believe in yourself, seek someone who you think exhibits great self-confidence. Consider this person to be your model of self-confidence. When selecting a mentor, ask yourself:

* Does he stand straight and strong?

* Is he relaxed and open to others?

* In addition to these traits, maybe he has a good sense of humor and looks people straight in the eye when he speaks to them. Or perhaps he models other characteristics you admire. Having someone to emulate is incredibly inspiring. Modeling after your mentor enhances your self-confidence.

2. Identify what you’re doing right in your life. Sure, you know your shortcomings, but what about all those things you do well? Everyone excels at some tasks or activities. Seek out what those things are for you.

* Make a list of what you believe you’re good at.

* Consider this: no one in the world has the same unique qualities and strengths that you do in the way that you do.

* What are you doing right? If you know the answer to this, your self-confidence will bloom.

3. Pretend you’re self-confident. You can most likely identify times and situations in your history when you didn’t feel particularly positive. Think about how you handled some of them.

* On your good days, you put your chin up and plowed forward into the situation at hand. You pretended you believed you could do it. And chances are, you did!

* Going forward, on the days you feel the least self-confident, think of your mentor and pretend that you’re confident like he or she is.

* Believe in yourself. Have faith that you’ll make it through.

4. Make a list of your strong points. What character traits do you have to offer that are of great benefit to you or others?

* Are you patient, kind or caring? Identify personality characteristics that you’re proud of. Ponder your strong points. Knowing yourself will enhance your self-confidence.

5. In your daily life, notice when you do something well. Perhaps you just cleaned up your car and it looks awesome. Maybe you completed a report and it’s the best you’ve ever written.

* Recognize each day the times when you excel. Perhaps you helped your child through a difficult time or you made a great chocolate cake.

* Little efforts add up to build your self-confidence.

6. Celebrate your progress. Take notice of your good fortune.

* When you’ve met or surpassed your goals, celebrate! Rejoice in your own successes. Congratulate yourself as you build the self-confidence you seek.

7. Choose optimism as a daily approach to everything. Strive to be positive in life’s journey.

* When you make the decision to find the best in whatever life brings you, your self-confidence will soar.

Strengthening your self-confidence is within your reach. Choosing a mentor, knowing your strong points, and celebrating the attainment of your goals are just a few of strategies that build your self-confidence. Promise yourself today that you’ll strive to strengthen your belief in yourself. You have a legitimate right to live your life with great self-esteem.

photo credit: SweetOnVeg

A can-do attitude and a healthy dose of self-confidence is all you need to succeed. You, too, can be one of those go-getters who achieve great things.

A little positive reinforcement can go a long way in boosting your self-assurance. Self-talk that supports your goals will have a greater impact on boosting your overall self image than the opinions of others.

You are the Master of your Fate

Do you feel that your life is lacking in some area? If you’re experiencing challenges romantically, professionally, or in any other area of life, know that you are the key to changing it. Instead of placing blame on yourself and feeling defeated, realize that you are your greatest chance to effect change that leads to success in any aspect of your life.

You Can Do It

Are you plagued with self-doubt? Do you feel like you’re not up to the challenges that life throws your way? In reality, your spirit is capable of achieving greatness when you exercise your willpower and back it up with positive, encouraging reinforcement. If you believe that you can succeed, and put in the effort, you will succeed.

One of the problems with doubt in your own abilities is that it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. You think you’re going to fail and so your mind sets out to reinforce that idea. Your thoughts lead to actions that produce detrimental results.

But this can work the other way, too. By telling yourself that you can succeed, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy that supports your success.

Positive Reinforcement is Optimistic

When you believe that you can succeed, you’ll feel more confident to take the steps that are required to overcome the challenges you face. With positive reinforcement, even failures become opportunities to learn and grow.

You can replace the voice in your head that causes you fear with one that pushes you forward by focusing on the good within yourself.

Convince yourself that you’re capable of greatness by replacing negative thoughts with more productive self-talk. Then, when you do achieve your goal or overcome that challenge, you’ll have an additional dose of confidence that will spur you on to greater success.

Cue the Music!

For big challenges, support yourself as much as possible. In addition to speaking words of encouragement to yourself, consider playing some music to pump you up. Whether it’s the theme to Rocky or Europe’s The Final Countdown, music can boost your self-belief and ease your worries.

If you don’t have an MP3 or CD player handy, hum your favorite songs while you prepare. Inspirational tunes can make you feel like you can take on any challenge.

Your mind plays a large part determining the level of success you experience. Tell yourself that you can do it. Positive self-talk will increase your confidence in your own abilities. When you add the drive and willpower, you can achieve anything you want in life!

]]> http://beingpositive.net/686/how-to-boost-your-self-confidence-with-positive-self-talk/feed/ 0 http://beingpositive.net/659/self-confidence-boost/ http://beingpositive.net/659/self-confidence-boost/#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 00:21:05 +0000 Franck Pasquet http://beingpositive.net/?p=659 Are you suffering from low self-esteem? Do you feel powerless to change yourself into the confident person you deserve to be?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, the good news is that strengthening your self-confidence is a task you really can accomplish with a little know-how and some easy strategies to show you the way. As you’ll soon find out, some of these strategies are even fun!

Although your metamorphosis may not happen overnight, if you apply these strategies consistently, you’ll be able to build up your self-confidence a little more each day. Make it a point to implement at least one confidence-boosting technique every day.

Soon, these techniques will become habits, and your spirits will soar as your self-confidence rises to new heights.

Use these effective strategies to give your self-confidence a boost:

1. Have realistic expectations. Even though it’s important to aim high in life, if your expectations are totally unrealistic, you’ll never know what it feels like to reach your goals. However, when you routinely succeed with realistic goals, it brings you great confidence.

* Tweak your expectations until you find a sweet spot where you’re still pushing yourself, but you’re also able to achieve. Once you know what it feels like to accomplish your goals, you’ll feel more confident that you can achieve whatever you set out to do.

2. Surround yourself with positive people. They have a contagious, positive energy that lifts you up and encourages you, while negative people tend to bring you down and destroy your confidence. Build up your confidence by hanging around with positive people who make you feel good!

3. Develop your skills and talents. Perhaps your self-confidence suffers because you feel unsure about your abilities. Everyone, including you, has certain skills and talents that showcase the things they do well. Keep developing these talents and you’ll find that your self-confidence will grow as you excel in these areas.

4. Stick up for yourself. When others speak out against you, remember that those words are simply their opinion. Your opinion is just as important. When you do what you know is right for you, feel confident that you’ve made the right decision, regardless of how others may feel.

5. Exercise or engage in physical games. Physical activities and exercise can calm you down and provide many benefits to your mind and body. When you engage in regular exercise, you feel more upbeat, which in turn makes you feel better about yourself as well.

6. Reward yourself when you achieve. When you’ve accomplished something in your life, whether big or small, it’s important to pause and reward yourself. If you go out of your way to make yourself happy, you’ll feed your drive to persevere and succeed.

7. Use positive affirmations. Positive affirmations are a great way to boost self-confidence. They allow you to communicate with your subconscious mind, strengthening your confidence one thought at a time. Check out your local bookstore or online for some effective confidence-building affirmations.

8. Avoid dwelling on the past. If you keep your past self-confidence issues in mind, it will be more difficult for you to get over them. Your past certainly doesn’t have to be your future. Focus on the present moment, with pleasant thoughts about your future. Picture everything going well.

You’ll soon find that there are endless ways to boost your self-confidence. And remember: If there’s something you want to pursue in life, go after it with all your heart and feel confident that success will be yours!

You may have gone through some rough times in your life making it difficult to be the happy person you want to be. Maybe you even suffer from a lack of self-confidence because of past conflicts and pains. No matter what you’ve been through, you can choose to overcome these obstacles.

It’s time to be your own Number 1 fan and there’s no better time to start than right now!

1. 1. Gain more confidence in yourself by facing your fears.

• Fear of failure may have caused you to ignore your dreams, desires or goals. Don’t let fear stop you from getting what you want and achieving your goals. If Thomas Edison had been afraid of failure, we wouldn’t have the luxury of indoor lighting today. He never gave up trying to find the right way to make a light bulb and he experienced over 10,000 ways of how not to make a light bulb. Just because you don’t reach your goals or dreams the first time, don’t give up. Keep trying until you succeed.

• Fear of being alone may stop you from going away to school or moving to a new city where you can pursue your dreams. Realize that you will make new friends and that you’re current friends will always be there. Now with the Internet, staying in touch with your friends and family is easier and more convenient than ever.

• Once you begin facing your fears, you’ll discover that what you feared may not be such a big deal after all. But, you’ll never know until you start.

1. 2. Self-talk can also determine whether you believe in yourself or not.

• Do you often say negative things like, “I’m an idiot,” or “That was a dumb thing to do,” or “I’m ugly?” How you perceive yourself comes out in what you say. However, what you say to yourself can also change how you see yourself.

• Start speaking positively to yourself, about yourself. When you’re getting ready for the day, while looking in the mirror, point out positive characteristics about yourself and say them out loud. Phrases such as:
  • “I am an attractive person.”
  • “I am a good parent.”
  • “I am a hard worker.”
  • “I love myself.”
  • “I like how I look in these clothes.”
  • “I am brilliant.”
  • Even if you don’t believe it, say it! You’ll soon realize these things really are true. You can also post positive quotes or scriptures where you would see them several times a day to keep your spirits high.

1. 3. Insecurity can be a source of disbelief. Learning to be more secure in certain areas of your life will help you believe in yourself more, plus others will begin to believe in you as well.

1. 4. There may be certain areas in your life that you feel you need to work on, so work on them!

• Are you bad at financial management? Take a class to help you learn how to budget so you can be in control of your money, instead of your money controlling you.

• Are you a slow reader? Take a speed-reading class or get a tutor to help you build speed.
• Do you find it challenging to speak in public? Take a public speaking course or become an intern for an organization where you must speak in public.

• Is your weight stopping you from believing yourself? First of all, remember that today’s society has a skewed view of beauty. Don’t allow the media to determine your worth! However, if your weight is at an unhealthy level, learn how to eat healthy and get regular exercise to take some weight off.

No matter what’s stopping you from believing in yourself, there’s a way to overcome it. You’ll first need to figure out what’s causing your self-doubt. Is it fear, insecurity, mental attitudes, or something else? Only then can you face the obstacle and overcome it.