Confidence is silent, insecurities are loud

Everyone is always saying BE MORE CONFIDENT and that DOUBT KILLS more dreams than failure ever will. I know that having confidence is important but I am also guilty of being filled with too much self-doubt.

So how do you gain self-confidence? 

How do you tell yourself that YOU CAN and how do you make yourself appear confident on the outside when deep inside you don't feel it?

I have done some research and have come up with the following list of ten ways to start building self-confidence. If you are full of self doubt, perhaps you could give these tips a try as well.

• The POWER pose - check out this TED talk by Amy Cuddy who explains that body language affects how other people see us but may also change how we see ourselves.
• Affirmations - Louise Hay believes that our beliefs and ideas about ourselves are often the cause of our emotional problems but by using by using certain tools, like daily affirmations, we can change our thinking and our lives for the better. 
• Positive thinking - I own a book called The Complete Pocket Positives. It is filled with inspirational quotations that helps me to make a conscious effort to get rid of emotional lows.

The Power Pose

• Goal setting - Mind Tools explains that setting goals not only helps you to determine where you want to go in life but also proves your competence. Setting small goals, achieving them and celebrating them builds self-confidence.
• Recognise achievements - Lifehack does not consider recognising and celebrating your successes as egotistical but rather an important step in building self-confidence.
• Scare yourself everyday - Eleanor Roosevelt once said that you should do one thing everyday that scares you. Caroline McGraw in a post on Tiny Buddha builds on this quote by explaining that most people spend their whole life waiting to live when in fact, we should take more chances and choose to let go of fear. 

Is your confidence lacking?

• Search inside yourself - Chade-Meng Tan aka Google's Jolly Good Fellow writes about how to calm your mind on demand and return it to a natural state of happiness and deepen self-awareness in a way that fosters self-confidence. 
• Be prepared - Zen Habits Blogger, Leo Babauta believes that in order to be confident in what you are doing, you need to prepare yourself to do well. Whether that be studying for an exam, preparing for a public speech, researching travel tips for your next holiday or writing out a grocery list before you go to the shops. The more prepared you are, the more confident you will be that things will go to plan. 
• Stop being a YES person - always putting other peoples needs before your own can detrimentally affect your physical, mental and social well-being. Addicted 2 Success claim that knowing your priorities and avoiding saying yes just to please people, gives you back the precious time required to grow yourself and your own interests.
• Be a Navy Seal - Navy Seals use mental conditioning to overcome fear by exposing themselves frequently to something they fear. The more they do it, the less they fear it and eventually they become immune to it. They use these four techniques to help conquer that initial fear:
  1. Goal Setting 2. Mental Rehearsal 3. Self Talk and 4. Arousal Control. 

So when someone next says to me to BE MORE CONFIDENT I will refer to these steps and practice removing self-doubt. However this list is not exhaustive and I would really love is to find out how others build self-confidence and remove self-doubt. 

Please share your tips below in the comments and help build more confidence!