Tips to give your self-confidence a permanent boost - I

Get to know yourself

When going into battle, a wise general would learn all he can about his enemy. You cannot defeat the enemy without knowing him. Now in this case the enemy is you. Get to know yourself well. What are your likes and dislikes? You need to start listening to your thoughts. Start writing a journal about yourself and the thoughts you have about yourself. Start analyzing why you have such negative thoughts. Think about the good things about yourself, the things you can do well, the things you like and write them down. E.g. I can play violin, I love singing and I’ve got a great voice. I can fix things etc.

Think about your limitations. Are they real ones, or just ones you have allowed to be placed there? Dig deep within yourself and you will find out that most of your perceived limitations are quite petty and does not really matter after all everyone has got some limitations, and you will come out with even greater self-confidence.

Know your principles and live by them

Everyone has got to believe in something. What are the principles on which your life is built? If you don’t know, you will have trouble because your life will feel directionless. You may always feel unsure about what to do and you keep depending on people for a clue. You might become a 'people pleaser'- trying to live up to everyone’s expectation based on their conflicting standards; you end up losing your individuality. Think about your principles. You might have them but perhaps you haven’t given them much thought. Now think about if you actually live by these principles or if you just believe in them but don’t act on them. Choose as your role model people who have impacted positively in peoples’ lives. What did they do? How did they do it? Copy them.

Increase your knowledge and competence.

How do you feel more competent? That’s by becoming more competent. But how do you do that? By studying and practicing. Just do small bits at a time. If you want to be a more competent writer, don’t try to tackle the entire profession of writing all at ones. Just begin to write more such as articles, blogs, journals, and short stories, etc.

This also works well with any other skill you want to improve. Learn a skill and be good at it. Knowing you are competent in something is a sure way to boost your self-confidence. Empowering yourself, in general, is one of the best strategies for building self-confidence. You can do that in many ways, but one of the surest ways to empower yourself is through knowledge. This is along the same vein as building competence and getting prepared. By becoming more knowledgeable, you will be more confident. So do research and study. The internet is a great tool of course, but so are people around you, people who have done what you want, books magazines and educational institutions.