Finding the key to your confidence can change your life.
For example, not only will this enhance your self-esteem, but being more confident can:
- Push you to succeed in your professional life by maximizing your chances of getting your dream job.
- Allow you to pursue meaningful relationships with those around you.
- Reduce the chances of you dealing with stress and anxiety.
- Encourage you to take risks and try something new.
If your confidence has been lacking lately, try not to worry. It’s natural for our confidence levels to change as we get older or enter different stages in our lives. Furthermore, there are plenty of confidence boosters that you can use to restore your confidence.
However, it’s also important that you’re able to pinpoint what exactly is causing your confidence to dwindle. This will help you to remove these triggers or give you some insight into how you can respond to them in a healthier way.
With that in mind, here are six things that may be hurting your confidence without you even noticing!
Your smile.
Smiling more often is actually a great way to naturally boost your confidence, as smiling (even if we may not feel like smiling) triggers the release of certain mood-boosting endorphins within our body. However, various studies have found that the appearance of our teeth affects our confidence – meaning that you may avoid smiling altogether in order to hide your teeth from others.
While this may be a subconscious act, learning to love your smile again can make you feel more confident, both generally and regarding your appearance. Thankfully, this can be remedied by simply working to improve your dental health, whether you book a routine payment or cosmetic procedure.
While you may be worried about the costs of dental treatment, there are plenty of ways in which you can reduce your costs, especially if you work with a provider you can trust. For example, companies such as Spirit Dental keep everything from checkups to chipped tooth repair cost as budget-friendly as possible.
Being a people-pleaser.
Being a people-pleaser may not immediately seem like a negative trait – after all, it means you’re working to make other people feel happy as much as possible. However, “constantly devoting yourself to meeting the needs of others can cause you to neglect your own. You may find yourself getting sick or mentally burned out from the pressure of trying to please everyone.”
As a result, the more you neglect your own needs in order to put others first, the more your confidence will be impacted. While it can be hard to withdraw from being a people-pleaser, making a consistent effort to put yourself first will bring forth a range of positive results. For example, do not feel like you have to agree to plans if you’d rather stay at home. You’re allowed to say no.
Your sleeping habits.
Believe it or not, your sleeping habits (or sleeping problems) can also impact your confidence, namely due to the way in which they can impact your mental health. For example, if you have trouble falling asleep, then you may be more prone to stress, anxiety, and other struggles, each of which will impact your confidence.
As a result, it’s important that you find a way to take control of your sleeping pattern again. Trying to put together an evening routine may be a great place to start because it means that you fall into a consistent pattern of behavior. The more consistent you are with this, the more ‘tired’ you will be when your bedtime comes around, which could make it easier for you to drift off.
Communication skills.
While you may have no plans to become a keynote speaker or presenter, our ability to communicate with those around us once again impacts our confidence levels. Once again, this often factors into the way in which we’re able to express boundaries or connect with others.
As a result, it’s important that you work on your communication skills when trying to boost your confidence. For example, focus on making sustained eye contact with others. Not only is this a great way to show that you are engaged in the conversation, but studies have also shown that “eye contact evokes positive feelings of trust and a deeper connection,” which helps you form stronger relationships with those around you.
Your mindset.
While our confidence levels fluctuate in response to a range of external factors, it’s important that you do not forget that you may also be your own worst enemy when it comes to feeling more confident.
According to a recent study, “we produce up to 50,000 thoughts a day and 70% to 80% of those are negative.” When we direct the bulk of this negativity inwardly, our self-esteem is sure to suffer as a result. Simply out, the way in which you think about yourself matters, and it’s time to turn your thoughts into something more positive.
One way in which you can ‘train’ your brain to become more inherently positive is by questioning negative thoughts when they arise. For example, whenever you catch yourself criticising your appearance – ask yourself why you feel that way? This could help you work through your feelings, and will also make you realize when you are being too harsh on yourself.
You can also achieve this goal by practicing positive affirmations – trying to repeat positive things about yourself out loud. The more often you do this, the easier it will be to believe what you are saying.
Social Media.
We often talk about the pros and cons of social media usage for teenagers and young children without thinking about the way in which our screen time can also impact our own confidence. For all its benefits, confidence is a fragile thing – and anything that allows self-doubt to flourish in your mind, such as comparing yourself to the images you see on Instagram, your confidence is sure to suffer.
As a result, taking a social media break (or detox) could be key to bettering your mental health and confidence simultaneously. However, it’s also important to remember that social media is not ‘real’ – you can edit photographs in a matter of seconds, and we only post pictures/videos when we look our best. So, don’t try to compare your reality to a fabricated one.
Conclusion.
Unfortunately, there are many different things that you may be surprised to hear hurt your confidence – many of which are not even included in this list. However, being aware of possible triggers is a great way to protect yourself moving forward. After all, when you understand why your confidence is a little low, you’ll better understand the steps you have to follow to build it back up again or in order to ensure the situation does not get repeated.
This also enables you to uncover new ways in which you can build up your confidence, whether that be spending time with people who uplift you, exercising or even indulging in a hobby.
Regardless, it’s important to remember that confidence is a concept in which the phrase “fake it until you make it” is genuinely applicable. The more you big yourself up or start acting outwardly confident, the more naturally confident you will feel.
It’s also okay to have those down days when you do not feel quite like yourself, so long as you pick yourself up the next day and get out there again. Remember, it’s not about how many times you fall down, it’s about how many times you get back up again.