10 Simple Tips to Live a Confident Life

Are you a confident woman? What is confidence? How can you boost your confidence level? Those are the questions we will answer in this post.

What is confidence?

Let’s begin by defining the word ‘confidence‘. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, confidence is a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances. In other words, confidence is the trust you have in yourself and in your ability to respond to different circumstances.

For instance, you need to trust yourself that you are the best mother your children can have. Are you confident of this? Do you repeat this to yourself often? Let me tell you, you should!

What is the difference between confidence and self-esteem?

For the purpose of this post, it’s important to understand the difference between confidence and self-esteem.

The terms ‘confidence’ and ‘self-esteem, do not always go hand in hand. Confidence, as we just defined, is based on the trust you have in yourself and your abilities to do something, while self-esteem is based on how you see yourself. Self-esteem is the value you place on your self.

Can you be confident and have low self-esteem? Yes! Take a look at the famous celebrities who have great confidence on stage, but then take their own lives or overdose on drugs.

When you understand these two terms, you will know that these are two different areas of self-development that you must study and possibly improve.

What is the picture you paint in your head when you think of a confident woman?

Before, I believed that a confident woman had (in a few words) her life together. She was the best mom, wife, employee, etc. She followed a healthy diet… in other words, she was the perfect woman. And using that perfect woman as my standard, who was I to feel confident or good enough? As a result, I had no confidence and low self-esteem.

Many times, my husband would highlight all the ‘good’ things he saw in me, and I wouldn’t believe them. I had too many things to fix in my life to believe that.

What changed? I began to do some self-reflection. I would spend a lot of time before going to sleep at night thinking about what I liked about myself and what I didn’t like about myself. I stopped competing with everyone else and began to focus on self-development.

Now, self-development is a life-long journey and you cannot compare your progress to someone else’s who might be further along in theirs.

You can begin your journey to a more confident you, using these 10 tips below.

10 Effective Ways to Boost your Confidence

Have a Routine

To have confidence you need to feel like you have (to a certain extent) control over your life. To have control, you need to be self-disciplined. This is not an easy task, but you must learn how to practice it every day.

Begin with the little things. For instance, make your bed every morning. This will immediately make you feel accomplished! Once you have that routine down, add more to it.

What are other things you need to control better? Maybe it’s your appetite…

Beware of your shortcomings

Recently, I have been thinking about my shortcomings. I have a 7 year-old daughter who brings out some of my worst insecurities. She doesn’t do that on purpose, of course, but most of the time it catches me by surprise. It immediately makes me feel less confident.

By knowing your shortcomings/insecurities, you can be ready to react when someone wants to point them out. They won’t make you feel bad about yourself, because you know what those insecurities are and you are working toward fixing them.

On that same note, keep your strengths in mind

Everyone has strengths. If you don’t know what your strengths are, it’s time to do some research. Ask your partner, kids, family, friends what are some strengths they see in you. I am sure they will have some. As part of that research, do some self-reflecting. Think about everything you do in the day and write down the things you did well. Maybe one of your strengths is problem solving (ex. your kids were arguing and you found the happy medium and they stopped).

Having these in mind will help you feel capable of handling the situations you face. This will boost your confidence.

Ask for help

You may feel like super woman most of the time, but there will come times when you will need a break, when you feel like your world is falling apart, where it seems like the fate of your family is in your hands. And you need to understand that that is okay. You are human and you face challenges that you are not sure how you will overcome.

During those times, ask for help. You might find that others go through similar situations as you. There is no shame in accepting that you are tired and overwhelmed. Ask for help. Depending on what type of relationship you have with them, you can ask your family for help. Maybe you have a close friend that can be of help. If you don’t have neither, you can go to a trained therapist and book a counseling session.

DO NOT hold all those negative feelings in because they will eventually come out and not in the way that you would want them to.

Be organized

There are many posts like this one, where the importance of an organized home is explained. I’ll give you a short overview. Let’s say you don’t work from home and you spend most of your day outside of your home. You have your stress at work and you come home thinking you will be able to relax. At that point, stop and think: Does you home provide that relaxing environment that you need? If not, how do you think a messy house will impact the rest of your day?

Can you feel like a boss when your house is not under control? The answer, is most certainly, not.

Now, I am speaking to myself on this one. With very random schedules and two kids under 8, it’s difficult to find an organization routine to follow. This is one of my shortcomings, and I am working toward fixing that!

Take time for self care

Because there will be days when you feel like you just can’t anymore, you need to step back and take some time for self care.

Absolutely nothing is more important than your mental health. Why am I so sure about this? Because if you are not well, emotionally/mentally, no one else around you will be either. Ideally, you’d want a full day off, shopping, spa day, etc. But don’t wait for the perfect time or for the perfect budget, to take time for you.

To be a confident woman, you need to learn how to appreciate the little things.

Read/learn something new

Knowledge is power. The more you know, the more places you’ll go. You get the point, right?! Another way to help you feel more confident is to find topics you are interested in and learn a little more about that.

On her post Reading for Pleasure Boosts Self Esteem, Sara Shaffi says: The research found that people who read for 30 minutes a week are 20% more likely to report greater life satisfaction than those who do not, while readers are 21% less likely to report feelings of depression and are 10% more likely to report good self-esteem than non-readers.

When you think of a confident woman, do you see her as a lady who enjoys a good read? I know I do.

There are so many genres to choose from. Some of my personal favorites include: self-help, novels (The Nightingale is at the top of my list!), biographies, etc.

After you finish reading this post, do a google search and find your next read.

Practice affirmation phrases

I place affirmation phrases on a coin. There are two sides. On one side, they seem to help you wake up and realize how human you are and how amazing you are; on the other side, they can make you feel self-sufficient if you don’t use them correctly.

On the opposite side of being self-conscious is being self-sufficient. The dangers of this include thinking that you are perfect just the way you are and therefore, there is no need for self-improvement.

Now that we discussed that danger, let’s get back to how affirmation phrases can help you. On this blog post, you can find affirmation examples like:

• I am aware of my gift to the world and share it freely.
• I am compassionate with others and myself.
• I am a positive being, aware of my potential.
• There are no blocks I cannot overcome.
• I love to meet other people and make new friends.
• I am my best source of motivation.

You will spend all of your life with your self, so treat yourself nicely. In other words, don’t bully yourself.

Appreciate what you have

Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude. That is the keyword to being confident. How? You might ask. Well, allow me.

When you stop thinking about yourself (that includes: the way you think, the things you like, the way you look, the good and bad things you do, etc.), and begin thinking about the things that are given to you (that includes: family, food, health, job, etc.), then you will begin to see that you are so small compared to all the things you receive.

How can feeling small give you confidence? Well, it’s quite simple. It should be a breath of fresh air to understand that whatever you have going on in your life is very small compared to how big the universe is. If you are small, your problems are small. Again, I am just putting things in perspective. The kind of small I am talking about here is by no means meant to make you feel insignificant, but it should make your lack of self-confidence shrink.

Stop seeing yourself through other people’s eyes

How often do you catch yourself comparing yourself to others? Now, this can be done subconsciously. You may find yourself comparing your job, kids, house, eating habits, workout habits, to that of others. As contradictory as this may sound, it’s okay to feel this way. The fact that you compare yourself to others means that there is something in your life that you are not too confident about. That makes this one of your shortcomings. And again, the good thing about shortcomings is that they give you room for improvement. You can do something about them!

Homework: write down those things you don’t like about your life or your image. And think about what you can do to change or update them.

This may be tough to do, but remember that every problem has a solution.

Remember: You are your biggest competition. Every day, strive to be better than the day before.

I hope this list has served its designated purpose. You have always had it in you. You can be confident because you are unique, beautiful, and most importantly, you are YOU.

Sincerely,