Gaining Confidence and Independence
- Category: Mindfulness
- July 6, 2022
Having confidence means being able to walk through the world fearlessly and shamelessly while pursuing your greatest passions. When you’re confident, you are able to confide in yourself and be certain that your choices will provide the best outcome for whatever the situation may be.
As wonderful as this may sound, you probably know that confidence isn’t something that everyone can easily achieve. People who are born confident thrive in social settings, know how to leave positive impressions, and have high amounts of trust in their own decision-making skills. On the other hand, some individuals are lacking in this aspect, so much so that they have a negative view of themselves, and need a serious confidence makeover.
Whether you’ve got innate confidence or not, there are several tactics you can start practicing to help yourself become more confident and independent.
Trick Yourself Into Becoming Confident
Confidence may seem like a natural talent some people come to possess right from birth. Oddly enough, this actually seems to be the case for certain individuals as research has suggested that some people are genetically wired with confidence.
However, genetics isn’t the only determinate of all the traits you come to acquire in your lifetime. Through experiences and practices that can arise environmentally, physically, or emotionally, you can be constantly developing new traits. Confidence is something that everyone can obtain. This list will provide you with tips on how to activate learned confidence if it doesn’t come naturally.
Eliminate the Fear of Judgment
One main reason that people lack confidence is due to fear of social judgment. This fear of judgment can greatly hinder your ability to make choices and cause you to constantly seek out or falsely predict the opinions and reactions of others before deciding to do something.
Gathering advice from others can be great when you’re stuck on a challenge and need to hear a different point of view to direct you. However, dependency on others’ thoughts as a result of fearing what they may think isn’t healthy. To help with this, it may be a good idea to get to know yourself better to develop passions, opinions, and life philosophies that guide your choices.
You can begin this journey by engaging in self-care activities and things you like to do for leisure. Rather than only engaging in such activities during times of need, try to make this habitual in your life to gain the many benefits that come along with doing so, including the confidence that comes from knowing your own mind and heart.
Get Comfortable With Decision Making
A lot of confidence is about decision-making, which can be a tedious task but is a highly useful concept that helps drive your life in your desired direction. Receiving support from others in these tough situations can provide great insight into what you should do. However, at the end of the day, your decisions have to be yours and no one else’s.
Being able to think independently will promote growth and a life in which you will have a greater sense of achievement from making your own choices. To promote this self-reliance, think about the situation in great detail and develop the mindset that failure is okay. Having a journal or notebook to write down your thoughts is a helpful way to analyze the decision while being able to see where things could go wrong and form alternatives for when they do.
Utilize Therapy
Gaining confidence is something that can be challenging to achieve alone. Trying to obtain confidence means trying to adopt a new lifestyle you haven’t embodied until now. This may cause a change in other parts of yourself, your relationships, and your daily life.
Getting the help of a mental health professional can provide you with tools to gain confidence in all areas of your life. Working alongside a professional will further allow you to understand yourself so you can gain knowledge of where and how confidence and independence can be incorporated into your life.
Appreciate Being Independent
Being independent means the measures of control and influence you have lie in your hands. This can help you gain a sense of confidence in yourself and your decisions. Independence doesn’t mean that you can’t hear and ponder the suggestions that others have. In fact, true independence and confidence mean you can hear others out, consider their point of view, and either adjust your opinions and decisions when they have good advice or stick to your guns and have faith that your choices will lead you down the path you want for your life.
Finding confidence in yourself can be a difficult but rewarding accomplishment that carries you far in life. Being confident helps you develop a healthy relationship with yourself and with others. It allows you to be persuaded by your own thoughts and judgments while using others as guides to find the best version of yourself you can be. If you find yourself struggling with social anxiety or would like to learn how to have more confidence, the team at Headlight are highly trained professionals who can help you do just that. At Headlight, qualified coaches and counselors provide services aimed toward your goals to help you gather advice and tips that can be applied to your daily life, guiding you toward success. If this is something that you or someone you know could benefit from, out to us for more information by calling 800-930-0803.