- Understanding why you're not confident: Limiting beliefs may have been instilled either by yourself or by the environment you grew up in. These could range from care about others' opinions, fear of embarrassment, or perceptions of being naturally shy or introverted.
- Trauma hindering natural extraversion: There can be one or two traumatic events from your past that suppress your natural extraversion. This could be due to treatment by family members or friends, a breakup, or any distressing event that made you retreat within your shell and feel insecure about expressing yourself.
- Identification of areas lacking confidence: The first step towards building confidence is identifying specific areas of your life where you lack confidence - be it dating, socializing, work situations, or even simple interactions. Identifying specific actions causing these insecurities can help you tackle them effectively.
- Creating a 'Confidence Game Plan': Analyze the situations where you feel less confident and come up with alternative actions that a confident person would potentially take. This alternative list of actions then becomes your game plan to grow confidence.
- Implementing the 'Confidence Game Plan' and taking gradual steps towards confidence: Start practicing the alternative actions identified in your game plan. It's not a quick process; instead, it's about slowly chipping away at your insecurities and gradually stepping towards more confident behavior.
- Developing confidence is a long-term effort: It is crucial to understand that developing confidence is a long-term effort, and it won't change overnight. But with consistent effort, regular practice, and gradual progress, you can significantly improve your confidence over time. It's about meaningful personal development and striving towards positive transformation.
- Pushing your comfort zone: To boost confidence, one must strive to step out of their comfort zone frequently, even when it feels scary. This entails prioritizing opportunities to undertake new actions over staying within one's shell. The aim must be to challenge oneself little by little to avoid becoming overwhelmed.
- Daily affirmations: Asserting "I love being confident" and "I am independent of the good or bad opinion of others" every morning for five minutes each, for two consecutive months, will gradually help build a positive self-image. These affirmations target the root of low confidence, which is often linked to a deep-seated fear of disapproval from others.
- Visualization technique: Spending five minutes each morning visualizing oneself as confident in a specific situation where confidence is typically lacking can significantly aid confidence building. This should be practiced consistently for two months, imagining in great detail how one would act confidently in the chosen situation.
- Translating visualization and affirmations to real-life action: The affirmations and visualizations mentioned above serve as a primer to help manifest confidence in real-life situations where it is necessary. It is important to push through initial fears and anxieties, and consistently behave in manners characteristic of a confident person. Over time, this practice will foster natural confidence.
- Increasing socialization: Individuals lacking in confidence often shy away from social situations. Accepting invitations to social events and creating opportunities to interact with others can greatly contribute to boosting confidence. This could involve organizing social lunches at work or joining meetup groups related to personal interests.
- Creating an overall long-term personal development plan: Confidence building is part of a broader, long-term personal growth strategy, which should involve small starting steps, like affirmations and visualizations, followed by application of these practices in real-life situations.