8 Tips for Boosting Your Confidence and Resilience

We can’t be confident and resilient all the time in every situation, but we can become more confident more often, and confidence leads to better performance. Confidence and resilience often go together. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from the challenges and pressures that life throws at us and maintain a positive outlook. People who are resilient generally have confidence in themselves and their ability to overcome setbacks.

So what can you do to build your confidence and boost your resilience?

Building your confidenceBelieve in yourself.

Remind yourself of what you can do, rather than what you can’t. Don’t put yourself down – if you hear yourself saying negative things about yourself, you will believe them (“I’m no good at….I’m always doing it wrong….it doesn’t matter what I think”). Instead, remind yourself of what you are good at and do some positive self-talk (“I’ve got skills in xyz…..other people can do this so I can too….my opinions matter as much as anyone else’s….”).

Manage your mood.

Be aware of how you are feeling – are you bored, anxious, angry or curious, relaxed, excited? Do whatever helps you feel positive emotions so you feel good about yourself. Some sports people play their favourite music before competing, to “get in the zone”. Mind and body are linked, so being aware of your body helps you manage your mood. If you feel butterflies in your stomach, this is a signal that you are nervous and need to take some action to soothe yourself.

Prime yourself for a confident state of mind.

Do something that cheers you up, write down three positive things that have happened at the end of every day, see yourself behaving confidently. When you receive compliments from others, let them sink in, rather than brushing them aside. Hearing positive things about yourself builds your confidence.

Behave “as if” you are confident.

If you behave confidently, you will feel more confident. Manage your body language – breathe deeply to calm yourself, relax your jaw and shoulders, stand tall, make eye contact, smile and look interested in others. Be aware of your voice – slow down your speech, speak at a normal volume, not shouting or whispering, and lower the pitch of your voice (especially if you are female).

Boosting your resilienceLook after your resources of energy.

It’s much easier to cope with challenges when you have physical, mental and emotional energy and much harder when you are tired, drained and anxious. Looking after your body, mind and spirit is a key foundation for being resilient. Taking regular breaks from an activity helps boost your energy and maintain performance. There is evidence that spending time outside in the natural world has a positive impact on mental and emotional energy.

Develop resilient beliefs.

Choose beliefs, feelings and actions that enable you to function at your best. If you are going for an interview and believe that you are going to fail, then you will feel nervous, this will come out in your body and you will project yourself less confidently with the result that you are less likely to succeed. When you fail, attributing the failure to something in yourself can be unhelpful, while attributing it to something in the situation, is a more helpful belief – compare the impact of believing “I am just not good enough” with “there was a better person for this job”.

Put problems in perspective.

Sometimes we over-react to problems – stop and ask yourself, on a scale of 1 – 10, where 10 is life-threatening, how bad is this problem? Most day to day problems are probably around a 5 on this scale!

Connect with others.

Everyone likes to spend some time with other people and this fulfils basic human needs to feel part of a group and to feel liked and respected. Even though you may feel you are too busy to spend time with your friends and family, doing so will help you realise that you matter to others and this builds your resilience. It’s also true that a problem shared is a problem halved – things never seem so bad when you talk to other people about them.

If you find these tips helpful, why not check out my books for more practical ways to live a happier life?  Buy Motivation: The Ultimate Guide to Leading Your Team from Routledge with discount code MTCS25.  Buy How to Get On with Anyone: Even the Difficult Ones wherever you get your books – Waterstones, WHSmith, Amazon, and others.

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