Read more about Helpful Little Articles
- Be a bit more positive: It helps to psyche one’s self into believing in one’s self. You can never go wrong with pronouncing and filling your subconscious with positive self-talk. So cut out the negativity.
- Build up knowledge: There is an entire world of confidence that you unlock just by knowing your stuff. Whether it is speaking or just doing your thing at work, try to know what you are about. That way no one can knock you off your perch and that in itself is a confidence boost on its own.
- Focus on your strengths: This relates a lot with our first tip because cutting out negativity speaks to focusing on your strengths more than worrying about your flaws. Build on your strengths and emphasize them.
- Learn new skills: Picking up new skills work well for your confidence as it adds to your sense of confidence in your own abilities. Soft skills, hard skills, immerse yourself in them. It works.
- Blow your own: Literally, do not be shy to say “I did this and this” because someone else is in another circle claiming it and you would not like the feeling hence.
Sign up to the Connect Nigeria daily newsletter
- Ask questions: Asking questions is a trait that says that you are given to knowledge and understanding. Don’t be afraid to come off as less intelligent as that is what you are against in the first place, the lack of confidence.
- Always call upon your past successes: Sometimes, recalling your past successes helps galvanize to undertake new and daunting ones thus boosting your very confidence in the process. Remembering what tasks you completed in record time helps assure you of success going forward so do keep tabs of your achievements.
- Fake it: It sounds a little off but when you look like you know what you are doing while trying to know what you are doing, you usually come around to know what you are doing, eventually. Faking it in itself says you have boundless confidence and that rubs off a good way on you and others.
- Repetition: Rinse and repeat, iterate, practice and so on. Once you know how to do something, do it over and over. Don’t stop. Continue and as you do endeavour to get better at aspects of it that you are not perfect at. Not one to sound cliché but practise does make perfect.
- Have a little fun: While at it, have a little fun. When things get too serious, it can be bad for your self-esteem. Take a step back and have a little fun while you are at it. A little humour can lighten the load and free you of the emotional burden of failure. It is not a bad thing to laugh at your own errors while you aim to fix. In public speaking, humour will be the very glue that holds your talk together so learn to laugh and get comfortable with jokes.
Got a suggestion? Contact us: editor at connectnigeria dot com