How To Build Confidence And Overcome Your Inhibitions?

If you say you know yourself better than anyone else, then you are probably wrong. You have many abilities that you haven’t yet recognised because you are somewhere sceptical whether you will win or lose. It is said that the greatest victory is the one where you battle all your fears before entering the battle field. If you beat your hesitation and conquer control over your mind, then you have already won half the battle.

Many routine tasks such public speaking, addressing a meeting or presentation, meeting new clients, convincing investors, learning a new skill, etc may be one of your weaknesses. You don’t find yourself competent enough to perform your best. When you do such tasks where your mind resists your performance, your body language indicates your level of discomfort. Shaking, fumbling words, restlessness, sweating, poor eye contact, etc are some of the common examples of nervous body language. You may initially feel that people may not like the way you look or the way you present your work.

But the fact is that, when you present yourselves or your skills, all you need is lots of confidence so that you fearlessly express yourselves and your comfortability and confidence enables you to leave a mark in the minds of the target audience. Confidence doesn’t come from luck. It is actually in your psychology. You need to have full control on you insecurities and anxiety and follow these simple ways to know how to build confidence and overcome your inhibitions:

1. Be Positive Even In Hostile Circumstances

Your fear to perform perfectly instils insecurities in your mind owing to which you may find yourself constantly thinking of negative outcomes. But being confident is not an easy task. Even if you possess the required abilities and qualities to deliver your best, it is feeling confident about yourself that will help you sail through the situation. For this, start training your mind to be positive. At the onset of negative thoughts, convince your mind to think positively.

Say to your mind that ‘For a change, let’s think positively today’. Even if you make mistakes, your positive thinking will compel you to motivate yourself to perform in great spirit. Remember, that your positive approach will make you look and feel pleasant and confident and this is where you win half the battle.

2. Watch Your Body Language

Most people perceive that confidence is synonymous to a great body language and it is actually true to some extent. Your gestures and facial expressions have a significant impact on the confidence you portray while delivering your performance. In fact, it is not only important to exhibit your confidence level to the target audience but sitting or standing confidently or maintaining proper eye contact while communicating is helpful in augmenting your confidence level from inside.

When we try to look confident, our bodily movements responds to our psychology making the confidence come from inside. This is one of the easiest yet effective ways to feel confident, especially when speaking in front of a large audience.

3. Don’t Over-think To Attain Perfection

Your fear of failure or embarrassment can increase your hesitation before your performance. You may start over-thinking. You may feel that you need to attain perfection and for that you must move very slowly and cautiously. Rather be confident and hit the aim when you are ready. Don’t waste time in attaining perfection or you will lose a golden opportunity to prove your mettle. Take the first leap of faith and then the experience will teach you its own lessons. Your mistakes will pave the path of action for your next performance, which you can present with enhanced confidence.

4. Keep Distractions Away

Developing confidence is not a day’s task. You gradually develop confidence and for continual boosting of confidence, you need to keep all distractions away. If you want to build confidence positively, then you must consider it as a new learning and it is important that you dedicate your complete focus on it. Keeping distractions away provides you an opportunity to evaluate whether you are improving on this new skill or not. When you keep your mind focused, it remains sorted and grasping new things become easier.

5. Get Clarity About The Worst Case Consequence

As per many eminent public speakers in this world, most of us indulge in affective forecasting where we are confident in forecasting how great the feeling would be if something goes as per our expectations and how awful the feeling would be when something bad happens. Instead of being least hopeful about the thing where you are dedicated to put your confidence in, write down what worst do you imagine the situation to be. When you know what the worst can happen, you will feel at ease and would be better able to execute the task when you find the situation more positive.

6. Rigorous Practise Makes You Perfect

Along with knowledge and required skills, you need to have adequate experience to build confidence. Experience comes from a few failures and undeterred efforts. You must have practise in performing the task so that your competency level rises and as you prowess, your self-confidence automatically boosts. When you are able to complete a task easily, it gives you a positive energy. So remember to have high expectations with yourself once you develop the competency and confidence to accomplish it.

7. Be Alert When Your Mind Starts Thinking Negatively

This is one of the major hurdles you will face while trying to develop your confidence level. Since your mind has always been sceptical about the outcomes from performing the task you have been scared about, it is natural that your mind feels negative initially. Several questions doubting your skills and potential may pop up in your mind, which may give your thought process a negative turn. These thoughts are highly powerful in convincing us that we cannot do the task. Our mind gets so attached to these negative thoughts, that our disbelief in ourselves augment. To detach these thoughts from our mind, we must kill it as soon as it emerges. No sooner that you start thinking negatively, get alert and challenge yourself to perform your best without thinking about what it will yield.

Recommended: Secrets To Boost Your Self-Confidence

8. Come Out Of Your Comfort Cocoon

If you keep yourself nested in your comfort zone, then you won’t be able to explore your full potential and you won’t even know what your true abilities are. Don’t limit yourselves to tasks or activities that you are expert in. Increase the diameter of your comfort circle and keep experimenting with an attitude to learn something new. Don’t try to attain perfection or prove yourself as the best performer to others. Make yourself feel uncomfortable for doing things in a bid to have a new and fun experience. Challenge yourself and put in your best efforts and this is how you become more mature and confident in life.

9. Start Exercising Now

Living an active lifestyle is very essential to keep stress levels low and to have a relaxed mind. Moreover, if you exercise regularly, you will certainly have more control on mood swings. As per many medical experts, exercise releases endorphins that helps in boosting our mood and we start feeling good about our health. This release of hormones helps in improving our brain’s health and the healthy coordination of mind and body brings an overall rise in our confidence levels.

10. Listen To Peppy Music

Music is one of the most loved art forms and it is true that it has the capability to tap our inner emotions. You might have seen that during many sports events, the background music is loud and bass heavy. This is because it enables the players to have high spirits while playing. So before your next performance, you can get yourselves engaged in some jam session with peppy music to boost your mood and confidence level too.