5 Strategies You Can Use to Develop Self-Confidence.

When I was a teenager, I was painfully shy. I was bullied mercilessly, destroying my self-confidence and making my later school years a nightmare.

I left school aged 16, and it was then that I decided to make a concerted effort to grow my confidence and improve my life.

The first stage of the work I undertook lasted for two years. By the time I went to University aged 18, I was muscular, fit and noticing solid improvements in my life. It was not all plain sailing. I joined the police aged 23, thinking it would toughen me up. Ultimately it mentally broke me.

I am now 41, and I have realised that maintaining high self-esteem, along with consistent self-improvement, is a lifelong quest. I want to share with you the things I do and the beliefs I have that work for me in the hope they help you too.

1. Do Hard Things.

I believe that the single greatest killer of your hopes, dreams and aspirations is the “Comfort Zone”. Every time we turn down an opportunity to push ourselves because we are looking for comfort, we shrink the zone until, eventually, we are too paralysed to live our lives due to fear.

There are some things you should know about the comfort zone. Firstly, it doesn’t exist. Paradoxically, the more you search for comfort, the less comfortable you will feel.

Secondly, the more you push yourself to succeed and achieve in life, you will feel more comfortable. Nothing makes you feel better than the self-confidence that comes from knowing you can deal with anything that comes your way.

Thirdly, a comfort zone goes against the very nature of life itself. Life is meant to be lived and experienced. This means taking risks and trying new things. Imagine reaching the end of your life with a ton of regrets at things you never had the guts to do, all in the name of comfort.

Exercising is hard.

When I lacked self-confidence, I hated exercise and did everything to avoid it. My confidence rose in direct correlation to my fitness. During my years at University, I was working out six days per week.

Exercise will do more to improve your life than anything else on this list.

Quitting your job to pursue what makes you happy is hard.

In 2007 I quit the police after experiencing severe PTSD for the previous four years. During that time, policing was my life. I was studying to become a Sergeant. All my friends were police. Yet, I knew I had to quit.

One day I couldn’t take it anymore, and I told a Sergeant I was leaving. I cried like a baby as it felt like my life was coming to an end. I had no identity outside of my job and plunged into a deep depression.

Fast forward to now. I have new hobbies and interests, indulge my passion for writing, and learn new things every day.

If I had not taken that bold step in 2007 to leave the police, I might have been broken beyond repair.

Deciding what to do with your life is hard.

From a ridiculously young age, some people know what they want to do in life. Three-year-olds are choosing to be doctors or toddlers with ambitions to be firefighters.

This was not me. I left school with no idea what I wanted to do, so I studied A-Levels in subjects I thought I might broadly enjoy. When I left college, I still had no idea what to do, so I went to University and studied Law which looked interesting (it really wasn’t). After University, I still had no idea what I wanted to do, so I drifted into the Police Service…

If you are one of the lucky ones who do not doubt their life direction, that is great.

For the rest of us, remember it is ok to make mistakes, as long as you don’t compound them through stubbornness or fear. I could have left the police much earlier than I did and spared myself a lot of mental health problems.

Try different things and never be afraid to fail. Everything is a learning experience.

2. When You Face Your Fears and Try Difficult Things, You’ll Gain Confidence in Yourself.

In her timeless book “Feel the fear and do it anyway”, Susan Jeffers states:

“Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.”

You will never stop feeling fear. The coward and the warrior both feel terror. The difference is made by how you handle it. The brave person looks fear in the eye and pushes forward with what needs to be done.

I used to feel like a fraud. I was a black belt in Karate, experienced at Boxing, and yet I still felt fear at the idea of a physical confrontation. When I discreetly asked others at my Karate and Boxing clubs if they felt fear, everyone said no.

It took me a long time to realise that those people denying fear were lying. To admit to being frightened would have been too damaging for the male ego because they fundamentally misunderstood the definition of heroism.

If you never feel fear, where is the bravery in that? You can only be brave by accomplishing something difficult. Susan Jeffers succinctly wrote:

“The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow.”

3. Surround Yourself with People Who Want the Best for You.

Motivational speaker Jim Rohn said:

“We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.”

This quote demonstrates how essential it is to select the people you spend your time with wisely.

Not everyone has your best interests at heart. A true friend will be honest with you at all times. If that honesty is painful, they will convey it with love and understanding. Their goal in telling you the truth is to help you grow, not push you down.

When I lacked self-confidence, I was grateful for any attention given to me, no matter how toxic the person, and regardless of their motivations. As a result, I was used and abused consistently through a large part of my life.

As I grew my confidence, I realised the necessity of getting these toxic people out of my life—a kind of relationship decluttering.

There was no room for people who could love me to enter my life by having these toxic relationships. We only have a finite amount of time per day, and mine was wasted on these horrible people.

Confucius said:

“If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.”

It would help if you spent your time with people you aspire to emulate. People who are just that little bit better at whatever subject or area matters to you.

Spend time with people that inspire you.

4. Read a Book for an Hour Every Day.

The greatest investor of all time, Warren Buffett reads for six hours every day. He recommends you read 500 pages per day. It is no coincidence that, aged 91, he is as sharp as ever.

We are so lucky to have access to books. They contain the wealth of knowledge and imagination of the entire history of the world. The more you read, the more knowledgeable you become. This can only affect your confidence in a positive way.

I mainly use audiobooks. Using this method, I can read three books a week without making a dent in my time on other activities. Some people learn better by listening than reading.

My topics of choice focus on self-improvement. Recently I have been listening to “The Millionaire Next Door”, “Atomic Habits”, and “Secrets of The Millionaire Mind.”

5. You Are What You Eat.

The way you treat your body will reflect how you feel about yourself. Drink water and cut out sugar. If you pump it full of bad fats and sugars, you will become slovenly and struggle to concentrate.

At the same time, you will become fat, along with all the health implications brought with such a condition.

If you don’t look after yourself, you probably do not think yourself worthy of being looked after, and a negative spiral ensues.

You have to see yourself as someone important. That means you have to eat right, dress right, groom yourself regularly and generally take as much pride in yourself as you would your car or whatever else you value in life.

If you do not take these basic steps to improve your appearance, why should others bother to take you seriously?

One of the cruellest things about my mental health struggles is the side effects of the medications I have to take. When I first started taking them, I gained over 70lbs in a year.

This was a devastating blow for someone like me, whose physical fitness correlated so strongly with his confidence. I now had high blood pressure, Cholesterol problems, and it looked like I had been inflated.

I still struggle with food addictions, but I have lost most of the weight, and exercise helps.

I turn to food for comfort, which is a daily issue on which I continue to work. Part of my self-confidence is not beating myself up when I slip or make a mistake.

Conclusion.

Some people are born confident, and it comes easy to them for their whole lives. For the rest of us, it is a continual work in progress.

Trust me when I say that if I can gain confidence and assert myself in life, you certainly can.

Without believing in yourself, you are selling yourself short. How can it make sense to be your own worst enemy? Why sabotage your chances of success and your very life before you even get a shot at greatness?

If you dump the comfort zone, push yourself, surround yourself with the right people, expand your knowledge and look after yourself physically, you will develop a love for yourself that will see you through life.

No one is expecting you to change all these things immediately. Just take a small step in the right direction. If you fail, get up, brush yourself down and try again. Winners fail all the time. The difference is they don’t quit.

Never quit.