There is one common trait among highly successful people that is universal no matter what it is that they are trying to accomplish: They believe in themselves. Confidence is the difference between “I can’t” and “I am unstoppable”. Remember, no one will believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself first. Confidence isn’t just something that happens for most people, it is something that is developed over time.
Here are 6 ways that you can build the kind of confidence that makes you truly unstoppable in life.
1. Be Realistic
The key building personal confidence starts with being real with yourself. Know your abilities, know your limitations. The reason this is so important is because too often we expect more out of ourselves and feel like a failure when we can’t achieve things that are, in reality, nearly impossible.
2. Embrace Fear
Fear is an important aspect of confidence. Fear is healthy in the regard that we can overcome it. There is nothing that builds confidence in yourself like looking fear right in the eyes and saying, “Yes, I see you. No, I am not giving in to you. You will not beat me.” Fear exists for a reason, to get our attention and make us focus. Fear doesn’t exist to hold us back.
3. Pick your Battles
Picking your battles goes back to being realistic. If you were to set a goal and acknowledge all of the challenges associated with that goal, move through the challenges in a manner that allows for small victories. Build momentum in your quest, so that if there is a setback – it becomes a speed bump and not a road block. You can also see this as taking “baby steps”. Those little victories add up to build your overall confidence along the way.
4. Understand Your Failures, and Accept Them
Failures are not the end of a task. They are a lesson in how the task should be completed. That’s it. Sometimes we need more lessons to finish a certain task than others, but that doesn’t mean that we are inept. It just means that we are learning. Changing your perspective from “failure” to “lesson” is the best way to build confidence in the fact that you’re not messing up, you’re getting better.
5. Surround Yourself with the Right People
The team you put yourself on makes all the difference when it comes to confidence. Surround yourself with people that build you up, and support that confidence. Even when it comes to goals that are purely yours like losing weight, the people that support you are the ones that nurture that confidence that you have in yourself.
6. Make it Tangible
The truly easiest way to build and develop your personal confidence is to make it tangible. For instance, when you are working toward completing a task, write down what you want to accomplish and what you need to do to get there. As you knock out the little things that are associated with the bigger goal you can step back and say, “Wow I’ve gotten a lot done toward completing this bigger task.” It’s like drawing a map from point A to point B and marking your progress, if you can’t see it – you don’t know how far you’ve really come.