Confidence is one of the most important qualities to have for any human being.
It helps you tap into your infinite potential and make use of your abilities to achieve your dreams and desires. However, there can be times in life when your confidence may dwindle. It may happen due to failures, criticism, and prolonged challenges.
This can obviously have terrible impacts on your life. And so, if you find your confidence suffering, you need to spring into action and address it.
But, how do you deal with the loss of confidence?
Well, there are many great ways to minimize the effects of low confidence and to start building it again. You could start by practicing self-compassion and challenging negative self-talk and limiting beliefs. You could then go back to focusing on your strengths and achievements. At the same time, you could also start setting achievable goals and learn new skills to rebuild your confidence as we will see in the following paragraphs.
In this article, I’m going to talk about some great strategies to deal with the loss of confidence and rebuild it from scratch.
1) Practice Self-Compassion And Kindness Towards Yourself
When you lose your confidence, it is easy to be hard on yourself.
You start telling yourself that you are simply not good enough and that you are destined to fail. You might be hard on yourself for all the failures and setbacks you have had to endure. As you can probably tell, this only worsens the situation.
What you need to do is practice self-compassion and kindness towards yourself.
You are a human being and you deserve to be treated as such. Especially by your own self. Remind yourself that it is only natural to make mistakes. Remind yourself that failure is just a milestone on the road to victory.
When you practice self-compassion, your attention shifts to your positive aspects.
You suddenly realize that you have a lot of abilities and it is only a matter of time before you get back on your feet. So, calm down and treat yourself like you would treat your best friend after they have lost their confidence.
2) Identify And Challenge Negative Self-Talk or Limiting Beliefs
As I said above, your negative self-talk increases quite a lot when your confidence gets shaken.
At the same time, you also start developing limiting beliefs. If you allow them to take root within you, it can have a devastating impact on your self-image and the pursuit of your dreams.
So, it’s important to identify and challenge all your negative self-talk and beliefs.
For example, if you are beginning to think that you are no good, sit down and write a whole paragraph mentioning all your different abilities and also your past achievements.
In fact, you can do this whole exercise in your mind.
As soon as you get a negative thought about yourself, challenge it immediately. Debate with that inner voice that tells you bad things about yourself. Counter it with logic and defeat it every single time!
You can even talk to your friends and ask them about your strengths or what they like about you.
3) Take A Time Out
If you have lost confidence, this means that something big might have happened in your life.
It could have been a setback or a harsh criticism by someone. It could also be that you have been dealing with lots of challenges for a long time and now, your mental faculties have reached their limits.
If this applies to you, you should take a time out.
Sometimes, you just need a break to calm your nerves down and recharge mentally and physically. After you come back from your break, you should feel much better about yourself. Things won’t feel as overwhelming and you can start tackling challenges much more easily.
Also, taking breaks doesn’t mean that you have to go on a vacation. Just a few days off work or an extended weekend will suffice.
You could also move in with a friend or a family member to get away from your normal, everyday routine.
4) Set Achievable Goals And Celebrate Progress Towards Them
A great way to get back your confidence is to stack up your achievements.
But you need to do this in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming. Otherwise, you might end up further reducing your confidence.
So, how should you go about doing this?
Well, for starters, you could set achievable goals. This means setting goals that are smaller or easier to achieve. For instance, if you want to run a marathon, try increasing your stamina by running for 5 minutes every day without getting tired. When you achieve this, you could increase the duration and the distance.
Another thing you can do here is celebrate your progress toward your goals.
This activates the reward system in your brain and makes you feel better about yourself. Going back to the above example, when you achieve your goal, you could treat yourself to a nice snack or a late-night gaming session!
5) Take Care of Your Physical Health
Your mental health is deeply linked to your physical health.
I am sure you have experienced how you just don’t want to work when you get the flu or some other disease. You feel weak and unable to carry out even the smallest of tasks. This is just a small example but I think you get the point.
So, it’s important to take care of your physical health and make sure that you are in top shape. As you might already know, there are various ways you can achieve this. You could exercise regularly, get enough sleep, eat a healthy diet, stay hydrated, and stay away from harmful habits like drinking and smoking.
You see, when you feel good about your physical body, that contributes to your overall confidence. Also, good physical health allows you to take on complex tasks and challenges, which can further enhance your sense of self-worth.
6) Engage In Activities That Bring You Joy And Fulfillment
This one is a must.
I know you won’t feel like it, especially when you have lost your confidence.
But if you do it anyway, you will realize just how important this is.
Look, your brain likes having fun. This is why you enjoy things like traveling, eating delicious food, and playing with your friends much more than working.
Basically, doing things that bring you joy keeps you in a feel-good state. And that helps with your confidence. Obviously, when you are happy with the things around you, you will be happy with your own self also. You will have this inner feeling that tells you, “Everything is okay!”
So, what activities can you do to bring more joy into your life?
Well, ask yourself the same question, because it differs from person to person. Maybe you could join a sports club, or a musical class, take dance lessons, play with your kids in the evening, go on a weekend getaway, volunteer for a local cause, and so on.
7) Seek Support From Friends And Loved Ones
Your friends and family members are your support system.
It’s basically nature’s way of ensuring that you always have something to fall back upon when things get too hard.
When you are low on confidence, you should immediately reach out to your closest people and talk to them about how you feel.
First of all, just talking to them can make you feel better. Our loved ones have this undeniable effect where their presence itself feels soothing. Plus, when you share how you feel, you are basically unloading a huge weight from your chest. This, too, makes you feel better.
Plus, your friends and family can tell you of ways to get out of your predicament that you might not have thought about! At the end of the day, you are always better off seeking out support from your loved ones.
8) Practice Mindfulness or Meditation
A lot of people turn to spiritual practices when they are going through a rough patch in their lives. These practices, when applied properly, can be transformational in ways that you can’t even have imagined.
Two of these practices that you can instill in your daily life to enhance your confidence are mindfulness and meditation.
Mindfulness is the practice of bringing your attention to the present moment and focusing completely on the task at hand. This prevents you from thinking about the past and the future. It also helps you do your best in whatever you are doing. Naturally, it enhances your chances of success and, by extension, your confidence.
Meditation is a practice where you sit silently for a while trying to achieve a state of stillness within you. It is a calming practice that has tremendous benefits for your physical and mental health. It helps you understand yourself better and you rediscover your positive side. This, too, helps enhance your confidence.
9) Learn New Skills or Take On New Challenges
When you are low on confidence, you basically feel like you can’t do anything.
In such a state, even completing simple tasks or chores may seem like a huge task. Now, to reverse this state of mind, you could learn new skills or take on new challenges.
I mean, think about it.
When you learn a new skill, you are essentially becoming a better version of yourself. This makes you think that you can now do things that you couldn’t before. In other words, your confidence increases.
Taking on new challenges, on the other hand, helps you expand your horizons and learn new things.
Again, you become a better version of yourself, and the lessons you learn equip you to better solve the everyday problems of your life. At the end of the day, you are much more confident.
10) Seek Professional Help
If the loss of confidence is having a drastic impact on the quality of your life, and causing unforeseen troubles, you should probably seek professional help.
Sometimes, past emotional wounds can get reopened when your confidence decreases. This can make the situation much more dire.
So, before things get any worse, you should consult a therapist or counselor. They have years of training and experience and can certainly help you navigate the challenges posed by the loss of confidence.
For instance, they can talk to you about your limiting beliefs and self-talk and help you change how you look at yourself. They can also help you with coping strategies to get out of the negative state of mind. As time progresses, they can also help you enhance your confidence in a healthy manner.
11) Focus On Your Personal Values
No matter what happens in your life, you should always remain true to your personal values.
Whether you are low on confidence, whether someone has betrayed you, or whether you have to face a painful failure, you shouldn’t change your core values. After all, it is these values that make you, you.
In fact, during times when you are not feeling good about yourself, sticking to your values and aligning your actions with them can help you feel better. Doing so can help you understand that you are a sincere human being who is doing the best they can.
So, sit down with yourself and contemplate what really matters to you. Write them down on a piece of paper if you have to. Then, make sure your tiniest of actions are true to your values and principles.
12) Engage In Positive Affirmations or Visualization Exercises
This is a great way to reprogram your subconscious mind.
You see, sometimes, our limiting beliefs can become so persistent that they can get stored in our subconscious mind. And when that happens, all our actions, behaviors, decisions, etc., start reflecting those beliefs.
Needless to say, this can have a terrible impact on your life and everything in it. As such, you should take steps to reverse this programming.
A great way to do this is by using positive affirmations. These are positive sentences that you keep repeating to yourself. For instance, you could say affirmations like, “I am smart, able, and competent,” “I am confident, happy, and powerful,” “I can do anything I put my mind to,” etc.
13) Practice Assertiveness And Set Boundaries In Relationships
Relationships are a huge part of human life.
The bond you have with your loved ones and the people around you and the way you interact with them has an impact on your mind and emotions. Even your behavior gets influenced by them. This is why it is said that you are the average of the five closest people in your life.
Now, to rebuild confidence, you need to practice being assertive and setting healthy boundaries in your relationships. When you set rules about what others can do and what they can’t do with you, it develops a stronger sense of self within you.
Also, with the help of boundaries, you can develop relationships that are based on mutual respect. This improves the overall quality of your relationships and makes you feel better about yourself.
14) Avoid Comparing Yourself To Others
This is one of the biggest mistakes that people make in general. And it is the biggest mistake you can make when you lose your confidence.
That’s because you will always find someone who is more successful than you, more good-looking than you, healthier than you, and so on. And this applies to everybody!
When you compare yourself to others, you will subconsciously keep trying to find ways other people are better than you. Obviously, if you’ve lost your confidence, this will have a worse effect on you than usual. You will feel even worse about yourself and your life. ( check our article about how to stop comparing yourself to others HERE)
So, make the smart choice and avoid comparing yourself to others. Understand that every person has their own story and life is not supposed to be a race. Also, instead of wasting time and energy on comparisons, focus on your own growth and progress.
15) Embrace Failure as a Learning Opportunity
Perhaps the most common reason for the loss of confidence is failure.
It is something that we all go through from time to time. It could be a failure in your career, finances, health, or even relationships. I know setbacks don’t feel good. They are gut-wrenching and can wreak havoc on your self-image.
However, consider the fact that failures are inevitable and can actually teach you a lot of valuable lessons. When you view them from this angle, you can use them as a stepping stone toward growth and improvement. You can understand that failures are only speed bumps along the way.
So, instead of letting your confidence shake, get to work and analyze what went wrong. Extract lessons from the experience, and use that knowledge to adapt and enhance your future pursuits. Doing so will help you rebuild your confidence by shifting your focus from self-doubt to resilience and personal growth. Check our article about how to overcome failure HERE.
