How to boost your self-confidence!

“Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand brake on.” - Maxwell Maltz

Nobody is born with limitless self-confidence. If someone seems to have incredible self-confidence, it’s because he or she has worked on building it for years. Self-confidence is something that you learn to build up because the challenging world and life in general, can deflate it. Confidence gives you the power to conquer the world. Here's how you can learn to be confident in all you do.

1. Visualize yourself as you want to be.
Visualization is the technique of seeing an image of yourself that you are proud of, in your own mind. When we struggle with low self-confidence, we have a poor perception of ourselves that is often inaccurate. Practice visualizing a fantastic version of yourself, achieving your goals.

2. Practice Self-Compassion
It involves treating yourself with kindness when you make a mistake, fail, or experience a setback. Speaking to yourself harshly, won’t motivate you to do better. Cut yourself some slack, laugh at yourself, and remind yourself that no one is perfect.

3. Embrace Self-Doubt
Practice facing some of your fears that stem from a lack of self-confidence. If you’re afraid you’ll embarrass yourself or you think that you’re going to mess up, try it anyway. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t prepare or practice, of course. If you have a big speech coming up, practice in front of your friends and family so you’ll gain some confidence

4. Question your inner critic.
Some of the harshest comments that we get come from ourselves, via the "voice of the inner critic." If you struggle with low self-confidence, there is a possibility that your inner critic has become overactive and inaccurate. As Mark Twain said, “A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

5. Set yourself up to win.
Too many people are discouraged about their abilities because they set themselves goals that are too difficult to achieve. Start by setting yourself small goals that you can win easily. Once you have built a stream of successes that make you feel good about yourself, you can then move on to harder goals.