Confidence is the key to your own happiness. I know that sounds cliche, but judging from my own experience, you will never truly feel happy with yourself until you feel confident with who you are.
Accepting that you are you, that there is only one you, and that you are a completely unique individual is a difficult for many of us because we spend so much of our time comparing ourselves to other people — man I wish I looked like her, I wish I was as toned as him, I wish I was taller, I wish I was smarter, etc etc. Every time you compare yourself to someone else you take away a little piece of yourself. Instead of thinking about all that you are, you spend more time thinking about all that you are not — and this is where we start to lose confidence in ourselves.
Once you stop wasting your time thinking about all that your not, you will start to feel better about yourself and thus begin to feel happy. Discovering who you are and what makes you unique is one of the most liberating experiences that you will feel in your life.
You deserve to feel good about yourself, and you surely deserve to feel happy. Here are a few ways to start improving your confidence:
Think highly of yourself — you are worth thinking about, so spend that time thinking only good thoughts about yourself and even write them down for future reference. I find that writing down what I like about myself is a good way to validate my confidence.
Discover what your top 3-5 strengths are — we are all good at something. Rather than dwell on your weaknesses, discover what you are good at and incorporate your strengths into your daily lives. There are many assessments out there to figure out what your strengths are, take advantage of them, they may even be personality characteristics that you hadn’t considered to be a strength.
For example, I did an assessment on http://www.strengthsfinder.com, my top 5 strengths were: Harmony, Positivity, Individualization, Consistency, and Futuristic. Some of these I knew were strengths of mine, and some of these I had never considered as a strength. Try it out for yourselves! Or ask your friends, family members, and co-workers what they think your strengths are. Sometimes getting feedback from other people can help you improve your confidence, especially because these people see you from an objective perspective (without bias).
Discover what distinguishes you from others — Probably the most difficult task, but it is definitely worth looking into yourself to find out What makes you special and unique. Is there something that you can do that no one else can? What sort of personality trait do you have that makes you stand out?
Remove jealousy from your life — Jealousy is an ugly emotion, and surely something that we have all felt at some point in our lives. The reason why so many of us compare ourselves to other people and/or feel angry towards others who we feel are doing better than we are is because we are jealous of them, or jealous of their progress or achievements. Once you remove jealousy and replace it with empowerment, you will notice a significant change in your happiness level. Empowering yourself to strive for the better and empowering other people to achieve their goals will make you happy, and those around you happy — thus boosting your confidence.
Be who you are, and be proud of who you are. You are the only you, and no one can ever be you. When you discover this, you will be happy with your life and with who you are in life.
Stay happy my friends!
Related articles
- Boost Your Confidence Today (massageenvy.com)
- Are You Happy With You? (myviewandopinion.wordpress.com)
- Confidence (levaugndwayne.wordpress.com)
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