Empowering One’s Self: Confidence Building Exercises

What is self confidence? Self confidence is to believe in what you can accomplish. It is often interchanged with self esteem; however, they are very different from each other. You lack self confidence if you often doubt your abilities. An example: you are tasked to sing in front of a large audience and you already think you just can’t do it without even trying. If you are having troubles on improving your self confidence, you might need to try doing some confidence building exercises. THE TWO-MINUTE CONFIDENCE BUILDING EXERCISES Time is not a hindrance in boosting your self confidence. If you are often occupied by things, you may try the two-minute confidence building exercises: 1. Face the mirror and visualize your own reflection as a different person. Pretend that you will be interacting with that person. 2. Focus and try to keep your head still. A Tai Chi visualization method can be of good help when it comes to this. It is simply imagining that your head is being suspended by a string. Keeping your head still is important in this exercise. Given the fact that your head and neck are aligned, you are away from tension and stress. 3. Start to make yourself think that you are a role model of confidence. A beauty queen, a prince, a princess, a politician… anything positive that you can think of. You might need to center your attention in what you want to be. For example, you are an aspiring doctor. Go ahead and think of yourself as a doctor. 4. While facing the mirror, take a deep breath every now and then. Believe that your room is well ventilated and that there is plenty of fresh air around you --- feast on it. Allow yourself to feel that the fresh air is filling up your entire system as you inhale and exhale. During this process, empty your mind of stressful thoughts and make yourself feel that each time you exhale, you also let go of these thoughts. You will notice that the air is starting to permeate every cell in your body, and that any sense of anxiety will disappear and will be replaced with a sense of tranquility. 5. This statement can help you: “I can do this! Everything will eventually go my way.” You need not to stick with the said statement; you may say anything positive to yourself. For example, if you think that you are ugly, contradict what you believe and say, “I am beautiful, and I know I am!” Positive thinking is very powerful and its value can never be underestimated. One of the secrets of a fulfilling life is having a positive attitude. The two-minute confidence building exercise would be very helpful if you are uncertain of the outcome of a meeting, job interview, medical check-up, etc. You can absolutely do it anytime you needed a confidence booster. If you are a busy individual, you squeeze this in your everyday schedule, preferably before leaving the house to regain positive vibes. OTHER CONFIDENCE BUILDING EXERCISES Every one of us has experienced having a day wherein the world did not seem to revolve the way it should, and the storm did not seem to end. Aside from the two-minute confidence building exercise, there are also some alternatives that you can try to boost yourself up. Here are some of them: 1. Look for a physical activity that you’ll enjoy doing. Whether it is aerobics, stretching, jogging, or cycling, exercise is a definite way to improve your self confidence. If you are feeling low, allot at least 15 minutes to exercise your worries away. Regular exercise does not only relax your tensed muscles or helps you sleep well. It has been found to reduce stress and anxiety. Therefore, exercise does not only make you look good, it also makes you feel good. 2. Aside from exercise, you may also engage yourself in sports. Whether it is volleyball, basketball, baseball or football, a sport is one of the numerous confidence building exercises that you can try. A sport is an advisable confidence booster as hitting or throwing the ball releases stress. 3. Take a minute to be silly or let out a hearty belly laugh. You may go to a comedy bar or read a humor book. If you are cost-cutting, some websites have the capability of sending jokes to your mobile phone thus enabling you to get a good laugh anytime, anywhere! As the old saying goes, laughter is the best medicine. 4. Dance. Put on some groovy tunes and dance to its beat like there is no tomorrow. Who cares if you are not a good dancer? Dancing will not only ease your stress but it will also boost your self confidence up! 5. Treat yourself. It is not bad to spend a little amount of your earnings on yourself. Yes, it is essential to make your money last, but, you need allow yourself to experience luxury even just for a day. You may gift yourself with new clothes, books, gadget… basically anything! If you are not into material things, you may just eat at your favorite restaurant or watch a movie. You are shown the way and the rest is up to you. If you do something about it, you will find that everything is manageable. If you take it for granted, you will find that you are in the losing end. Only a little effort is required to gain positive results from these confidence building exercises.