I think that most people will answer yes, maybe not currently, but at some time in their life. Those people who have suffered trauma in their life will tend to answer with a resounding “yes” to this statement.

The start to building self confidence is within your hands. Only you can build your self confidence. Below is a list of tools that you can utilize to increase your self confidence which include:

Work to stay calm. Don’t let your emotions (“Ego”) control you. If a negative thought or emotion comes up, start by quickly overwriting that thought. Something simple you could do is mentally say to yourself “stop, clear” over and over a few times or even “hey, what’s that”. These two simple statements force the internal chatter in your mind to be broken for a few seconds. The quicker you can change your thoughts to something more positive, the quicker that negative thought is overridden, thus increasing your strength and confidence.

Learn to accept yourself. I know this can be easier said than done, but the reality is you can’t change the past; you can’t change the things that have happened in your life, you can’t change what has been said to you, or what you have said or thought about yourself. By choosing to dwell on it, you are forcing yourself to stay in that negative, self-destructive state of mind. A good affirmation you can repeat to yourself would be, “I love and accept myself for who I am”.

Don’t compare yourself to others. One of the easiest ways to reduce your self confidence is to compare yourself to others. You will only see, based only on your interpretation, how perfect they are. All you will see are your own flaws. Well, guess what, they will do the exact same when they look at you. They are not perfect, nor are any of us. Just learn to accept yourself totally for who you are. A good affirmation for this is “I am beautiful and all parts of me are perfect”.

Challenge your thoughts of yourself. This is a tough one for me personally, I was abused as a child. I was stuck in the trauma with only negative thoughts of seeing myself as garbage, etc, etc (those who have been through it can fill in what the etc etc is that they said to themselves) for many years, but the reality is I have gotten past it and now I realize:

• I was little and I had no control over what happened to me.
• The thoughts of how I seen myself were truly only that, my thoughts. No one else seen me that way.
• True confidence only started to build once I decided my thoughts would no longer control me and changed my internal chatter within myself.

Make a list of what you like about yourself and read it often. You can also choose to make a list of things that you don’t like about yourself separately and read each one and brainstorm positives about those negative items. Then you can write those positives on your list of likes about yourself. Once you are done doing that, rip or burn the list of things you don’t like about yourself and move forward. Focus on the positive list you have created. By doing this, you have just rewritten how you see yourself. In time, as you read and reread and focus on the positives, those negative little thoughts will go away.

Take care of yourself. Treat yourself to the guilty little pleasures you like to do for yourself like going for a massage, getting your nails done, getting your hair done, or even going for a walk if that makes you feel happy.

Try to eat healthy. Greasy food causes us to feel under the weather and the healthier foods that we put into our bodies, the better we will feel and the happier we will be.

Take time to relax. Relaxation helps reduce stress. Meditate, go for a walk, or do something that allows you to completely relax. The more you reduce your stress, the calmer you can remain, the healthier and happier you will be.

Self confidence is built by building your internal strength and love within yourself about yourself. Remember, all you need is you. You will find great strength and self confidence!! The more self confident you are, the more you will stand up straighter, smile more often and generally find a level of peace you never could have imagined.