How to increase your self-confidence. The 5th gift of Christmas.

I asked someone what gift they wanted to give themselves, they said gratitude sounded boring.  
 
So what would you give yourself?
 
They didn’t hesitate – self-confidence.
 
So that is today’s gift we give to you.
 
The gift of believing in yourself and allowing yourself to do what is important to you.
 
Christmas can be a huge time of self-doubt and events that seem to conspire to delete our self-confidence.  Personally when I see people go out to fun work events, or doing wonderful things with their family I can hear this nagging voice that says “see that, why aren’t you doing that?  Why don’t you have the ability to make things that like that happen”.  

Maybe you are estranged from your family, too ill to create anything special at Christmas, don’t have work and struggle to find money to pay for gifts, are single and despair of finding a partner, or even more simply can’t make a gingerbread house to save your life.  

​Maybe you are lacking the confidence to have the Christmas you want to have, not what is expected from you.

Or it can be that when we catch up with certain family members of old 'friends' memories of our past mistakes and failures are brought up.
 
Christmas can magnify the areas in our life where we lack confidence. 

Maybe you are lacking the confidence to have the Christmas you want to have, not what is expected from you. ​

Self-confidence and comparison
Most young children believe the world revolves around them and of course whatever they do is wonderful – just think kindergarten drawings, first steps, made up stories.  
 
Then you hit school and the comparisons of your abilities, your achievements, your looks, your background, your clothes, begin – and they never stop.  And at Christmas we are never short of comparisons with what other people are doing (even if we know that what we see on social media is not the total picture).
 
When you practice a new skill, when you build up the knowledge over time that there are some things you actually do well, your confidence grows. When you receive feedback on your abilities, your looks, your achievements, or on other things that are important to you, your confidence grows.
 
But what if it doesn’t, or how do you build self-confidence? ​

​You cannot develop self-confidence by sitting in your room wishing and hoping.

Three tips to self-confidence.​​

1. Identify what is that you want to do.  
2. Identify what is stopping you from acting.  Is it negative thinking or a realistic skill deficit Eg “I’m worried people will laugh at me”, “I’m not good enough”, I don’t know what to “, “I don’t know how to do it”.  "I've never done it before'.
   1. If it’s negative thinking – practice noticing your thinking.  
   2. If it’s a skill deficit – start small, and take steps to learn what you need to know.
3. Take authentic action, no matter how small.  Everyone has heard of ‘fake it until you make it’, I prefer the term ‘take authentic action’.  Do something that is important to you.

​You cannot develop self-confidence by sitting in your room wishing and hoping.  Want to build the Christmas you want, the life you want, start now..., start small..., just start....
 
ps.  As psychologists we work with the mind and body.  So I have included a bonus link to a Ted Talk on How Posture benefits your self confidence https://youtu.be/Ks-_Mh1QhMc.
 
pps. If self-confidence is a gift you want, and you want help in this area you are welcome to contact us to make an appointment to work on this, and/or you are welcome to join us next year when we explore this gift in more detail.