Confidence is something that not all of us are graced with from birth and many who aren’t struggle to find it throughout their life. As someone who has often fought issues with self-consciousness, I’ve tried a variety of methods to help build a routine that puts me in a more confident mindset. These can be small things I do with my everyday schedule to larger changes in lifestyle designed to have a long-term impact on your thought process. Today, I’ve put together 3 of these methods in the hope that it may help some of you to experiment with your own and help grow your self esteem.
1) Build An Evening Routine
I’m not talking about spending your whole evening doing the same thing every day of the week, however taking the time to calm my mind and settle myself before bed really puts me in a relaxed and positive mindset. It’s very easy to just change and collapse into bed, but developing some everyday, low-concentration tasks can help ease you out of the stress of the day and distract the mind into a calmer state.
For me, this takes the form of a hot shave that I take my time over, I then apply an aftershave balm or moisturiser and massage it into my skin for around 1-2 minutes. The slow movements, low-attention levels and quiet helps calm my thoughts and generally leaves me feeling a lot more confident in myself before bed. Its a great mindset to have and means my sleep is less disturbed than when I go to bed with a million things on my mind. It also allows me to consider the day’s activities, what I’ve done, what tomorrow brings and how I plan on approaching the next day. In essence, it gives me a chance to be mindful of the day, a state of mind that many believe improves and individual’s happiness and sense of self worth.
Your day is filled with you making time for other people (such is life), so take time for yourself and learn to appreciate a 10-15 minutes of quiet reflection with yourself.
2) Getting Into Regular Exercise
Before I get into this point, this is not about getting into ridiculous shape or body-shaming, I’m not talking about radically changing the way you look or encouraging body insecurities, instead this is about doing 20-30 minutes active exercise to help improve your mental health and overall well being. The many mental and physical benefits of even a little amount of exercise are well documented and a few of them can be found below:
- Reduces stress
- Releases endorphins giving a more positive mental state
- Decreases feelings of anxiety and depression
- Boosts self-esteem
- Lowers blood pressure
- Increases energy levels
Also, from a grooming perspective, sweating actively removes impurities and excess oils from the skin (providing you clean yourself immediately after your workout) so you are less likely to suffer from spot outbreaks and flair ups. Finally, rest after exercise is of a significantly higher quality, both mentally and physically, meaning your body recovers more efficiently and you feel less tired.
So, strictly from the physical and mental merits of exercise you should feel a lot more confident as well as being happier with the way you look both in and out of clothing. Look after your body and it will look after you…
3) Dress How You Wish To Be Perceived
For me, this was the tricky one. We all grow up being dressed by our parents at a young age and this was often for the sake of warmth/comfort rather than style (though I have fond memories of dressing my Batman costume for a week when I was 6). Even through your teenage years, the average person is just attempting to find their own identity or trying to fit in with their friends. So when it comes to finding a style that represents your character, many can often be left stumped or clueless. How are you supposed to dress yourself well when you don’t know how what looks good on you?
For me, it was about trusting my gut instinct and dressing in the way I wanted others to perceive me. Not in some kind of “power style” business management course way, but the fact that I wanted to look as if I made the effort to dress smartly for those around me. This was far from a demand for attention, instead I wanted it to be a show of respect to others that I appreciate what they think of me and respect my time with them. After all, it was Tom Ford who said:
“Dressing well is a form of good manners.”
Take the time to dress yourself in a manner that gives off the impression you want to give, not what others think of you.
Thanks for checking out the post and make sure to let me know if you have any questions or feedback, you can also leave your own personal tips on how you build your confidence. Is it something big or just a small element of your everyday life?
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