Team Me! – Build Self-Confidence

by becoming your own Best Friend

In today’s world, posting about our achievements and life in social media is the norm. The logic is – If I don’t post my stuff, who will? How will people know all these things about me?

It is actually a very smart thing to do as you can create your own brand and showcase your values successfully on social media.

Photo credits: Unsplash & Canva

What about you as a person? Who is there to encourage you, to support you, to cheer you on, regardless of what happens?

Do your friends and relatives have that much time to spend on you? They are busy trying to live their busy lives!

Who can be called on to promote you?

YOU!!!

YOU are that one person whom you can and must depend on to be on your side always!

Team ME

Make a pact to be in your team, on your side, always. If you don’t support yourself, how can you expect others to do so? If you don’t believe in yourself, how will everyone else trust you?

What are the benefits of building a team with yourself? It will help you develop and maintain deep self-confidence. The confident person is the one who trusts himself, is authentic and becomes successful.

Here are some tried and tested methods to build Team ME!

1. Spend time with Yourself everyday

2. Find and Live your Values

3. Be kind to Yourself

Let’s find out how to apply these practically.

Spend time with Yourself everyday

This is non-negotiable. Set a time every day to just enjoy your own company. You can make it special – have a cup of coffee and relax with yourself. Some like to begin the day spending 30 minutes with themselves. Others like to end the day with quiet time for reflection. Choose whatever works for you. Personally, I like the early morning time as I find that it sets the tone for my day with positivity.

What can you do during this time? Plenty!

a. Meditate – Start with a few minutes of meditation to quiet your mind and focus on the present moment.

b. I like to write my affirmations next.

An affirmation is a positive statement written in the present tense.

It can be about what you want to happen in your life.

Eg. I am fit, energetic and make healthy food choices everyday.

Or they can be about an event which is part of this day.
Eg. My presentation today is a success and I am able to answer all the questions fluently.

There are plenty of suggestions available on the internet. I also created my own! Feel free to use words which resonate with you.

Reading recommendation: The Magic by Rhonda Byrne – You can ‘do’ the book as you read each day’s affirmation topics.

c. Journal – Here is where I like to practice free writing. I just put pen to paper and pour out my thoughts, dreams, hopes, goals. I also write out any frustrations or worries that I have. Get it all out of my system! Then I write about how I want this day to be and how I will feel (calm, happy, productive, etc).

d. Goal tracking- A journal is also a great way to keep track of all your goals. I have included daily trackers, spending trackers, and I also add my appointments and tasks.

Recommendation: I have been using Bullet Journal for a few years now and love it! You can read the book The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carrol to learn more about this system.

Find Your Values

What are your guiding principles? What is your north star? What are the truths that you live by? Who do you want to be?

I know, this is all such ‘heavy’ stuff! But there is an easy way to find out all this.

Write down all the values that resonate with you. For eg. Integrity, love, responsibility, punctuality, etc. Now rank each of these and you will get an idea of what drives you.

This exercise can be repeated every 6 months. You will be surprised by how some new values appear and others fall down in ranking!

For me, I found self-love taking first place all of a sudden. And new values appear, like empathy.

Try it, you will be surprised!

Now comes the tough part – where you have to take action!

Each day, see how you uphold your top 3 values. If you have written respect as your top 3, then are you practising respect? Are you showing love and compassion to others in the way you behave every single day?

By being aware of our values, we will slowly align our life to become more authentic. And an authentic person is the most self-confident one!

Be Kind to Yourself

a. Speak Gently and Lovingly

Honey catches more flies than vinegar. Soft, sweet gentle words always get the work done. Talk to yourself like you would to your best friend, child and (sometimes) spouse. Encourage yourself – write down all the things you accomplished every day. Just seeing the amount of stuff you are able to get done in a day is a great confidence booster!

b. Don’t put yourself down

Be aware of how you speak to yourself. Do you always scold yourself? You are so stupid! Can’t even finish a job on time! You are so clumsy! You are so……… you get the drift!

Instead, try to be positive and uplifting. Imagine you are speaking to your friend or a child. Will you shout and scold and glare and get angry? No way! Then why are you doing it to yourself?

This job is taking way more time than I realised. I will be so proud of myself when I finish this. I feel bad that I dropped my favourite cup. Accidents happen. Next time, I will be more careful.

c. Cheer Yourself on to complete tasks

Remember, you are part of Team You! A team always cheers each other. One way I do this is to speak with myself. What?? You don’t? Try it, you will have really fun conversations!

It could go something like this:

Me (Walking): I really can’t walk anymore! Maybe I should stop.

Me: Don’t stop now! You only have 5 more minutes! You can do this!

Me (Huffing and puffing): (Huff!) Only 5 more (Puff!) minutes? Alright (Sigh!).

Me: Go girl! You are a star!

Me (Gasping for breath): Stop it will you, that’s enough for the day!

Me: (Laughing in my mind, of course) Yes ma’am!

Mission accomplished! That’s one for Team You! 😊

Deep Self-Confidence is built step by step and by practising small steps every day, you can build a deep reservoir of self-confidence. The 3 detailed here are easy to start with and practical to use.

1. Spend time with Yourself everyday

2. Find and Live your Values

3. Be kind to Yourself

When you know who you are on the inside, when you are clear on your values, and are conscious of living those values – that’s when you bloom into your authentic self. Here is where your self-confidence is the strongest – it overflows, it allows you to make clear decisions, to take action, and to move towards your goals.

Wishing you an authentic life, full of self-confidence, love and success!

All photo credits: Unsplash & Canva