How To Build Confidence As A Woman

The topic of “confidence” comes up a lot in our society. We hear this word pretty much thrown around everywhere, including the phrase “fake it till you make it,” but how do we actually practice building confidence?

Growing up, I struggled with low self-esteem, pretty severe social anxiety, and poor body image. For a good majority of my life, I rarely ever felt confident in who I was. No doubt, I felt frustrated, disappointed, and angry that I couldn’t seem to just “fake it till I made it.”

Friend, if you can relate, I just want you to know that you’re not alone. I’ve spent a great deal of my life struggling with this and confidence isn’t an inherent trait that people just have.

We, as humans, go through ups and downs in our lives that factor into how we view ourselves and our identities. There’s so many factors that play into someone’s level of confidence.

I hope this comforts you, knowing that confidence can always be attained. It’s not always linear, but you certainly can grow it.

By the end of this article, you will discover how you can start building confidence right away!

This post is all about how to avoid procrastination.

Tip #1: Approach your thoughts with curiosity

You might be wondering, what does curiosity have to do with confidence?! Let me explain.

Most people who have confidence are known to be less judgmental towards themselves. Instead, they tend to approach their thoughts and feelings with curiosity and compassion.

For example, I like to imagine myself as a scientist, being curious about negative emotions I feel or experience. Hmm, I’m feeling pretty anxious right now. That’s interesting. I wonder why I’m feeling this way.

Notice how different this “curious” mindset shift is compared to this one: Oh my gosh, I’m so anxious right now. This is awful. I just want to get out of here.

Obviously, shifting your mindset is easier said than done. It requires building up your awareness regarding your thoughts and feelings, which is not easy, especially since our brains have been trained to think a certain way. Rewiring our brains and shifting our mindsets involves resilience and persistence, which is not impossible!

Practical tip: The next time you feel a negative emotion or even a positive one, label your emotion and get curious about it. The goal is to approach them in a nonjudgmental way and think like a scientist!

Tip #2: Create an exposure list and choose 3 to do!

One of the biggest factors that come into play with self-confidence is taking risks. One who lacks confidence tends to be afraid of the outcome of taking risks. I mean, c’mon, taking risks is not an easy thing to do! There’s the possibility of rejection, judgment, and disapproval from others, which can be terrifying for many people.

I believe the best way to go about this if taking that big jump is too scary for you, is to create a list of exposures. Exposures are action tasks that you can practically do that make you feel anxious when you expose yourself to that particular situation.

For example, one exposure that I still have on my list is to call a restaurant to ask if they were open. Phone calls with strangers and even friends stress the heck out of me.

Often times, it’s because I worry if I sound awkward or socially incompetent when I talk. So I try to challenge myself to do this when I can until the exposure feels more bearable.

Eventually, the more you expose yourself to a certain situation such as continuing to make small talk or going to the gym by yourself, you gain confidence in yourself. What was seemingly terrifying starts to become easier because you’ve trained your mind to think, “I’m okay. This isn’t too bad. It’s bearable.”

So what are exposures or potential opportunities in your life that you can do?

Practical tip: Create an exposure list and choose 3 that make you slightly anxious, but manageable to do.

I challenge you to start small and work your way up to bigger exposures, whatever they may be.

I like to think of this in terms of exercise. If you’re a beginner at the gym, you probably won’t be repping pull-ups like it’s nothing. You’re probably going to have to start with assisted pull-ups and then ultimately work your way up to being able to do one-pull up, which is not an easy feat!

So think of your exposures as working out a certain muscle and slowly reaching towards your goal!

Tip #3: Raise your self-awareness levels

I think self-awareness is such a valuable skill to learn, especially when building self-confidence. We hear about self-care, self-love, and self-acceptance, which I believe are all valuable, necessities we need as human beings to thrive in society.

However, how can we build self-confidence is we aren’t aware of ourselves, our thoughts, emotions, and feelings?

Going back to the ‘fake it till you make it‘ phrase, it certainly can motivate someone to fake confidence in a certain situation. But let’s dig deeper than that. Why do we lack self-confidence? What goes on in your mind when you avoid eye contact with someone or are afraid to talk to someone?

If you notice your mind starts racing or your heart beats rapidly fast, take note of that.

Feelings are always triggered by thoughts. We subconsciously have thoughts that may be so automatic that we aren’t even aware of them. This is why it’s so helpful to start practicing the skill of self-awareness.

If you can start to notice what you’re actually thinking that’s causing you to feel negatively, then that’s where the magic happens. Eventually, you can start to rewire your brain to think more neutral and then positive thoughts, but it first starts with self-awareness. So how do we do this practically?

Practical tip: Pick a certain situation that happened recently to you that caused you to feel a negative emotion. Was it the way that person reacted to what you said? Or were you really anxious to make small talk with someone? Next, write down that situation and try your best to write down the thoughts you had before, during, and after the situation and how it made you felt.

I encourage you to do this consistently for a week by journaling your thoughts on a certain event that happened. As you start to reflect on your thoughts and feelings, you begin to raise your self-awareness levels.

Tip #4: Change up your wardrobe

Have you ever wore something you really liked and it just made you 10x more happier and confident?

Sometimes, what we wear on the outside can change how we feel on the outside. I know I keep talking about the gym (please forgive me), but I feel like whenever I wear a gym outfit that makes me feel comfortable and good, I start to feel more confident in myself.

Or maybe you’re not really the type to spend time dressing up and that’s so okay! This tip doesn’t have to apply to everyone. On the other hand, if you’ve never intentionally picked out a clothing item that you’ve been wanting to wear, but was too self-conscious about or didn’t think you could pull it off, I’d say just wear it!

Maybe this is the perfect time to change up your wardrobe and start wearing clothes that make you feel bold and confident. This could also be a goal of yours on your exposure list if changing up your wardrobe or wearing certain clothing pieces that you want to wear makes you feel anxious.

Practical tip: Choose a clothing piece you’ve been wanting to wear and rock it!! Confidence doesn’t happen before you wear it. It happens after the action as you start to keep doing it.

Tip #5: Re-evaluate your life right now

This last tip is more of a re-evaluation of your life so far – where you are right now. I want you to think about all aspects of your life: relationships, finance, mental health, physical health, work, etc.

Ask yourself, are you happy with where you’re at in these areas of your life? Are there any areas where you may be lacking in such as not prioritizing enough or maybe even prioritizing too much of? Or are there certain areas that are affecting your mental wellbeing such as toxic relationships or stressing over finances?

If you can take note of these areas that may be affecting your overall wellbeing, please try to refrain from judging yourself. Rather, I encourage you to give yourself as much kindness and compassion for just being an imperfect human being.

I know this isn’t easy for you, especially if you’re in a season of your life where it’s difficult to prioritize yourself. Are there any small things you can do to make yourself feel better? I think this is when self-compassion and self-care come into play. The more you show that you can acknowledge where you’re at in the moment, the more loving you’ll be towards yourself. And that’s where confidence grows.

Practical tip: List out the areas in your life and what is stressing or affecting you negatively. Also, write down the positives of any areas that are helping your wellbeing.

For example, if going on nature walks has been helping you physically and mentally, maybe you can do more of that throughout your week. Being able to visually see your priorities, will help you to better understand and reflect on what is helpful and what could possibly be changed.

This post was all about how to build confidence as a woman.

Conclusion

So to wrap this post up, I wanted to recap with these five tips to building self-confidence:

• First, approach your thoughts with curiosity just like a scientist would with experiments.

• Second, create an exposure list and gradually build your way to bigger exposures.

• Third, practice journaling your thoughts and feelings to raise your self-awareness skill.

• Fourth, try changing up your wardrobe because you never know how amazing you’ll feel when wearing a certain clothing piece!

• Fifth, take time to reflect on areas of your life and evaluate if specific changes need to be made to benefit your overall wellbeing.

Thank you so much fo reading! If you found any tips helpful, please let me know in the comments down below. 🙂