4 Ways To Build Self Confidence

Cheerleader designed by Marie Coons from the Noun Project

We all want our work to speak for itself, but sometimes we need to speak up for our work — pitches, client meetings and interviews are a handful of scenarios that require us to express self-confidence. While we know what confident people look like and act like, we don’t always know how they get there. One Login’s Director of Design, Chloë Bregman says that self confidence comes from having a strong sense and value of self, and understanding that you are of value to the world.

She shares four simple ways to build self-confidence:

Take Up Space

Take up more physical space in the world. Stand like you rule all of the apes, are king of the world, and can fly! Do this for 2 min every day preferably before doing whatever it is you want to be more confident doing.

Breathe Expansively

Learn to breathe expansively. Just as one key to projecting confidence is taking up space physically, another key is being able to take up space internally with your breath. The yogis have had this figured out for hundreds of years .

See It & Believe It 

Visualize yourself doing what you want to do with confidence. This is a technique we are stealing from elite athletes. The secret to this technique is not picturing yourself confident in the one moment when you have to execute; the real benefits come from picturing yourself confidently working up to the point when you need to shine.

Be Your Cheerleader

Change your internal story of yourself to change your world. Turn off the voice that puts you down inside your head. There are enough people who will not support you in the world. You can’t control those people. They exist. You can control whether or not you let them into your head.

Follow these steps regularly to boost your confidence. Head over to Medium to read the rest of Bregman’s post. For more perspective, watch Dr. Ivan Joseph’s TEDx talk, “The Skill of Self Confidence.”