7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Self-Confidence

Being confident isn’t always easy. If you want to improve your self-confidence, don’t worry: it’s completely doable.

In our comprehensive guide, we’ll give you all the information and tools you need to boost your self-confidence — in just seven steps.

What Is Self-Confidence?

Self-confidence is your own belief and attitude toward yourself and your capabilities. When you’re self-confident, you’re proud and trust yourself completely. Because of that, you also tend to have an optimistic, positive perspective when you’re confident in yourself. 

Self-esteem vs. self-confidence

The line between self-esteem and self-confidence is thin because they tend to overlap. Still, that doesn’t mean they’re the same. 

While self-esteem refers to how you value and respect yourself, self-confidence includes the faith you have in yourself and your capabilities.  

Even so, the two terms really go hand-in-hand.

Self-confidence synonyms

If you’re unfamiliar with what self-confidence means, sometimes a few synonyms can help shed light on the meaning. 

Some of the best self-confidence synonyms include: 

• Belief in oneself
• Self-assurance
• Inner strength
• Self-reliance
• Positive self-image

Signs You Have Low Self-Confidence

Low-self confidence means that you have trouble trusting yourself and others because you don’t feel confident in yourself. 

Signs you have low-confidence could include things like: 

• Having trouble hearing criticism about yourself
• Feeling inferior, sad, ashamed, worthless, anxious, depressed, or even angry
• Experiencing self-doubt
• Having a hard time accepting compliments
• Becoming upset when someone else disapproves 
• Steering clear of tasks or obstacles only because you’re afraid you’ll fail

If you do think you have low self-confidence, there’s no need to stress. There are plenty of simple, easy ways to boost your self-confidence.

7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Self-Confidence

If you’re looking to improve your self-confidence, look no further. We’ve simplified the best ways to improve your confidence in yourself in just seven simple ways. 

Here are the seven best ways to boost your self-confidence.

1. Recognize your own strengths.

Recognizing and acknowledging your own strengths and “wins” is very important to boosting and maintaining your self-confidence. Knowing what you’re best at emphasizes your abilities and helps you visualize your achievements better. This includes celebrating your own accomplishments and following your progress. 

If you don’t immediately know what your personal strengths are, that’s totally OK. Here are some helpful ways you can recognize and identify your strengths: 

• Ask your friends and family members what they think your strengths are
• Take a personality test like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), or DISC to see what general strengths your personality type is likely to have
• Take some time to figure out what you like most and why you like them (this can jog your memory and help you realize your skills)

2. Practice your impromptu speaking skills.

You might not be surprised to find out that your own self-confidence is often tied to your ability to communicate effectively. One of the best ways to improve your self-confidence is to work on your communication skills. 

To improve your view of yourself and your abilities, try working with an AI speech coach like Yoodli. 

Yoodli uses AI technology to analyze your speech and speaking patterns when you upload or record a video of yourself talking. As part of its analysis, you’ll get not only a full transcript of what was said, but also specific metrics and insights to your own speech. 

For example, you’ll automatically get specific data on things like your:

• Speaking pace
• Word choice (including filler word usage)
• Body language 
• Cohesiveness

This speech coach also gives you clear, actionable feedback. That might be to slow down when you’re speaking, to avoid using as many filler words, or even to reword sections of your speech to improve the flow. 

Using Yoodli during virtual work meetings can also be insightful, too. By using Private Yoodli, you can take a look at these metrics and analytics during an actual meeting. Plus, this speech coach can give you tips in real-time to improve your speech, so you’ll be more confident than ever. 

Learn more about how that works below:

3. Read some self-confidence books.

Sometimes, reading about self-confidence and methods to improve can make a world of difference. Luckily, there’s tons of research and literature about having confidence and faith in yourself, so you’ll have an entire library of potential books to choose from.

Some of the best self-confidence books include titles like: 

• “The Confidence Effect: Every Woman’s Guide to the Attitude That Attracts Success” by Grace Killelea
• “You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life” by Jen Sincero
• “The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance” by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay
• “Wire Your Brain for Confidence: The Science of Conquering Self-Doubt” by Louisa Jewell
• “Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life” by Gary John Bishop
• “Ten Days to Self-Esteem” by David D. Burns

If you still find yourself needing some inspiration, check out these seven best motivational speeches.

4. Set (realistic) goals for yourself. 

Setting goals is easy, but setting realistic goals? That’s a bit more difficult. Setting a realistic goal means identifying what you need to accomplish and how. Experts recommend setting SMART goals, an acronym that can be defined as follows:

• S for “specific”
• M for “measurable”
• A for “attainable”
• R for “relevant”
• T for “time-bound”

To make the goals a bit more visible, try writing them down along with any steps you’ve identified to work towards them. If you appreciate lists, you can organize the steps into a checklist and check them off as you go, so you can visually see your progress. 

Remember, perfection in humans doesn’t exist. It’s the same with the phrase “practice makes perfect.” Instead, a better phrase to use might be “practice makes progress.” 

5. Learn to say no.

Saying no can be incredibly difficult. However, learning to say no to things you don’t want to do (or can’t do) is a must to boost your self-confidence. 

First one thing, you’ll feel more confident in yourself that you even have the strength to say no. But beyond that, learning to say no ensures that you don’t take on too much work, take on work you hate, or work that you don’t have time for. This keeps your life less stressful and you’ll be proud of your ability to decline requests from people when needed. 

6. Express your needs.

One of the biggest mistakes people make with self-confidence is not expressing their needs, emotions, and feelings. Hiding or feeling uncomfortable expressing yourself is tied to low confidence. 

Expressing your needs could apply to anything. Although it certainly applies to romantic relationships, it can also refer to professional relationships, friendships, or even just to the person waiting on your table at a restaurant. 

You’ll improve your confidence when you’re able to voice any concerns, needs, or emotions and have faith in yourself while doing so.

7. Stop making assumptions.

Making assumptions can seriously harm your confidence. On the other hand, actively ceasing to make assumptions can boost your self-confidence. Making assumptions about other people, situations, or even just yourself is a slippery slope that leads to a lack of confidence. 

You might be surprised to realize how often you make assumptions, especially about other people. For example, you might be afraid to speak up and ask questions at work or school. 

Your first thought may be, “But what if everyone thinks I’m dumb for asking this question?” By thinking this, you’re automatically making an assumption that everyone in the room will question your intelligence and competence merely because you asked a question. 

If you go into work without assuming that, you’ll feel much more self-assured asking questions, for example. 

Although it’s easier said than done, taking a moment to recognize assumptions you make about yourself, other people, or situations can help you avoid a ding to your confidence. 

Why Is Self-Confidence Important?

Self-confidence is important because research shows that having confidence in yourself improves not only your social life, but also your health. And these benefits aren’t just brief — they’re long-term benefits. 

Researchers found that people who have high levels of self-confidence often have: 

• Better mental health
• Fruitful relationships 
• Improved physical health
• Improved success at work or school

These are just a few reasons why self-confidence is important, but there are plenty of other benefits you can reap from boosting your confidence in yourself. 

Best Self-Confidence Quotes

Before we wrap up, here are the best self-confident quotes to inspire and motivate you. 

If you’re feeling low or having trouble with motivation, some of the following self-confidence quotes might help: 

• “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive and do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” –Maya Angelou
• “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” –e e cummings
• “Your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.” –Michelle Obama
• “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” –Vincent Van Gogh
• “It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.” –Sally Field
• “Always be yourself — express yourself, have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” –Bruce Lee
• “You have no control over other people’s taste, so focus on staying true to your own.” ­–Tim Gunn
• “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” –Oscar Wilde
• “Tear off the mask, your face is glorious.” –Rumi

Next time you’re feeling low, try reading or even saying some of these self-confidence quotes aloud — it’s an easy way to “trick” your mind into feeling a bit more positive about yourself. 

The Bottom Line

Self-confidence is incredibly important and should be a life goal for everyone to improve their own self-confidence. The benefits are essentially endless and the actual process of building up your own confidence doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

By following the above seven ways to improve your self-confidence, you’ll be able to start your own journey to improvement. Just remember to have patience with yourself and to recognize that every person is on their own journey.