How can I develop my self-confidence? How can we stop letting a lack of self-confidence ruin our lives? Because confidence is essential if we are to build a life that reflects who we are and what we love. It helps us to make the right decisions and, above all, to take action. But how can we regain it? Here are 21 things you can do!

1 – Building self-confidence: talking to each other

For me, the most important thing you can do to develop your self-confidence is to talk to yourself.

What does that mean?

Talking to yourself means stopping being harshly critical of yourself, stopping picking out your mistakes and harping on them over and over again.

Because a lack of confidence means that negative thoughts and words about ourselves are repeated over and over again.

In fact, let’s understand that self-confidence isn’t something that just falls into our laps, it’s not something innate, a resource we are or aren’t born with.

Self-confidence is a positive outlook, encouraging thoughts that we nurture day after day.

In other words, self-confidence comes from within. It’s something we give ourselves, something we develop.

That’s why I wholeheartedly invite you to take some time every day. 2-3 minutes to check in with yourself: “How am I doing? What’s going on inside me?”

Then take the time to reassure and encourage yourself as you would someone you love.

When someone close to you doubts or criticizes themselves, you don’t let them. You talk to them and reassure them.

Do the same for yourself.

In fact, developing self-confidence is above all knowing how to talk to yourself as if you were a friend.

2 – Congratulate yourself

We haven’t learned to congratulate ourselves. We’ve learned to wait for praise. But in adulthood, congratulations are few and far between.

What’s more, we’ve learned to criticize ourselves. And, as adults, we criticize ourselves a lot!

In other words, it’s not surprising that we suffer from a lack of self-confidence.

Indeed, if we never congratulate ourselves and criticize ourselves all the time, how can we believe in ourselves? How can we take a positive, encouraging look at ourselves?

That’s why, to develop your self-confidence, I wholeheartedly invite you to learn how to congratulate yourself.

In concrete terms, every evening, take a moment to congratulate yourself for 3 things: “Today, I congratulate myself for…”

Set yourself an alarm to think about it.

3 – Building self-confidence: complimenting yourself

Complimenting yourself and congratulating yourself are two different things, but they’re both essential for developing your self-confidence.

In fact, complimenting yourself will help you gain self-confidence as a person. You’ll see your worth as a human being.

Because, we compliment ourselves on our qualities, on what we exude, on what we embody rather than on what we do. And that feels really good.

Because it’s essential to understand that we don’t always have to do things to be a good person. We are, no more and no less.

That’s why I wholeheartedly invite you to give yourself a different compliment every day than you did the day before.

Discover your qualities.

If you don’t know, you can look up a list of qualities on the Internet, pick one at random and ask yourself to what extent you embody that quality.

By asking yourself this question, you’ll discover some very beautiful things about yourself and develop your self-confidence.

4 – Forgive yourself

Too often, we dwell on our mistakes. But they’re part of the past, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

What’s more, making mistakes is human. It happens to everyone, every day.

But we can’t get them out of our heads, and that undermines our self-confidence.

So what can we do about it?

I wholeheartedly invite you to learn to forgive yourself. To do so, take advantage of your daily time when you talk to yourself as if to a friend, and if you notice that you’re blaming yourself for a mistake, forgive yourself.

Forgiving yourself means understanding that making mistakes is part of life, and that just because we make mistakes doesn’t mean we’re bad people.

To help you in your work of forgiveness, you can make a commitment. In other words, you become aware of your mistake and, thanks to it, you commit to doing things differently next time.

In concrete terms, this means: “I made this mistake on this day. I forgive myself for it. From now on, this is what I want to do.

5 – Building self-confidence: accepting imperfections

You have weaknesses and flaws, and that’s normal. Just like every other person on earth.

In fact, developing self-confidence means accepting your imperfections, accepting that you’re not perfect and that you never will be.

It’s also about understanding that we don’t have to be perfect to be good people.

I wholeheartedly invite you to repeat this to yourself regularly: “I don’t need to be perfect to be a good person and to be loved.”

6 – Love yourself with all your heart

Developing self-confidence also means understanding that you don’t have to be perfect to love yourself.

In fact, the trap of self-development is to believe that we can be perfect, so instead of loving ourselves more, we reject ourselves even more.

So don’t fall into the trap of perfection and self-rejection.

Breathe and love yourself with all your heart. Just as you are.

Because it’s in peace that you’ll be able to move forward, grow and evolve.

Rejection only reinforces what you wish to escape or erase.

7 – Take action

Too often, we wait until we feel confident before taking action. When it should be the other way around.

In fact, it’s normal to lack self-confidence when we’re about to do something for the first time, something that frightens us.

And it’s because we dare to take action that we feel confident. Not the other way around.

So don’t wait, take action! Take a step. Take your first action. Totally imperfect, clumsy. That’s how you’ll develop your self-confidence.

8 – Developing self-confidence: laughing at yourself

Other people’s remarks scare us, because they hurt us. In fact, as soon as someone points out one of our mistakes, weaknesses or faults, we feel terrible.

But how about a laugh?

Remember, you don’t have to be perfect, so stop taking yourself so seriously.

Get to know your flaws, accept them, love them. Then laugh at yourself.

Because developing self-confidence means knowing who you are. It’s knowing our shadows and our light, and it’s loving everything about ourselves.

9 – Not listening to others

Other people mess with our heads. Because others aren’t us. When they talk to us, they’re not talking about us, they’re talking about themselves. About their fears and their dreams.

So why do we keep asking their opinion?

Because we believe that others know us better than we know ourselves.

So stop listening to others and listen to yourself: what do you think? What do you want? And what do you dream of? What are your fears? What can you do to overcome them?

Always come back to yourself.

10 – Make it a daily habit

Building self-confidence is a daily habit!

In other words, talking to yourself, congratulating yourself, complimenting yourself, forgiving yourself, listening to yourself, accepting yourself, loving yourself – it’s a daily habit!

That’s why you need to learn how to set up good daily habits.

It won’t happen overnight, because you’re going to have to test yourself, find the times that suit you best and even the ways you like best.

11 – Develop your self-confidence: surround yourself with the right people

We are the sum of the 5 people we come into contact with most. In other words, if you rub shoulders with people who are negative and lack confidence, chances are you won’t develop self-confidence.

What can you do about it?

See less of the people who invade you with their negative energy and see more of the people who make you feel good.

It doesn’t have to be real contact. You can watch videos, read articles or books by people who make you feel good.

In fact, feed on words that make you feel good! Look for them everywhere, in every form.

12 – Get inspired

Developing self-confidence is a daily task. It’s a matter of establishing small habits and making them part of your daily routine.

But everyday life often takes over: bad habits, stress, time and energy thieves.

That’s why I wholeheartedly invite you to always have a book to hand, a book that boosts and motivates you, a book that inspires you to love yourself and see the positive in yourself.

I also invite you to have quotes in front of you, all the time.

13 – Change your view of failure

Developing self-confidence means rethinking your view of failure.

First and foremost, past failures. Instead of feeling ashamed or frustrated, look for the lessons: what did they teach you about yourself, about life?

Then change your outlook on future failures. Too often, when you have an idea, you immediately see its failure, so you give up before you’ve even tried.

So how do you go about it?

Failure is part of learning.

We can go even further: is failure really failure? Isn’t it just another step?

Because we human beings are impatient, and we even believe that everything is supposed to happen exactly the way we want it to.

But isn’t failure simply the reality we don’t accept?

Failure is not failure. It’s what’s in the moment. It’s the reality that differs from our desire. All we have to do is accept it, and learn from it if necessary.

14 – Developing confidence in life

Developing self-confidence also means developing confidence in life. How can you have confidence in yourself if you don’t have the impression that life is angry with you, that it wants to punish you?

In fact, it’s all about understanding that life isn’t always easy, because it’s full of obstacles and trials. But above all, life is a miracle, a gift that is offered to us day after day.

That’s why I wholeheartedly invite you to see the gifts, the magic, to develop gratitude towards life.

15 – Develop trust in others

The question is the same: how can we have confidence in ourselves when we spend our time believing that others will hurt us?

Because the problem isn’t other people. Indeed, others only have power over you if you agree with them.

In other words, if you trust your heart and its resilience, then you don’t have to be afraid of others.

Understand that others are not here to hurt you, and that if one day it should happen, believe that your grief will be surmountable. Your heart is strong.

It’s not distrust that heals, it’s love. So don’t be afraid to love and trust.

16 – Develop determination and courage

We wait until we have self-confidence to believe in our projects. But often, our projects and our self-confidence are just waiting for our determination and courage.

So, what does it mean to be determined and courageous?

It’s believing in your dreams, in your projects, and telling yourself that whatever happens, however long it takes, you’ll get there.

It’s a belief, a cry from the heart!

Because developing self-confidence means knowing how to show determination and courage. Not the other way around.

17 – Finding the balance between acceptance and perseverance

Not everything in life goes according to plan. You know that. We all do.

And we don’t like it. We don’t like to fail, we don’t like to wait, we don’t like to adapt, and we like even less to accept things we can’t change.

Yet we’re here to learn. No more, no less.

So what does this have to do with self-confidence?

It’s because we often say to ourselves, “I lack self-confidence”, and I’m not going to know how to cope if things don’t go according to plan.

Here, it’s not a question of self-confidence, but of perseverance.

Because it’s perseverance that will give you self-confidence, not the other way round.

That’s why, when things don’t go according to plan, accept them and persevere!

18 – Developing your self-confidence: learning

Developing self-confidence means never stopping learning.

It even means never stopping doing things for the first time and discovering new areas.

We’ve learned to stay in our comfort zone. We reassure ourselves by saying: life is stressful and exhausting enough to bother learning new things.

But learning is life!

When we stop learning, it’s as if we’re already dead.

What’s more, when we learn, we feel proud of ourselves, more sure of ourselves. Our understanding of ourselves, others and the world around us deepens, and we feel stronger.

And more humble too. Because as we learn, we also realize that we have so much more to learn, and that it won’t be enough in just one lifetime.

In other words, developing self-confidence also means developing humility.

Because believing in yourself isn’t about believing you’re the best, it’s about seeing that you’re doing the best you can.

19 – Dreaming

Developing self-confidence means allowing yourself to dream and to follow your dreams.

Because we’re not here to live a life like everyone else, we’re here to live a life that suits us and excites us.

I’m not talking about meeting with success or recognition, I’m talking about meeting with our joie de vivre, listening to it and living it. Every day.

In fact, it’s hard to have self-confidence in a day-to-day life that doesn’t resemble us. In which we pretend to belong and to be happy.

But it’s so much easier to feel confident when we’ve chosen and built a daily life that’s just like us.

That’s why follow your joy and your dreams.

20 – Thinking about death

Developing self-confidence means thinking about death, your own death.

One day, you’re going to die. We all do.

Thinking about it can be frightening, but it’s so inspiring. Indeed, death invites us to make better decisions and to dare!

To dare to be ourselves, to dare to dream, to dare to love!

That’s why I wholeheartedly invite you to think about your own death on a regular basis, so that you can regain your self-confidence.

21 – Going back

It’s not always good to think about the past, but sometimes it’s essential!

In fact, you may be doubting yourself right now. It’s perfectly normal. It happens to everyone, every day.

That’s why I wholeheartedly invite you to go back in time. Visit the you of 10 years ago, 5 years ago even.

See how much you’ve grown since then, how much you’ve learned.

Thank the person you once were, and realize that she did her best to be who you are today.

Just as the you of today is doing its best for the you of tomorrow.

Think “progress”, “learning”, “evolution”.

You’re learning. So take a deep breath and go for it.

Because building self-confidence is all about taking a deep breath and overcoming obstacles, one by one.

Find out more:

I invite you to read these 2 complementary articles:

Discover Fear of judgment: 7 tips to stop being afraid of being judged
Discover Self-love: the magic routine for loving yourself a little more every day

I recommend this inspiring book:

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
The story of Eddie, an amusement park maintenance worker, learning valuable life lessons from the five people he meets in paradise, explores themes of interconnectedness, meaning and confidence in one’s impact on others.
This is one of those stories that won me over from the very first page. It’s one of those books you can’t put down. I love the way it’s written, starting with an ending. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to feel happy and connected to themselves and the world around them.

Thank you very much for reading this article.

If you liked it, let me know in the comments.

Take care of yourself