How To Be Self-Confident? 6 Easy-To-Practice Exercises

How can I be sure of myself? How can we avoid being influenced by others? We’d all like to live our own lives and make our own choices without feeling guilty. In reality, however, we tend to want to please and sometimes even forget ourselves completely to avoid arguments. That’s why I’m sharing 6 exercises to help you assert yourself.

1 – How to be assertive and self-assured?

“Here’s what I think, here’s how I feel, here’s how I see the situation. But I’m willing to listen and try to understand what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, how you see the situation.”

That’s what assertiveness is all about. In other words, we give ourselves the right to exist, while granting the other the right to exist. It’s the key to long-term happiness and, above all, to a genuine relationship with the other person.

“Because I am a unique being
My body is unique and my life experience is unique. No one has the same physical characteristics as I do, and no one has experienced the same things as I have.

In other words, no one can have the same interactions as me in the same situation. My perceptions, feelings, desires, needs, opinions, tastes and knowledge are my own! No one can know or feel them at the same time or in the same situation as I do.

That’s why nobody can act the way I do. Others can’t force me to act as they wish, just as I can’t ask others to act as I do.

“But I am limited”
However, this also means that I am limited. My perception of things, of others, is not THE truth. In fact, there are as many possible “truths”, perceptions and points of view as there are living people on earth.

In concrete terms, this means that if at any time I’m in the presence of someone I find aggressive, I can say: “I find you aggressive. It’s my perception and my right to assert myself. But I can’t say: “You’re aggressive”.

I don’t have perfect knowledge of the other person’s reality, I only have my own limited point of view. The other person may well not find himself aggressive, it’s his own perception.

Possessive relationships VS liberating relationships
Asserting yourself means giving yourself the chance to experience liberating relationships rather than possessive ones.

A possessive relationship arises when we think that to be in a relationship with someone, we have to make sure that we like the same things and think the same way.

In this type of relationship, self-assertion is not allowed, and people stop themselves from being who they are. Generally, in the long term, happiness doesn’t survive, as we feel guilty, cornered and wake up one morning wondering: “Who am I?”

When we assert ourselves, express and satisfy our own needs, and understand that the other needs to do the same, we have a chance of experiencing a liberating relationship. Why is this a chance?

When we live in a liberating relationship, we’ve understood that the other person can help us evolve by sharing his or her unique and limited point of view with us. What’s more, experiencing a liberating relationship makes us happier, because we have more self-confidence and feel freer.

2 – How to communicate more effectively for greater self-confidence?

What is good communication?
Good communication is when the other person understands our message the way we want them to. In reality, this is no easy task.

Indeed, when we say “I’m tired”, the person in front of us doesn’t have all the information. They may understand that we need to help, and become agitated, whereas we wanted to say “I’m going to bed”.

When we deliver our message, we’re responsible for clearly stating our intention (what we want, how we feel) and asking the other person to confirm that they’ve understood.

Self-confident communication principles
First of all, there are a few principles to remember:

I’m not in the other person’s head
The other person is not in my head either
I have the right to say what I think and feel, without holding the other person responsible and with respect.
I have a duty to listen to the other’s response
I have the right to say no
The other has the right to say no to me

What is my intention?
To communicate your intention (what you want, how you feel), you need to know yourself.

How do I feel physically and emotionally? How does my breathing feel?
What do I really want? Can I give clear information or formulate a precise request?
Reflecting on our intention before addressing the other person is a great way to be sure of ourselves.

What we say is based on what we really think and feel. We’ve taken the time to put into words what’s inside us right now, and we’re better able to say it with confidence and sincerity.

What’s more, to communicate well, we need to realize that in our message, we need to use the “I”: I feel, I think, it seems to me, I find that.

By avoiding saying: YOU ARE like that, we prevent the other person from feeling attacked and therefore having no choice but to flee or attack us in return. In other words, no relationship is possible and our message won’t be heard.

Ask for confirmation
Next, let’s ask the other person for confirmation that they’ve understood correctly, to avoid any confusion or assumptions.

What do you think? What exactly do you understand? How do you feel about what I’ve just told you?
Of course, asking for, formulating and receiving confirmation is no easy matter, but since we’ve just given ourselves the right to say what we think and feel, we need to grant the other person that right.

3 – How to be self-assured? 6 assertiveness exercises

Being self-assured, accepting that we have the right to satisfy our needs, express our ideas and tastes, while respecting others, can be learned!

That’s why I’m proposing 6 exercises:

1 – Relax

Feeling relaxed is essential to feeling confident.

When interacting with people, we can feel stressed. Our bodies – shoulders, hands and jaw in particular – tense up and become tense.

To communicate well with others, to take the right to express our needs and ideas, knowing how to relax is essential. For good communication, words alone don’t count. Our body speaks for us.

What can we do to relax? Regularly throughout the day:

Ask ourselves: How do I feel physically?
Take the time to: relax our hands by opening them fully and moving our fingers, relax our shoulders: lower them away from our ears and breathe calmly and deeply!
If you’re feeling anxious about an experience (a meeting, an interview, a first date), take the time to relax your hands and shoulders, breathe deeply and smile gently.

2 – Having the right inner dialogue for self-confidence

Knowing how to speak kindly to yourself is essential for self-confidence.

We have trouble asserting ourselves and communicating because of our own thoughts. Indeed, we can tend to say to ourselves:

If I do what I want or say what I think, people won’t like me anymore.
If I refuse a favor, people will think I’m selfish.
And if I take time for myself, people will think I’m lazy.
If I’m criticized, they’ll think I’m good for nothing.
In fact, we mistreat ourselves! Why don’t we stop? Let’s talk to each other like friends. When one of our friends doubts himself, what do we do? We reassure them! We’re not trying to put his head under water, are we?

Let’s take the time every day to reassure ourselves before, during and after an interaction that makes us particularly anxious.

3 – Learn to make conversation

Being assertive and communicative also means learning the art of conversation. There are a few simple rules to follow:

Spot the signals of openness: if a person doesn’t look you in the eye, has his arms crossed, is breathing impatiently, it’s clearly not the right time to start or continue a conversation. Let’s move on!
Ask open-ended questions: Getting to know others is an important part of good communication. There’s nothing better than asking real questions that start with: why, how, when, where, with whom?
Giving information about yourself: There’s nothing more frustrating for someone (and I speak from experience) than talking about yourself to another person who reveals nothing about you. You feel like you’re being spied on. If we get to know someone, we have to reveal ourselves in return at the same level.
Of course, making conversation can be scary. But once we know each other well, we can be confident. Indeed, if we can talk about ourselves, our passions and our dreams, why should we be afraid of starting a conversation?

On a regular basis, we can take stock of our lives with ourselves:

What am I doing, what am I experiencing, on a professional, personal or family level?
Why am I doing it?
What would I like?

4 – Knowing how to ask and refuse for self-confidence

How can I be sure of myself? By being able to ask!

Do you know the saying: “Alone, we go faster. Together, we go farther!” I love it. We need others. That’s why it requires us to adapt, and when we can’t, we need to make requests of others.

When we want to ask for something, here are a few rules to follow:

Identify clearly what we want. This requires us to take responsibility for our needs, which can be scary. Who am I to ask for this? My answer is that we have every right! Our needs are just as important as those of others. If we need help with the dishes or anything else, let’s ask!
Make your request clear and brief. No need to get bogged down in details and justifications.
Let’s ask and leave the other person free and responsible for his or her response.
Be prepared to negotiate.
Being assertive also means knowing how to refuse a request.

Just as the person in front of us is free to accept or refuse our request, so are we. And we don’t need to justify ourselves or get bogged down in details.

Refusal doesn’t have to be a categorical no. It can mean proposing something else or doing things differently.

No, I can’t look after your children this Saturday. I can next Saturday.
No, I can’t finish the job tonight, but I’d suggest coming in early tomorrow morning.

5 – Learn to respond to criticism to assert yourself

Knowing how to respond to criticism is essential for self-assurance.

So when I write to you, it doesn’t mean that we’re turning into pit bulls and charging straight at them. Rather, our aim is to draw inspiration from the Dalai Lama.

What to do when faced with criticism?

Accept that we can’t be loved by everyone all the time. If we don’t accept this and try to please everyone, we’ll end up not liking ourselves.
Understanding that behind a criticism lies a mistake that gives us the opportunity to evolve.
That’s why we have to listen to criticism, then decide whether or not we want to change. We have the right to want nothing to change.
Let’s stop believing that we’re perfect and that we never make mistakes. Nobody believes us, not even us (laughs).
You’re probably wondering, “But how do you listen to criticism?”

Knowing how to listen to criticism is quite an art, and we’ll need to be kind to ourselves and willing!

Listen carefully to the criticism, while remaining silent and looking at the person.
Check that we’ve understood correctly: “If I’ve understood correctly, you think that…
Remain calm, i.e. don’t become desperate or enraged.
Respond simply and clearly to criticism. Don’t criticize the other person in return. Don’t seek revenge or ridicule. And don’t exaggerate or minimize what the other person says.
Admit our mistake without feeling inferior: either by saying that it rarely happens to us, or that we’re trying to change our habit or behavior, or that it doesn’t seem important to change.
We can also offer to fix our mistake.

6 – Learn to give criticism

I’ve found this exercise powerful, so let me know what you think.

Before making a criticism, we need to realize one thing: we’re the ones with the problem!

In other words, if we’re annoyed by the other person’s behavior, we’ve got a problem. It’s not the other person.

That’s why we have to say “I” and “You”.
Example:

We prefer to make a criticism like this: “When you whistle while I’m reading, it annoys me a lot. I can’t concentrate.”
Rather than: “Are you stupid or what to whistle like that. Can’t you see I’m reading? You’re so selfish!”
Understanding that when we feel an unpleasant emotion, we’re the ones with the problem helps us avoid blaming the other person. This makes it easier to find a solution or compromise.

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