Improving Self

Self Improvement

Improving self is important in a person’s life to come up.  A lack of self-confidence may come merely from a lack of experience. A person may not feel so confident about acting in a stage play if he has never done it before. These feelings will change as he grows. A lack of self-confidence can come from feelings of insecurity. Sometimes we have bad feelings about ourselves and we bury them deep inside. When we do like this, we tend not to take effort of ourselves and take chances because we fear our "secrets" may be revealed.

Identify the Cause of Lack of Self-Confidence

If you have a fear that people will see your perceived shortcoming, you will find it difficult to express yourself. In building self-confidence, your first goal is to develop a realistic understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. You will have to take a difficult first step and look inside yourself to discover where and why you feel like that.

Face the Fear

To get started on your self-exploration, go to a quiet and comfortable place and think about the things that make you feel bad about yourself. These things could stem from your shape of the body, the order of teeth, the shape of the face, complexion, weight, a bad habit, a family secret, abusive behavior in your family, or a feeling of guilt over something you have done. It can be painful to think about the root of your bad feelings, but it is healthy to root out something that is hidden deep inside and to work through it. 
Once you have identified the things you feel bad or secrets you had, you will need to determine what you can do to change them. Any action you take—even the act of thinking about your problem—is a step toward getting it out and eventually healing.
Whenever the guilt feelings come on what bad you have done earlier do not brood over them because you cannot do anything on them what already happened. You can be cautious not to repeat them. 
Once you have a full understanding of your problem, your fear decreases. When the fear goes away, the hesitation goes away, you can, and you will start having confidence about yourself more.

Know your Strengths

It is not enough to identify your weaknesses or your problem areas. You also have great aspects about yourself that you need to explore! You can start doing this by making a big list of things you have accomplished and the things you do well. Have you ever taken the time to explore your strengths? 
You were born with some natural talent, whether you have discovered it or not. Do you always make people laugh? Are you artistic? Can you organize things? Do you remember names? Do you write articles and books? Do you sing well? Do you help others? Do you speak publicly well? etc.   
All of these traits are things that can become very valuable, as you get older. They are skills that are absolutely essential in community organizations, in church, in college, and on the job. If you can do any of them well, you have traits to cherish! 
Once you have taken the two steps above, identifying your vulnerability and identifying your greatness, you will start feeling an increase in your confidence. You decrease your anxiety by facing your fears, and you start liking yourself better by celebrating your natural strengths.

Change your Behavior

Behavioral psychologists say that we can change our feelings by changing our behaviour. For instance, some studies have shown that we become happier if we walk around with a smile on our faces. 
You can speed up your path to increased self-confidence by changing your behavior.

  1. Try smiling more. This will help you fight off feelings of negativity.
  2. Compliment others on their strengths. You will find that other people will return the favour and compliment you back. We all like to hear good things about ourselves!
  3. Exercise and get enough sleep. Both of these behavioral traits improve our moods. You will feel better inside and outside and look better too!
  4. Take time every night to plan for the next day. By planning, we avoid mistakes that make us feel bad about ourselves. Think through the next day to avoid minor malfunctions that could embarrass you.

Use a Third Person Approach

There is an interesting study that shows that there may be a trick to meeting our behavioral goals more quickly. The trick is think about yourself in the third person as you evaluate your progress i.e. think about yourself as “he is an able man to speak well, teach well, write well etc.
The study measured the progress in two groups of people who were attempting to make a positive change in their lives. The people who participated in this study were divided into two groups. One group was encouraged to think in the first person. The second group was encouraged to think of their progress from an outsider’s point of view. 
Interestingly, the participants who thought about themselves from an outsider’s perspective enjoyed a faster path to improvement. 
As you go through the process of improving your self-image and increasing your self-confidence, try to think of yourself as a separate person. Picture yourself as a stranger who is on a path toward positive change. Be sure to accept this person’s accomplishments!