How to Build Self Confidence

Self-confidence is something we're born with but gradually lose as we compare ourselves to others and face external challenges like bullying or feeling different due to our backgrounds. Building confidence requires surrounding ourselves with supportive people while distancing from "frenemies" who undermine our self-esteem through subtle criticisms.

• Create a supportive network of people who lift you up, regardless of their age or background
• Practice positive affirmations and mindfulness to counter negative self-talk
• Set small, achievable challenges that gradually build confidence through consistent action
• Use body language "hacks" like power poses to boost confidence in challenging moments
• Volunteer to help others as a powerful way to increase self-worth through service
• Recognize your transferable skills, especially when returning after career gaps
• Practice gratitude for existing abilities rather than focusing only on perceived weaknesses
• Open new "doors" by trying new things instead of limiting yourself with self-doubt
• Remember that confident energy spreads, positively affecting relationships and inspiring others

We're therapists here to help you build your confidence! Connect with us on YouTube (video and podcast formats available) and share your confidence journey with us.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Building Confidence Fast
• 1:43 Childhood Confidence and Immigrant Experience
• 4:25 Creating Your Supportive Environment
• 6:27 Practical Confidence-Building Techniques
• 11:02 Transferable Skills and New Opportunities
• 14:57 Spreading Confidence and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

How to build confidence, yeah, how to build your self-confidence fast and quickly. That's what we're going to be chatting about in this week's episode of Get Real With the Ingrid Sisters. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Yes, we are therapists and we're here to help you, so we hope that any of the advice we can be giving you today is really going to help you increase your self-confidence. Exactly, and I think it's called self-confidence for a reason.

Speaker 1: 0:33

Well, yes, it's confidence in oneself indeed, and you know, you would think that being confident would be natural, because, as babies, we're all very confident, but I think as we grow up, it kind of gets hammered out of us, doesn't it Sometimes? Yeah, definitely, it's with the, with ageing, when we start confronting ourselves with others. You know already, as very young children, you know, going into school, you can start noticing these kind of things and perhaps, yeah, when I was little, I wasn't confident at all. You were when you were first born baby, yeah, but not when I was five and six. That's it. Going to school. When you start going to school, because you start comparing yourself, perhaps, to other other children, you may notice they have different things. You get teased and bullied, exactly. Yeah, all of these things can you know, be they knock your confidence, don't they? I remember when I was really little and I had to start wearing glasses, how I get bullied. Oh, definitely, and that was that immediately knocked me not my confidence and made me feel very shy. Yes, yes, yes, indeed, that's a classical thing that that happens growing up, yeah, you know, your confidence gets like bashed. It does get bashed down, instead of being encouraged to, oh, to flourish and to be happy with yourself and what you look like. Um, yeah, and, and I think today we're going to be exploring that, aren't we? Yeah, and I think it also depends on, you know, the, the environment you grow up in, who, who your caretakers are, what your family's like, because some of us are fortunate to have families that really build your confidence, like our parents. Well, especially our mother. She did build our confidence. She did, yeah, and our self-esteem was high, but in another way, being immigrant children, we felt different to other children, so that in itself made us feel different and that kind of knocked our confidence, didn't it? I believe it did. I mean, I do remember there were quite a lot of immigrant children at our school, but, yes, I think, especially because our first language was Spanish. Our mother was Spanish.

Speaker 1: 2:54

So when I remember going into preschool, especially, that I couldn't really understand what was going on much. It was so foreign to us. It was foreign yes, definitely foreign. So foreign, it was foreign. Yes, definitely foreign. Yeah, english was foreign, uh, however, yeah, that wasn't. That was okay. That was quite a nice experience preschool, but then after it was a real school, like when you're five, uh, that elementary school, yeah, that, that was tough. That was definitely tough and scary. It was a a scary place, yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:23

And I remember when I finally did grow up, when I got to college, how my confidence grew and grew because I was allowed to express myself and be who I really thought I was, through your outfits, your clothes, yeah, exactly your makeup, and then it was being more extravagant and who I really was. And my confidence grew so much. And you get feedback from other people who you go, you make friends and you have positive people around you that are like they. They help build your confidence. I think that's essential. If you do think that your confidence is low, it's really important to to distance yourself from you know these frenemies, or from you know people that are supposed to be your friends but are constantly giving you little digs about this or about that. You know, keep a set your boundaries, keep a distance and surround yourself with people that you know are going to help lift you up and mentor you as well. Look for people that you can look up to and that you you're inspired by, someone that's going to, like, help you flourish and grow.

Speaker 1: 4:33

Yeah, and let me say that they don't have to be of the same age as you. These people could be like you may be in your 20s and you may you may know a very elderly lady, for example, and she may be able to give you some advice right in that moment of time when you need it the most. So be open to listen to different, different group ages. You know different, all kind of different people that may be able to help you in this journey. Different points of view yes, you get a different perspective on life with different people that don't know, um, don't have any fixed ideas about who you are or who you're supposed to be can be really helpful to you.

Speaker 1: 5:15

Yeah, because I think sometimes if you go, if you hang out with the same group of people, you get stuck in that, in that, in the representation those people have of you. So you kind of behave as you think you, you expect they, they expect you to behave. You behave like like you're kind of expected to behave, maybe when really you're not that person anymore yeah, yeah, very often it's you're not that person anymore, but when you're hang around with those people, you suddenly become that person. You think is this really who I am now? No, so it's time to grow and it's time to perhaps, you know, choose a new crowd to hang out with. Yeah, and I think, and I think like um, a mindfulness practice or a meditative meditation practice can really help you.

Speaker 1: 6:06

And positive affirmations telling yourself I feel confident, I feel good today, I feel great, I'm going to go and do that thing that I may be a bit frightened of today. I'm going to overcome this fear and I'm going to go and do it. All these actions that you actually take, even tiny small steps, will increase your confidence. Yeah, and I think that when you do set these small challenges for yourself, like to join something new, like what you were saying, joining a group or even even if it's online, you know you're still doing something proactive for yourself. That is going to build your self-confidence because you took that first step and then you're entering something different. So it's a challenge. It's a challenge for you and it's a challenge that will help you grow. It's a challenge. It's a challenge for you and it's a challenge that will help you grow.

Speaker 1: 6:58

And the more you do these challenges, even if they're small, the more your self-confidence grows, because you think you know, after all, it's your own self that is judging you at the moment. So if you think, oh, I did that yesterday, so perhaps today I can do this, you know, it can be really, really helpful, can't it? Well, it's very, very beneficial to you to know that you can actually do stuff. Because, yeah, when you have very simply said yes, indeed, feel that you can't or you're not good enough to do that, or you're not worthy of doing that, then that's when you're you're putting yourself down, and then that's when it can become insidious and it can really become a self-fulfilling prophecy if you keep saying that to yourself. That's why, if you say I can and I will, it will change your whole perspective on it and even if I fail today, I'll get help or I'll ask someone to help me and I'll manage it tomorrow, and you'll feel very, very good about yourself, definitely. Yeah, it's a totally different look at life if you say I can and I will, as opposed to no, I can't and I won't even try.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Yeah, you know that alone for your self-esteem is um is massive. Yeah, if you say I can and I will, you know, and I'm going to do my very best with this new challenge Brilliant. I think that's all you can expect from yourself. You can just expect yourself to do better every day and you can expect that you will have setbacks, and that's okay. And there'll be some days when you won't feel as confident, but you might be able to. There'll be some days when you won't feel as confident, but you might be able to change your outfit and have an outfit that gives you confidence. Or get a power poser. You know, have your arms like this. That'll give you confidence. There's so many little tricks that'll build your self-confidence that you can use like body posture. You can call somebody that you know is part of this new support group that's going to be helping build your confidence. Or go and visit them. Or, you know, have a video chat with a call with them. Do something like this. You know those people that always make you feel good about yourself. At the end of it. It doesn't matter who they are. As I was saying before, it could be a colleague, it could be you, it could be you know, your grandma, grandma or the lady who owns a shop, and you just have a casual chat with and and you. You feel good afterwards and you think, oh, you know, and sometimes you're you, you might. You might feel like.

Speaker 1: 9:28

I remember personally, like after I graduated university, I still had like a lack of confidence because I never did get to do my maths O level. So it was like you know the maths that you needed for a lot of positions and I had never done it. And I think, with the mindset I have now, I would have just gone and done it and applied for those jobs. Or you would have actually taken the exam. No, I would have just gone and gone and done it for those jobs. No, I would have actually taken the exam. I would have got enrolled in in a night school or something, knowing what I know now, to just get those. Because it's I mean when you're older.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Sometimes when you're younger, these, these feel like massive hurdles, but when you're older you can look back on it and say, oh, now, as an older person, I can understand, as an adult, I can understand and I can tackle it in a different way. Yes, you know, yeah, tutor or go to night school or something and do it. So if you feel like you're lacking in some kind of skill, it's, it's good practice for building confidence to actually go and do that, that, that skill that you feel you're lacking in. Yeah, that that is very true. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 10:42

I mean I think like even just you know, not just I mean volunteering, for example, has great value in building your self-confidence, because there you can actually see that you're going to help somebody, yes, and that you actually did it. You say, okay, actually see that you're going to help somebody, yes, and that you actually did it. You say, okay, monday night I'm going to go and volunteer here, and you actually do it and you're changing people's lives because when they see you, they get so much joy and that is that that just rubs off onto you and then they're, you know that you feel the gratitude they have for you and that's immense. That can really help build your self-confidence and help you, you know, feel much better about yourself. Yeah, I think also, practicing gratitude helps as well by being grateful for what you already have, doesn't it Absolutely Practicing gratitude, just thinking about everything that you have, all the skills you already know, and they're looking at the people around you that have helped you so far?

Speaker 1: 11:42

Yeah, and looking at maybe some transferable skills that you may have that you didn't really realize you had. I mean, a lot of the skills that we have, especially as women, are transferable. We have a lot of like management skills that we're constantly managing stuff and doing things that maybe in the household that can be transferable into business or into. That's very true actually. Yeah, that's a good point. So, you know, don't underestimate yourself, don't? You don't think, oh, I, you know I'm no good at that, I can't do that. You know, always turn it around and think I am, I will be good at that, I will be able to do that. It's like because you think, okay, I studied and then I became a stay-at-home mom, for example, and now I'm applying for another job, and your confidence can be a little bit low, but if you do manage to turn it around and think, well, wow, you know, I bought, you know I, I had these, these children, I helped them grow, I did all of this, like what you were saying, all these transferable organization skills as well, that that involves immense.

Speaker 1: 12:50

You can become so much more competent than you were before. Yeah, a lot of the times you're at home as well. You might have had a gap in your curriculum of a couple of years. You've been out for whatever reason and you might feel really out of it. But just think about all the other skills you've learned in those years. I'm sure there's so many skills that are transferable that you may not have thought about. So just as human beings, we're very complex and we have so much knowledge of so many different types of things in our mind that can be transferable skills into different areas. And it's so much easier to learn as well.

Speaker 1: 13:30

When we have, like when we're little, we learn a door is a door. We know what a door looks like. Forevermore we'll always recognize what a door is. You've seen one door. We know many doors are all different. They'll come in different shapes and sizes, but we all know that they're doors. So, in the same way, our skills.

Speaker 1: 13:52

A skill is a skill. Once you have that skill honed in, you can transfer it to other stuff. You can think a bit laterally. Yes, absolutely no. Don't keep yourself stuck in a box for confidence, you know. Open the doors. Now that you know what they are, you open as many doors as you can and allow more freedom and more space into your life and and allow the self-confidence to grow within you.

Speaker 1: 14:20

You know each and every day yeah, and practice, think of things, the self-fulfilling affirmations. Yes, say to yourself. I am confident, I love myself, I will do this, I'm going to go for it. Tomorrow is a new day. I'll try again. I'm going to find people around me that are going to support me in this building, building all these blocks of my confidence again.

Speaker 1: 14:49

And so you work within yourself and with the support group around you and by helping others as well, you'll notice that, day by day, your confidence will grow. And as your confidence grows, you'll notice that your by day, your confidence will grow. Yeah, and as your confidence grow, you'll notice that your relationships will grow as well, because you'll build new relationships with new people who will appreciate you and you'll appreciate them. And then it's like it's a lovely thing. It's a beautiful thing. You're sharing kindness, you're sharing you. By improving your own self confidence. You'll be improving their self-confidence because you may be teaching them new skills that they didn't know they had, or encouraging them to try out new things.

Speaker 1: 15:29

So, I mean, the world is a wonderful place and we all have to be careful to nourish our self-confidence, realize it is something that we do have to take care of, because if we forget to look after ourselves and nourish our self-confidence, it can, it can become something that is lacking within us, yeah, and then it's detectable for others around us, and so we we become less open to to these new opportunities because we're not as outgoing, and we become more withdrawn within ourselves. Yeah, and we start closing doors instead of opening them. Yeah, that's what happens. You think, no, no, I can't do that, frightened of that. No, no, I'm too old, I'm too young, don't have this. And and all these doors? Whoa, they all start closing.

Speaker 1: 16:17

So what we want to do is be doing the opposite within our own minds. And as new doors open, so do new neural pathways in your mind, where you start creating new ideas, and ideas start to flow. You get more and more creative, you become happier and happier and you, you just increase your general well-being and of all those around you. Yeah, because it spreads. It spreads so much positive energy for everybody and you become like an example for other people. They think, well, if she could do it, wow, you know, maybe I can do it too. Yeah, and so it's.

Speaker 1: 16:52

We learn from others. We do, we do, we watch, we listen and we learn and we grow and we evolve. And as mothers, we also know that we pass self-confidence on to our children. So the more positive we are around our children, the more we allow our children to acknowledge their feelings and let us know how they're feeling. We can help them grow too and be a positive example for them, absolutely. So let us know what you think. The podcast is also available on youtube as a video and as a podcast, so do come and see us there, and we are therapists. We're here to help you. We love hearing from you. Thank you for all our all your comments, and you can also send us a text and lots of love and smiles from the english sisters. Bye.