A-Z Challenge: C is for Confidence

Today is the third day of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Just to remind you, I'm doing an A-Z of human emotions, feelings and mental states. I hope to post a mixture of poetry, stories, quotes, tips, observations, lists, book recommendations, interviews, traditional art, digital art and photography.

Today's letter is C and the emotion I've chosen is Confidence. Confidence is a feeling of certainty, pride and high self-esteem. It's something that other people seem to have in adbundance but that we worry we lack. But really most people have confidence issues at some time or another, it's only natural. I recently wrote about how I lost and found my confidence, but it's not an easy thing to keep hold of-you have to work at it. So how do you stay confident?



These are the tips that I find useful for building my confidence:

• It's hard to feel confident about yourself if you don't take yourself out of your comfort zone by meeting new people and doing new challenges that scare you. It's the accomplishment of challenges like these that suprise you and build your confidence.
• Learn to listen and accept other people's compliments. Why would they lie to you?
• Don't rely on others to tell you who you are or what you're good at. You know yourself better than anyone else. If someone thinks you're not very good at something it's because they haven't seen your full potential yet. Rise to the challenge and show 'em what you got.
• Take care of yourself on the outside and you'll feel more confident on the inside. This can be as simple as taking extra time to apply your makeup, paint your nails, have a nice relazing bath, do something different with your hair or wear a light, uplifting fragrance.
• Focus on the things that you are good at-on your strengths and not your weaknesses. Nobody's perfect and life's too short to worry about insignificant details.
• If you're feeling unconfident, change your body language and it will make you feel better. Stand up tall as if your head is suspended from the ceiling by an invisible golden thread instead of slumping and letting your back arch. Practice smiling in front of the mirror and eventually you will start to smile for real.
• Think about the most confident person you know, and try to emulate the way they speak and move.
• Don't compare yourself to other people. Everybody is different and it won't help you to make comparisons. Instead judge yourself against yourself. How far have you come since last year? Are you nearer to the person you want to be in ten years time?
• Change the little things about yourself that you're unhappy with, one step at a time.
• If you're unconfident about your body, take up a hobby that makes you appreciate it. For example, learn to dance and marvel at the way your body is able to move in the shapes you want to the music.
• For every person that puts you down, remember that there are probably at least three people that love you for exactly who you are and would never want you to change.
• Visit the Confidence Club for tips and inspiration.
  
• And finally....take inspiration from Julie Andrews and Stewie Griffin!