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In Psychology Today’s article 6 Ways to Speak With Greater Confidence, author Melody Wilding discusses how to have more confidence. She calibrates her tips towards individuals that she identifies as ‘sensitive strivers’ who want to have more confidence in meetings. Wilding describes sensitive strivers as “high-achievers who are also highly sensitive.”
Could you be a sensitive striver? Here are the tips that she discusses and additional ways that they can apply in other areas of your life outside the office.
6 Tips To Speak With Greater Confidence
Don’t Be Nervous Early
It is important to limit the amount of stress you feel as you go into the meeting. Wilding suggests that you “banish those pre-meeting jitters.” She believes that if you get yourself to calm down or mentality accept and label your nerves as something else, you will be a lot more confident in the meeting room. In other areas of your life, this still applies.
Do you want to have more confidence when trying to pick up a date? Stop being so nervous. Getting yourself worked up before the event has even happened does not help you out at all. So, take a deep breath and release that tension and stress. Feel the confidence flow through you.
Give Yourself Extra Time to Adjust
In meeting circumstances, Wilding suggests that you “ease into it” by getting to the meeting area early in order to give yourself time to get comfortable with your surroundings. This way you will not feel rushed, and you might be more relaxed as you have already started talking with others who are involved.
Outside of the office, if you are nervous about having lunch with your parents, get there early. Rushing in at the very last minute can leave you feeling scattered and not prepared. Give yourself that time to get ready and cool down your nerves.
Speak First
Another one of Wilding’s tips to be more confident in meetings is to “commit to speaking early.” She believes that it is harder to speak the longer you wait, so get it done first. In areas of your life where you need the confidence to do things other than speak, it is your actions that you need to focus on.
Often in life, there are time limits. You only get so much time to decide what you are going to do and when you are going to do it. If you let your nerves overcome you, it can be very difficult to do anything at all. Do you want to speak more confidently in class? Answer a question near the beginning and go from there. Do not wait until the last few minutes to do so. Even if you mess up or make a mistake, at least you tried. This is about moving forward and getting more confident, which you can’t do if you don’t start.
Use Your Abilities
Wilding suggests “using your strengths when speaking up” in meetings. A helpful comment or an inquisitive question can be very powerful. Outside of meetings, you still want to use your strengths when doing something that you aren’t fully confident about.
Are you really great at compliments? Make sure to show that when you speak with your crush or someone you want to impress.
Take Action
One of the last few tips that Wilding shares is to “be the one to take action on the next steps.” She suggests that if there is something that needs more research or work done, volunteer to do it. It improves others’ opinions of you.
Outside of the office, volunteering extra time, energy, or effort into things that are not required helps improve opinions. You are putting the work in, even when you don’t need to.
Go Out of Your Comfort Zone
The last tip that Wilding suggests is to “challenge your beliefs about contributing” when in a meeting. She wants you to move past the fear of criticism and add verbal content to the meeting anyway. It can be really easy to feel afraid of what others will think or of how things will go. Fear is a large part of life but if we always let it stop us, we will never get anywhere.
So, work on moving past your fear and moving towards confidence. If it makes you anxious to talk to the cashier, do it anyway. You can’t speak confidently if you never speak at all.
5 Tips To Boost Your Confidence Levels
Verywell Mind author Amy Morin suggests some ways to improve your confidence levels in her article How to Be More Confident: 6 Ways to Build More Self-Confidence. Morin says in her article that, “Having a healthy level of self-confidence can help you become successful in your personal and professional life. It can play a role in your motivation to pursue your goals and affect how you present yourself to other people.”
She suggests these tips: “stop comparing yourself to others, surround yourself with positive people, take care of your body, be kind to yourself, practice positive self-talk, and face your fears.” We are going to group these into five basic tips to boost your confidence levels.
Don’t Compare Yourself
When you have confidence, you believe in yourself and you don’t need to compare yourself to others. Every single person is different, and everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. An example of this is that there are many types of flowers, and they are all beautiful, but in their own ways. It is the same way with people.
We are all human, but we are different and beautiful in our own way. Comparing yourself to others is unhealthy and can give you a lot of negative thoughts and feelings. Think about yourself without thinking about others at the same time.
Positive Company
It is hard to be a confident person if you are around negative people. The people you are around, your friends, family, and coworkers have a large influence on you. Being around positive people will automatically help you feel more positive about yourself and others. Do your best to limit your contact with negative people.
Take Care of Yourself Physically
A great way to boost your confidence is to feel good about yourself physically. The only way to feel good is to take care of yourself. Making sure that you are eating well, getting plenty of sleep, drinking water, meditating, and exercising is a great way to feel better.
You are what you eat. If you are always putting in bad things and never taking care of your body, it will be hard to be confident. Having confidence in yourself can help you feel confident in other areas of your life as well.
Take Care of Yourself Mentally
Morin discusses being kind to yourself and practicing positive self-talk to take care of yourself mentally. You need to be kind to yourself. We are all humans and we all mess up and make mistakes. It sucks and is never fun, but it is hard to avoid.
When you make mistakes, you still need to be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for unnecessary amounts of time over things that are not that important. When you don’t meet your expectations, have some compassion for yourself. You should also practice positive self-talk. Just like how you need positive people around you, you need to be positive to yourself.
When you start thinking negatively about yourself, try to flip that narrative and turn it into something positive instead. When you take care of yourself mentally, you can be much more confident in yourself.
Face Your Fears
You can’t be confident if you never try. It might seem easy or appealing to wait to do things until you are confident. But if you never start trying, you will never be able to gain that confidence. The more you practice and try things, the more confident you will feel in yourself.
Even though you may be scared to try something, you should still give it a shot. And if it doesn’t work the first time that you try, that doesn’t mean that you should stop and quit.
