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Confidence Building Exercises

Deepa Kartha
Lack of confidence is one of the factors that causes failure. Hence, people should know about confidence boosting exercises to ensure personal growth and success. Here are certain important tips to help you in building self-confidence to achieve success in all aspects of life.
Self-confidence gives you the freedom to make mistakes and cope with failure without feeling that your world has come to an end and that you are a worthless person.―Anonymous
Confidence is something that is important to achieve success in our life. It is not only required to do well in your career or academics, but also to have healthy relationships and a good social life.
A person who exudes self-confidence passes his confidence to people around him who in return believe in the other person's decisions and opinions. However, though self-confidence is an important factor to live a fulfilling life, there are many people who struggle because they lack it.
People who have low self-confidence are those who are afraid to talk in front of a crowd. They also indulge in negative thinking about themselves where they focus on their weaknesses rather than on their strengths. Such people are often exploited because they are never able to refuse to do some work when asked.
As they are afraid of taking risks, they do not have any set goals and hence lead a worthless life. However, self-confidence is not a talent that a person is born with. Rather, it is a quality that is learned by people during their life.
Therefore, if an adult lacks confidence, it does not mean that he will have to live without it for the rest of his life. Rather, a person can work on becoming a confident individual by following a few simple strategies.

Effective Exercises for Building Confidence
Before going into confidence building activities, one must understand that confidence is not something that can be achieved instantly. It requires lot of patience and hard work for a person to become confident. Though this is said to be a difficult task, it is surely not impossible and one can learn to be confident with the help of these tips.

Positive Thinking

Positive thinking is the most important characteristics of a confident person. If you indulge in thinking too much about what you cannot do, this has to be changed immediately.
Rather than concentrating on what you could not achieve, think about what you have done. Make a list of things you have succeeded in, like getting good scores for a project, completing a task on time, etc. Once the list is made, go through it every day. This will make you feel proud of yourself, and help you feel confident that you can achieve more in life.
It is also important to keep a check on your negative thoughts. Whenever your mind takes you to negative thoughts, shift your mind to something else that is positive.

Goal Setting

Setting goals is also one of the important confidence building techniques. Write down the goals that you want to achieve in life and begin with the easiest one. However, it must be something where you have to take some kind of risk.
Then on another paper, make a list of your strengths, weaknesses, skills, etc. Think about whether you have the necessary skills to achieve your goal. If you do not, strive to achieve them first. If one of your weaknesses is coming between your decision to achieve something, then make an effort to eliminate it completely.
Once you are able to succeed in this, you will automatically become more confident to achieve goals that are little more difficult.

Hypnosis and Breathing Techniques

Self-hypnosis is said to be one of the most important confidence building techniques. People who have indulged in this have said that they feel more relaxed and are able to perform their tasks more confidently as well as productively.
Learning certain breathing techniques is also a good way of controlling your fear of doing something or taking risk. If you have got a chance to present a paper before a crowd of people and are feeling very nervous, practicing these exercises will help in lowering your heartbeat, decreasing your fear and also in giving the presentation with full confidence.

Change your Body Language

The first thing that people notice about you is your physical appearance. It is very easy for people to notice a confident person when they see one. An individual who is confident will stand straight, keep his head high while walking as well as talking.
On the other hand, people who are less confident, may have a hunch while walking, will not have a firm handshake, or may not look into the eye while talking. This can send negative signals to other people, and hence, should be changed.
Practice standing and walking straight at home and keeping your face high by looking into the mirror. While shaking hands with other people, make sure you hold your hands firmly.
Also, keep a check on your appearance, i.e., the kind of clothes you wear, your hairstyle, etc. This is important because looking good will help you in feeling more confident about yourself.
Apart from these, one more thing you should remember is to believe in yourself and the decisions you have taken. Rather than concentrating on what others think about you, be confident about what you think about yourself.
Moreover, you should also learn to accept failure and understand that mistakes are a natural part of learning. Practicing these exercises to build confidence will surely increase your low self-esteem and help you in leading a successful life.