If you were to pick seven habits all highly confident people have, which habits would you choose?
Confidence is an outcome of developing many different habits. Here are seven essential habits you need to develop in yourself in order to become a highly confident and successful person.
1. Acting As If
Brian Tracy once said that “confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have”. Even though acting as a confident person when you’re shy won’t make you a confident person overnight, it will help you develop an appearance of a confident person which will attract confident people to you.
Here are a few small habits which will make you appear as a person who has the confidence you desire to have:
– have the right body language (AVOID: crossed arms, sitting in the back of the room, taking as little space as you can, staring at the floor)
– don’t be hesitant – if you want to do something, do it without hesitation. There is nothing which reveals your low self-confidence more than acting as if you aren’t sure what to do
– imitate successful and confident people – find a “self-confidence role model” (it can be an actor, businessman, scientist, thought leader etc.) and imitate him or her. Keep in mind that it isn’t about being a fake – simply imitate things which are in harmony with your nature and which make you appear more confident.
2. Unwavering Decision
Every decision a highly confident person makes is an unwavering decision. There is no “IF”, there is only “WHEN” and “HOW”. Since we make decisions every day, it’s one of the most important habits of highly confident people. If you want to achieve something, you have to commit yourself to it. It’s a basic principle of all confident and successful people. Make things happen. No backing off, no giving up!
3. Showing Up
Woody Allen, one of the most successful actors and directors, once said that 80 percent of life is showing up. He explains it further in his interview for the Collider (2008):
“People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a play, they wanted to write a movie, they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the way to having something happen. All the other people struck out without ever getting that pack. They couldn’t do it, that’s why they don’t accomplish a thing, they don’t do the thing, so once you do it, if you actually write your film script, or write your novel, you are more than half way towards something good happening. So that I was say my biggest life lesson that has worked. All others have failed me.”
Learn from Woody Allen’s biggest life lesson: stop talking about things that you want to do and start doing these things. There is no self-confidence (and no success) without showing up.
4. Spending Time with the Right People
Have you ever noticed that rich people and poor people usually don’t hang together? It isn’t because the rich don’t want to do anything with the poor because they’re poor – it’s because poor people exhibit kind of behavior and mentality which the rich don’t relate to.
Can you blame successful people because they don’t want to spend time with people who have completely different views on life?
It’s the same with self-confidence. In school, popular confident kids usually stick together and shy kids are outside of their social circle. Later in life, most people who were shy in school still don’t interact with confident people. As a result, they remain shy for the rest of their lives.
If you want to evolve, your social circle has to evolve with you. Confident people know that if you keep spending time with people who are more confident than you, you’re going to become more confident as well. If you keep spending time with people who are shy, sooner or later they’ll keep you down. Choose the right people to spend your time with.
5. Never-Ending Self-Improvement
Self-confidence and self-improvement go together. Highly confident people became and will remain confident because they decided to start a never-ending self-improvement journey. Learning something new every single day is one of the most crucial habits all confident and successful people have.
When was the last time you learned something new? When was the last time you learned something new which you can use to become a more confident person? Here are a few things which you can learn to help you become a more confident person:
– improve your conversation and public speaking skills (join a local Toastmasters group)
– read spiritual books which will help you learn to live in the present and stop caring about opinions of other people
– improve the quality of your voice
– start working out and improve your physique (learn how to do the most important core exercises correctly)
– learn how to eat healthy (read a few books, learn recipes)
6. Taking Responsibility for Everything
Highly confident people never blame anyone for their own mistakes. Every successful person will agree that if you want to learn how to believe in yourself, you have to realize that you are responsible for both your successes and your failures.
If you were looking for one of the most important mindsets you need to develop in yourself in order to take charge of your life and become a confident successful person, here it is:
“Everything that happens to me – good and bad – is my personal responsibility. I blame no one but myself. These are the choices I’ve made – this is the life I’m living. I will accept the consequences of my actions.” – Craig Ballantyne
7. Being True to Your Word
Confident people are people on whom you can depend. You can’t become a leader if you don’t deliver on your promises.
People who believe in themselves are the same people other people believe in. However, first you have to learn how to be true to your word to yourself (by setting goals and not backing off as explained before) and later you’ll earn the trust of other people. As most people know, trust is the most important part of doing business.
Imagine that you’re an investor. Would you trust an entrepreneur who would say that he’s going to provide you with a business report within 48 hours and then who wouldn’t deliver on his promise? Exactly. Being true to your word is an essential habit of all confident people who want to achieve success – whether in business, relationships or life in general.
What are you waiting for? Time to get to work on your habits!
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About The Author: Diggy teaches people how to build confidence to become happy and successful in life.
-what was your biggest takeaway from the ideas above? Which ideas can you implement — and how might doing so have a positive impact on your life?
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