One shouldn’t be shy to ask, “how to be confident?” because social anxiety is not a trivial issue. For those who suffer from it, lack of confidence becomes a tremendous burden for daily activities. Life can be difficult when even the most simple tasks become menial and mundane. It doesn’t have to be this way.
We will discuss methods to overcome your shyness and be confident.
For the ambiverts, we’ll also discuss how to be more confident in speaking.
The importance of being confident in presentations
All the aforementioned methods boils down to being confident when speaking. In other words, people are more likely to listen to someone who is confident.
If you are confident in your argument during a meeting with conflicting arguments, the participants are much more likely to vote in favor of your notion. This is because being confident reflects that you take ownership and stand ground for what you claim.
Being confident in the meeting helps you get the due credit you deserve. If you put all the effort into a project but have someone presenting it, you might not get the recognition you deserve. Make sure to be the one leading the presentation, answering questions, and take credit when credit is due. The more attention you receive, the more likely your career horizon will expand.
Tips on how to look and sound confident
For most shy, nervous, and socially anxious people, the mainstay of concern is always centered around how to be confident. But you need not fret, there are ways to feel more confident and to take advantage of opportunities.
Here are a few ways to appear more confident.
Stand as tall as possible
The name gives it away, literally. Try not to slouch, bend, or lean on something. By keeping your shoulders at the back and your spine straight, you will instantly appear more confident.
If you want to appear more confident, try the “power-pose”, where you stretch your arms above your head when you enter a room. This will make you look more dominant and improve your presence.
Practice eye contact
Making eye contact is important when giving a bold and confident impression. If you’re a really shy and nervous person, making eye contact right away can be very difficult, so you can start off by making eye contact with your friends and family members. A pro tip for making eye contact is not to worry too much about what the other person is thinking about your gaze.
Avoid fidgeting
Stop fidgeting as it forms bad impression. Most of the time, fidgeting makes you look nervous and unprofessional.
Speak slowly and clearly
Speaking fast is a signs of social anxiety. It’s difficult to moderate the speed of your speech when you’re caught up in the moment. You can control the speed of your speech by consciously thinking about it. However, overthinking can get you lost in your own train of thoughts, causing stammering and stuttering in your speech, which is worse than speaking fast.
Your hands help a lot
Using hand gestures comes off as a great bearer of confidence. They make you look bold and in control of the situation. Moreover, using hand gestures is a great way of distracting the audience you’re speaking to, decreasing number of stares and uncomfortable gazes.
Mend your gait
Take wider steps instead of narrow, frantic ones. Take firm and steady steps and make sure that your arms move in coordination with your legs, don’t let them droop, and definitely don’t stick them by your sides. Alternatively, you can keep your hands in your pockets. By taking wide steps, we don’t mean galloping or leaping forward; the distance of your steps should be approximately shoulder width apart.
Now that we have discussed methods of physically appearing confident, we’ll delve into the methods of how to be emotionally confident:
Self-acceptance
Go easy on yourself. Embrace yourself, and break free from all the molds and idealistic social perceptions. You should not change who you are in order to fit into a particular social circle group. Just be yourself..
Get out of your comfort zone more often
On a daily basis, there are many tasks that seem daunting and intimidating To build confidence, you can start off with the ones that are harmless and non-consequential. Tell the waiter when he brings the wrong order, give honest reviews of food or any other service you avail, tell the dozed-off passenger on the bus that they’re intruding on your space, and participate in a public discussion on politics or football in the club/ bar. We won’t encourage you to get into perilous circumstances such as fighting with your boss or treading uncharted territories, but the steps mentioned above would suffice in the building blocks of fortifying your confidence.
Set small but definite goals for yourself
Setting high goals can often be unrewarding. And a minor mistake can ruin any progress you’ve made, making you spiral back to square one. Instead of large, bold moves, try setting smaller ones. Identify what you need to change and how you would go about it, and then evaluate your progress. Then move on to the next step.
Set boundaries
Always establish boundaries in all sorts of relationships, whether it is with your employer, your family members, your friends, or even your significant other. Being soft in a cruel world is a strength, but there’s a hairline difference between being nice and being exploited and taken advantage of. If someone gets offended by your boundaries, then it’s their concern, not yours. You should never let anyone gaslight you into thinking that you’re oversensitive or overreacting to a stimulus.
This helps skyrocket your self-esteem and gives you back the control for your life.
Speak to yourself positively
Words of encouragement goes a long way in improving one’s mood. This isn’t just true when receiving compliments from others. If you encourage yourself, you will also be rewarded greatly. Praise yourself, or make notes at the end of the day of all the positives that happened or the impact you made today. It can be a good performance report.
