“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t-you’re right”. This quote, by Henry Ford, illustrates the immense power of belief and the role that confidence has in fostering positive self-belief. Having confidence and belief in yourself is essential to performing at your best and supporting you in reaching your goals. Confidence is the secret ingredient responsible for many of the greatest achievements. Our biggest dreams and goals are meant to inspire and challenge us, and without the right amount of confidence, we may never reach them. That is why this unseen “muscle” is such an important one to work on strengthening and maintaining!
Confidence also plays a critical role in how we feel about ourselves within our environment and this influences how we show-up and even in how we stand—YES that’s right, confidence can influence posture. When confidence levels decline and/or we do not feel at our best selves it feeds a vicious and negative cycle in your mind and it is these negative thoughts that impact how we feel and stop us from moving towards our goals and in extreme cases stop us in our tracks from taking the next step. However, what goes down can come back up! There are ways to break the negative cycle and rebuild our confidence and then power up our self-defence to protect our confidence. Like any other muscle, confidence is something that you must work on to strengthen then continue to train to maintain. When we learn how to create MO’re confidence, it will support us in so many ways to show up, shine and succeed.
Here are three of my top strategies for improving and ensuring confidence in your body and mind for life! I regularly make these three strategies a part of my daily practice and they are integral to helping me perform my best. I’m happy to share them with you:
- Set Aside time for Strength Training
Especially during challenging times, our ability to move through and beyond obstacles and adversities relies on our inner strength, resiliency, and psychological capital. The validation and confidence in our efficacy in one area can positively influence our belief in ourselves and our capabilities in all areas, and this is how strength training serves and supports us. With strength training, it does not take long to see improvements. Your body becomes more toned and you discover you can lift more weight or do more reps and these improvements increase your confidence. In particular, upper body strength training boosts feelings of self-esteem and self-efficacy which will improve your confidence and more specifically self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy is having the belief in yourself that you can do something or reach your desired outcome. Exercise self-efficacy measures your confidence to start and maintain participation in exercise. This concept is important if you are looking to develop and maintain the habit of exercise. Improving your self-efficacy in one area of your life (i.e. through an exercise in lifting weights) can trickle over into other areas of your life beyond your workouts. Physical activity has been directly and indirectly associated with improving self-esteem. In doing research for and writing my book 6 Weeks to a New Body I discovered evidence for a significant correlation between improving strength in upper body muscles and boosting your self-esteem and this boost in self-esteem increases the chance one has of being their best, boldest and most beautiful self. This means your workouts are not only strengthening your body on a physical level but also on a mental, emotional, and cognitive level, so you are stronger for life!
- Boost your Self-care and Beauty Regime
Taking care of yourself from outside in with a skin-care and beauty routine can immediately change how you feel about yourself and this can give you an immediate energy and confidence boost. A disciplined morning and evening skincare and self-care beauty routine anchor your day with a commitment to yourself. It’s more than just that. No matter how busy your life gets when you bookend your day with self-care skin you feel better and give back to your body. I know the importance of taking care of myself with a healthy skin and beauty routine.
From a health perspective, it is important to remember that our skin is our biggest organ in our body and your skin says a lot about your health and vitality, not to mention it can age you prematurely if you are not paying attention. If you want to keep looking and feeling your best, at any age, you will want to prioritize a solid skincare routine. It doesn’t have to be complicated. A few minutes each morning and evening will go a long way to nourish your skin, freshen your appearance, reduce the signs of premature ageing and a healthy and youthful look goes a long way in helping you feel more confident and empowered in your skin.
I know how important it is to prioritize a self-care and beauty routine, and over the years I have developed strategies and discovered some amazing products to help me. If you are looking for ideas and inspiration to revamp your current routine, or need help with getting started on a self-care routine, I encourage you to visit my newly updated Beauty Products Page for some of my favourite and essential products. These are products that I use and want to share because they make a significant difference in helping me take care of myself and look and feel my best.
- Practice Power Posing
“Power Posing” is a method to improve confidence which comes from the work of social psychologist and author Amy Cuddy which is featured in both her Ted Talk and book “Presence”. The research shows how improving your posture, through specific “Power Poses”, positively influences how you feel about yourself and those feelings affect how you show up in the world. Performing up to 2 minutes of Power Posing decreases stress hormones (cortisol) and increases hormones like testosterone and adrenaline which make you more grounded, confident and self-assured. I recommend practicing these three power poses – “Superhero”, “Strong” and Victory”–every day to boost your confidence. I find this especially helpful on days when I have important meetings and presentations. Just 2 minutes can seriously shift for and supercharge your confidence levels. Try it for yourself! Strike a pose anywhere and if you want to get the most out of this body-brain transformation exercise perform these 3 poses in order as outlined in front of a mirror and recite out loud the following 3 statements:
Superhero “I am (say your full name or nickname)”
Example “I am Mi-T-Mo”
Strong “I can (fill in the sentence with one positive statement of what you desire to do/take action on in the moment/that day)”
Example “I can easily and successfully deliver this dynamic and powerful keynote address today”
Victory “I will (fill in with a closing statement to affirm your success with an emotion)”
Example “I will achieve greatness today because I’m passionate to share my knowledge, confident in myself; I’ve got this!”
BONUS: Repeat the 3 power poses combining all 3 statements into one powerful affirming statement. Example “I am Mi-T-Mo and I can easily deliver this keynote address this morning and I will achieve greatness today because I am passionate to share my knowledge, confident in myself –I’ve got this!!!”
Be sure to check out my feature article published in the November/December issue of Optimyz magazine, which includes a workout that focuses on upper body strength training that was inspired by and incorporates “Power Poses”. With the 7 exercises and variations in this routine, you can improve your confidence in only minutes a day!
READ MORE about Power Poses HERE
Final Thoughts
Let me remind you, what Marianne Williamson said: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? … As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same”. You have the right and responsibility to show up and shine and finding ways to boost your confidence in your body and mind is what is needed to help you achieve your goals, fulfill your purpose and live your life to the fullest and, help others do the same!
