Self-confidence is a trait that can be nurtured and grown, much like other skills and traits.
The problem is that people who aren’t self-confident don’t necessarily understand what it actually is.
It’s not just believing in yourself or feeling as though you are correct all the time. Many people tend to confuse the latter with self-confidence even though it’s not. That’s less confidence and more stubbornness.
Instead, bulletproof self-confidence includes qualities such as these, and luckily, they can all be practiced and honed, whatever your starting point.
1. They can admit when they are wrong.
As someone who used to not be able to admit when I was wrong, I cannot tell you how liberating it is to accept my flawed, imperfect nature.
I know that I am worthy regardless of my mistakes, so it’s not a blow to my ego to admit them.
I can be wrong. I can not know things.
And once I began to embrace this humility, I noticed there was an interesting byproduct that came with it. The people who matter will respect you more, not less, when you can admit that you were wrong.
Along with demonstrating your confidence, it gives you the opportunity to be taught something by someone who knows better. That adds more to your toolbox, increasing your confidence, as well as indirectly communicating to them that you respect their knowledge. It improves relationships and helps you get along with others much more easily.
There really are so many benefits in being able to admit when you’re wrong.
Unfortunately, there are some people who will see this as a weakness and try to exploit it. But, there’s even better news!
Once you’re known as an honest person who is willing to take responsibility for your actions, it’s much harder for other people to pin things on you that aren’t your fault.
Because they know that when someone asks you if you were responsible for something, you’ll tell them the truth and take responsibility for it. So in turn, people will trust and believe you when you tell them something wasn’t your mistake.
2. They celebrate the success of other people.
I spent a long time bitter and angry due to the struggles I’ve had in life. But once I started healing and better understanding myself, I started to see the joy in the elevation of other people. Nowadays, few things bring me more joy than watching other people succeed.
What I learned is that success is not a zero-sum game most of the time.
That is, if you’re successful, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I can’t be. Your success does not make me less worthy.
Granted, sometimes there is competition. Like, if there is only one job opening and you really wanted it but it went to someone else. It’s okay to feel disappointed about that. We’re only human.
However, a positive attitude toward setbacks and other people’s achievements will dramatically improve your peace of mind and your confidence.
Besides, you never know; there may be other doors opening for you.
3. They set and respect boundaries without too much guilt.
Boundaries serve as a filter for who gets access to your valuable time and space. A boundary says, “You are allowed to be here, so long as you don’t do this particular action.”
That’s healthy, because everyone should have limits as to what they will or won’t tolerate.
When you are genuinely confident in yourself, you understand that your comfort and safety matter just as much as the next person’s, and you use boundaries to achieve that comfort and safety.
If you struggle with boundaries and worry that they are walls that keep people out, remember that they are filters, not barriers. That can help alleviate the guilt you might feel.
Instead of viewing them as a negative, like keeping people away, view them as a positive. “Follow these guidelines about interacting with me, and you can be in my life and have access to me.”
And of course, it goes both ways. Other people deserve to be comfortable and treated with respect too, so they are allowed their own boundaries.
4. They ask questions without fear of looking foolish or ignorant.
The fear of looking foolish or ignorant by asking questions is kind of backwards.
Ignorance is to be uninformed, and it is usually borne of obliviousness and a refusal to learn. The fact that a person is asking questions is therefore actually a pretty strong indicator that they are, in fact, not ignorant. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be asking and trying to increase their knowledge.
However, you’ll find that truly ignorant people, ironically, don’t want to be viewed as uninformed, so they will usually scoff at that idea. They think that to admit to not knowing something diminishes their confidence, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Personally, I like to flip that perspective on its head. The times I’ve run into it, I like to say something like, “The world’s a big place, and I can’t know everything. Why wouldn’t I want to learn from someone who knows better than I do?”
When you’re confident in yourself, you know that your worth isn’t threatened by not having all the answers. Instead, you understand that admitting that and asking questions is a great opportunity to grow.
Plus, as with admitting mistakes, the people worth being around will respect your humility and your willingness to learn from them.
5. They accept compliments with grace.
Self-confident people can gracefully accept compliments without deflection or downplaying.
Now, if you’ve struggled with accepting compliments like I used to, it’s hard to know how to go about it. You want to be confident, but accepting a compliment can feel almost arrogant. You may feel like you need to be humble about your achievements. You don’t.
It’s actually much easier than you may realize. When someone gives you a compliment, all you have to do is smile and say, “Thank you. I appreciate that.” That’s it! That’s literally all you have to do.
You may feel uncomfortable. You may feel as though you need to say something profound or appreciative back, but you don’t. It’s not an exchange of value. A compliment is someone acknowledging that you’ve done something well, or that they truly appreciate or like something about you.
The discomfort will pass. You just have to give it a little time to move through you.
6. They don’t spend their time comparing themselves to others.
“Comparison is the thief of joy” is a statement that contains more and more truth as I get older.
The world we inhabit often encourages competition and comparison. A lot of advertising efforts want you to feel worse off than you are or like you should have more so that you’ll buy their products.
The easiest way to let go of that is to stop measuring your life against those around you.
Yes, you may not have everything you want in life. Yes, you may not have accomplished everything you wanted to do. You may even feel behind in life. But there is no single, universal playbook that works for everyone identically, so comparison is utterly pointless.
The self-confident understand this, and they work to blaze their own trail through life. They know they are on their own schedule, not that of anyone else.
You can believe this too.
You’re not behind. You’re right where you should be.
7. They don’t feel like they need to explain or defend all of their decisions.
Confident people understand that they are going to make decisions that other people don’t approve of – and that’s okay. Other people are allowed to be upset, and their self-worth is not dependent on how many people are happy with them.
Now, you may think, “I don’t want to upset anyone!” But unfortunately, that’s not the way the world works.
Sometimes, you just have to let people be angry.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking, “If I just explain myself, they’ll see things my way.” Because once someone understands that they can pressure you to explain yourself, they can use that as leverage against you, particularly if they are manipulative.
They may simply be committed to misunderstanding you because they value what you can do for them, not you as a person.
In relationships where everyone is acting in good faith, then sure, offer a simple explanation if needed. But know your audience. No one is entitled to an explanation.
8. They can accept criticism without crumbling to pieces.
Everyone’s got an opinion, and many of those opinions are half-baked.
I know this because I used to be a loud person with a lot of half-baked opinions. It wasn’t one of my finest qualities.
There were times I would take a lot of offense to the opinions of others about what I do and why I do it. As a working writer, I would regularly get my work torn to pieces by editors and my clients.
You have to be self-confident to absorb criticism and look at it objectively.
That’s much easier to do when you can separate valid criticism from someone who is just being a hater for whatever reason. Like, “you suck” can be hurtful, but why should I care what that person thinks if they are just being a jerk?
On the other hand, having a piece of work dissected and criticized is just a normal part of creating anything that’s going to land in front of other people.
When you accept that criticism doesn’t diminish your worth, because your worth is inherent, it gets a lot easier to take it on board without taking offense.
Closing thoughts…
Self-confidence doesn’t mean you think you’re better than anyone else. That’s arrogance.
Instead, it means that you understand that you have value and worth regardless of what other people think.
You are inherently valuable as a person, and you deserve to be respected and to feel good about yourself.
If other people are making you doubt that, or undermining your feeling that way, then you may want to reassess what place they actually deserve in your life.
If you’re not a self-confident person, understanding the qualities we’ve discussed and taking action to develop them will help you to grow the self-confidence you deserve.
And you do deserve it.
