Self-confidence is the foundation your life is built upon and without it, you can never reach your true potential. Sometimes when life pushes you down and you face failure after failure, upset after upset, your inner self-confidence in yourself and your abilities begins to flicker. Just like how a fire without the right fuel and right conditions begins to die, so does your self-confidence. That is why it is so important to add more wood to the fire and churn the embers of your spirit whenever you are down so you can restart, re-energize and get back to being who you truly are and were meant to always be. These 7 changes in mindset will help you to rekindle that fire inside of you and help you to get your self-confidence back!

7 Ways To Reignite & Boost Your Self-Confidence

1. You MUST Believe In Yourself

Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth ― Iyanla Vanzant

You can only go as far as your mind lets you. Why do you think the majority of people who are born into poverty stay in poverty their entire lives? It’s not because they’re physically lacking or enjoy being poor but it’s their thinking that is lacking. They don’t believe or in some cases, unfortunately, don’t even know what they are capable of and this invisible cap limits them in everything they do.

In sports, there is a philosophy that if you think you will miss, you probably will and I have experienced this myself many times while playing basketball. When I was younger I would let the heat of the moment get to me and that exact moment before I shot the ball I would be very nervous and used to overthink like crazy about missing. Unsurprisingly every time I did that, I would always miss. I learned over time as I got older to trust myself, trust my shooting ability and let the cards fall where they may fall and my shooting percentage significantly increased. If your mind says no, your body has no chance of making that into a yes.

Take-Home Message: Understand that every single person has this invisible cap over his or her head. And it’s your choice to either stay stationary inside of it or to break free and live to your true potential. Because if you put your mind to something and give it your all it ANYTHING is possible.

2. Live To Your Potential

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are. ― Marilyn Monroe

In this whole world, you are the BEST at being you and doing anything else is a sheer waste of your talent and potential. Imagine a lion that started pretending to be sheep just to fit in. It’d be a pretty crazy sight to see, wouldn’t it? But the reality is that this happens every single day. People who have so much to offer the world simply don’t because they are afraid of what the people around them might think.

Take-Home Message: Don’t be afraid to be who you are. It might be hard and even scary at first but you have to overcome this mental barrier. You are more than just and your ideas and thoughts are important. So stop hiding, stop being afraid and be the lion that you were born to be.

3. Be Genuine

That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending – performing. You get to love your pretense. It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act – and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you’re trying to steal their most precious possession. ― Jim Morrison

Self-confidence is about being authentic and the only way to develop it is to be completely honest to yourself about who you are and what you want. If you don’t believe me, you can do a quick social experiment and try pretending for a week to be a different person than who you truly are. However, you behave now, just do the opposite. I guarantee you that after one week, you won’t feel as good about yourself as you do now because you will be lying to yourself. Being genuine is the foundation for self-confidence. If you don’t internally love and accept who you are how can you even begin to project confidence externally.

Take-Home Message: Try to be as honest as you possibly can with yourself. Try to talk, dress and act as you genuinely feel and stop pretending just to fit in. Trust me when I say that by being true to yourself not just will your self-confidence improve but your peace of mind and mental health will also be positively impacted.

4. Accept Who You Are

To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven. Don’t wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love, you live now. – Alan Cohen

To find peace of mind you first must find self-acceptance. Life is too short to be sheep and not be who you truly want to be. You don’t want to live your life not being true to yourself, only to have regrets after about what you could have done differently.

Take-Home Message: Nobody was born perfect and the faster you realize this, the faster you will be able to find happiness and become more self-confident. Stop trying to turn an apple into an orange and just be happy with who you are. Be grateful for what you have and use the opportunities you have been given to give an opportunity to others.

5. Don’t Fail Yourself

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started. – Marcus Garvey

Self-confidence is half the race on its own. If you don’t think you’ll win from the get-go there’s very little chance that you’ll win later on.

Take-Home Message: Don’t fail yourself without even giving it a shot. Be confident in what you can do and don’t let anybody else tell you otherwise. You are capable of great amazing things as long as you believe in yourself. So go out there and make things happen.

6. Think Bigger (A Short Story About Self Confidence)

What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates his fate. – Henry David Thoreau

Your destiny is dependant on your self-confidence and your self-confidence is dependant on your thoughts. A short I love to share when speaking on the topic of self-confidence is the one about the baby elephants. I think this story is an illustrative example that will inspire and motivate you to unshackle yourself and free your thoughts:

The Baby Elephants

There was once a gentleman who was taking a tour through an elephant encampment. There to his surprise, he noticed that the elephants, these colossus 6000kg animals, were not just free in the open but there were NO cages and NO chains insight. All that was holding the elephants back from escaping the zoo, was a small piece of rope tied to one of their legs. As the man gazed in bewilderment upon the elephants, he was completely dumbfounded as to why these huge elephants didn’t just use their strength to easily snap the rope holding them back and escape the camp. Yet they didn’t try to at all. Curious and wanting to know the answer, he asked a trainer nearby why the elephants just calmly stood there and never tried to escape.

The trainer replied:

“When the elephants are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them back from escaping. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they still cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them because in their minds they are still the same size, so they never try to break free.”

The only reason that the elephants weren’t breaking free and escaping the camp was that over time they had adopted the self-defeating belief that it just was not possible, they lacked in self-confidence, and their limiting thoughts never kept them in captivity their whole lives.

Take-Home Message: Don’t be like these elephants in the elephant camp who let their thoughts limit their potential. Aim for the moon, so that even if you miss you land among the stars.