The Surprising Things That Can Lower Your Confidence
Confidence is one of those tricky things that can be hard to get right. Many people would like to be more confident, but being able to do that is not always straightforward, and you might feel as though it’s something you either have or don’t have. However, that is not quite true. You can always develop more confidence, even if it doesn’t feel like it, and it’s something that you should try to be aware of if you are keen to improve your life. As part of that, it might be helpful to think about some of the surprising things that can actually lower or worsen your confidence levels, so you can avoid them.
Bad Posture
We all know that standing tall can help you to feel more confident. Well, it works in the reverse too. If you are constantly walking around with this hunched over look, then it is going to directly affect how you actually view yourself, and your self-image is going to be a lot worse off for it. As such, it is very important to make sure that you maintain a good posture as much of the time as possible. If you work at it, having a good posture will come very easily, and it will soon be your natural position.
Hearing Problems
Anyone who has ever suffered with hearing problems will be able to tell you that it can drastically affect one’s social life. Untreated hearing loss in particular can mean that you find it increasingly harder and harder to understand what is going on in social situations, and over time this leads to less and less confidence in yourself. You might even suffer with some paranoid thoughts about what other people are saying. Keep on top of your hearing health, however, and you should be able to avoid this.
People-Pleasing
If you go around simply trying to make other people happy, this is rarely going to result in you feeling good about yourself. There is nothing wrong with doing something for someone occasionally, and that is an important part of being a social human being. But if you are always people-pleasing, then there is no room left for you, and your natural confidence will start to dissipate. Consider setting up stricter boundaries and putting a limit on how much you are helping other people. You might find you feel a lot better for it.
Overdoing Your Confidence
If you are trying to convince yourself that you are more confident than you are, you might find yourself overdoing it and trying to use bravado to get it across. The trouble with this is that people rarely believe it, least of all yourself, so you only end up feeling like a sham. That is actually going to make your confidence level a lot worse, so it’s better to simply accept what your current confidence level is and find real ways to genuinely boost it over time. That is a much healthier, and more realistic, approach.
