How to Build Self Confidence: Change your Thoughts
There are two things you can do when you have a troubling or disturbing thought:
1) You can let the thought bring you down, allowing yourself to feel miserable due to a belief you’ve created in your mind; or 2) as Barney says, you could also decide to just be awesome instead.
Your thoughts are yours to control. That’s an incredible kind of inner power when you become aware of it—one that will define and decide your viewpoint on life.
A great quote from Buddha says:
“The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”
This is true—you do become what you think. You create your own beliefs about who you are through the thoughts you allow inside. If you want to stand strong and progress successfully through life, it is quite important to become aware of that.
If you do not, most of your thoughts and most of what you become will not be for you to decide, but for others.
When you do not have control over your own mind, beliefs will pop into your head because of a thought from someone else.
Let me give you a quick example.
Let’s say that a person tells you every day that you are ugly, not good enough and stupid.
After a while, you start to believe that. You go on living life thinking you are ugly, not good enough and stupid.
However, having an understanding of your own mind—and having control over it—you decide what you allow inside of your head. Ultimately, troubling thoughts aren’t caused by what others say—they are caused by what we allow ourselves to believe and embrace.
You see, when someone says or does something hurtful to you, if you are not aware of your own thoughts, you will unconsciously repeat what they said in your own head, over and over again.
Start acknowledging those thoughts—it’s the first step to understanding your own mind.
When I was younger, I allowed a lot of bad thoughts spoken about me by other people to reside in my head.
Only when I started seeing that it was actually me breaking myself down through those thoughts did I start paying attention to them, and in this way became aware of my own mind’s doing.
Once you understand your own mind’s doing, you can start letting go of those thoughts and replacing them with good ones.
Example: When someone tells you you’re ugly, let it go and tell yourself inside that you’re beautiful. When someone tells you you’re stupid, let it go and tell yourself inside that you’re smart.
When someone tells you that you are not good enough, let it go and tell yourself inside that you are good enough. Keep doing that for everything. Let go of those things that do not empower you, and replace them with thoughts that do.
When something troubles me inside, I breathe deeply for a couple of minutes, then tell myself, “Aah dude, let it go, you’re freaking awesome.” It might sound a bit strange, but it helps. I am giving myself a boost of confidence. I simply let go of the troubling thought, and choose to be awesome instead.
You are what you believe—studies have shown this to be true.
Not only can your thoughts be influenced by your thinking, so can your performance. When you start thinking that you are the best actor, the best dancer, the best photographer, the best whatever you want to be, you are making your mind think and believe you are the best.
This will affect your subconscious, which will go on to shape your reality.
Your quality of life is determined by the quality of your thoughts. So instead of bringing yourself down, just start being awesome!
Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.
Your voice matters!
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Awesome article, with so much hate and malice going on this world towards one another, this is what people need especially those who are bullied, or put down in any way. I go a bit more aggressive because Life is too short and aint nobody got time for that and that being anything negative towards if is not factually true I laugh it off and tell myself Ha please you’re the best and move on.
Hey Jorge, thanks for the comment! Glad to read you like the article. True. People who are bullied lack self-confidence that is many times caused by a negative thought in their mind about themselves. Learning a bit more about their own thoughts, does a great deal in building self-confidence.
You keep being awesome Jorge! 😉