Do you feel that you lack confidence in yourself and your body? Maybe you feel that you are judged or you constantly find yourself worrying about what others think of you? In today’s society, it can be so easy to slip into a place where you have low self-esteem and lack confidence.
Media often plays a big part in this; telling you to look a certain way or be a certain type of person, for example. It’s no wonder that many people experience low body confidence and negative feelings about themselves.
However, once you see yourself in a negative light it can feel hard to adjust that perception - you might worry that you’re just stuck with low self-esteem forever.
Thankfully, there are powerful and effective strategies that you can use to develop a more positive view of yourself - one that will last.
Before we discuss how you can improve your body confidence, let’s talk about why having body confidence is so important in the first place.
Why Is Body Confidence Important?
There are many different reasons why body confidence is an important thing to try and improve, as it can really help you in many situations.
Fundamentally, feeling good about yourself is vital for consistent mental health. Without a positive self-image, you are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.
Having more confidence can also help you to socialize and get out of your comfort zone more. And getting out of your comfort zone helps you to develop as a person, taking risks that promote growth.
Having more body confidence is also a great way to show yourself self-love.
You may find that the more you can improve your own body confidence, the more that you begin to love yourself and focus on the good things about yourself. When you focus on the good things, you’re more likely to achieve your full potential.
If you can improve your body confidence, you should start to feel more courage and motivation to try new things that have always been out of your comfort zone.
You should find that you are treating yourself with respect more, and this should hopefully help you to develop a more positive and caring attitude toward yourself.
The best Ways To Improve Your Body Confidence
As you can see, body confidence is important and the more confidence that you have, the more natural it should feel to face your fears, love yourself and have a happier and fulfilled life. But how should you tackle low self-esteem and change the way you see yourself?
There are easy ways that you can start to improve your body confidence - most changes you can even start right now.
Here are 10 ways to improve body confidence - without changing how your body looks in any way.
1. Practice Gratitude
One way to improve body confidence is by practicing gratitude. This can be simple - for example, set aside a “gratitude journal” and try to write down a list of things you are grateful for, with regards to yourself. An example of this could be, ‘I love the way that my hair looked today’ or ‘I am so thankful for my body and how it keeps me alive.’
Any type of gratitude works and this can really help you develop a positive attitude and focus on the good things about yourself and your body. If you try and practice gratitude in the day, it can help you to have a more positive day. It’s also quite effective to try and practice gratitude in the evening before you go to bed - that way you can reflect on your day and try to find all the positives from it.
Psychologists estimate that it takes at least 21 days to fully adopt a new habit, so try to make your gratitude list every day for at least 3-4 weeks. Then, reflect on how this has changed your thinking or self-esteem. You may notice positive changes that make you want to continue this habit.
If you find it tricky to stick to your gratitude plan, it can help to limit the number of things you’ll put on your daily list. Three entries is about right for most people - enough to make you feel good, but not so much that writing in the gratitude journal feels like a chore.
2. Build A Better Support System
Some people don’t seem to realize the huge effect your friendship group can have on your confidence. If you surround yourself with negative people, it can bring down your confidence. Maybe they point out something bad about your outfit or your hair - if you have friends who constantly bring you down, this will not help you to improve your confidence.
Reflect on the ten people with whom you spend the most time, and ask yourself if they make you feel better or worse about yourself. When it comes to those who make you feel worse, it may be worth limiting your time around them.
Alternatively, you can talk to them about your feelings if you think they’d be receptive - let them know you’re struggling with confidence and could use a boost.
In addition to nurturing your relationships with the positive people who are already in your life, try and find new people who can provide an even stronger support system for you. Positive people and positive friendships are what all of us need.
If you can build a strong support system, whether that’s with family, friends or both, it can really help you to improve your own confidence, but also theirs too.
Friends should be honest, but also supportive - if you feel down, friends can lift you up and make you feel more positive. You can also do the same for them too.
3. Stop Comparing Yourself To Others
This is probably something that all of us tend to do at one point or another. It can be so easy to compare ourselves to others, especially those who we think have it better than we do.
However, this isn’t the case. Everyone has their own insecurities and problems. Nobody is perfect and if you stop comparing yourself to other people, you should start to see this as true. The person whose body you envy might well envy your own figure, and the person who always looks confident might be insecure on the inside.
Comparing yourself to others will only bring you down and cause negative beliefs to appear, which can make you feel a lot worse and less confident. When it comes to body confidence, most people try and find something that they don’t like about themselves and compare that thing to others. This is quite a common thing to do, but it doesn’t help you in any way.
Try and stop comparing yourself to others and focus on things about yourself that you do like and things you like on others to - spread the positivity and stay positive about yourself, too.
One thing you can do to help kick the habit of idealizing other people is to keep a note of the compliments you receive. This will remind you that we all experience envy sometimes, and that there is a vast difference between the way we see ourselves and the way others see us. We are more critical of our own flaws than anyone else would ever have time to be.
4. Change Your Mindset
Changing your mindset might seem like a complicated thing to do, but there are tools that you can use that make it a lot easier. One of these tools is self-hypnosis and it can be used in the comfort of your own home.
Self-hypnosis tools are widely available, here at ehypnosis.com, and you can find a self-hypnosis program for body confidence here. You can listen to the recording as often as you want, and at your convenience. Self-hypnosis tracks are a great way to help you relax, clear your mind and replace negative limiting beliefs with more positive ones - on various topics.
In case you’re wondering exactly what hypnosis involves, rest assured that it can’t change you in ways that you don’t want to change. Rather, it helps you enter a state of deep calm in which you are more receptive to taking on suggestions. These suggestions are ones you have already endorsed, and that support your goals.
For body confidence, you can use self-hypnosis tracks to change your view on yourself and your body, in order to look at it in a more positive way. While it will usually take multiple listening sessions to make a tangible difference, hypnosis can gradually shift the way you think by circumventing your conscious mind.
In sum, being able to change your mindset is a powerful way to improve body confidence, and hypnotherapy is one of the most effective methods for changing your mindset.
5. Practice Self-Care
Showing yourself self-care and self-love is a great way to improve your body confidence. When you care and love yourself, you accept that you don’t need anyone else’s opinion to validate how you feel yourself. You should begin to feel proud of who you are and what you look like.
Self-care can be shown in various ways. Maybe for you, it’s setting aside time to practice your hobbies, or going out somewhere on your own and facing your fears - whatever it is that you want to do, it is all beneficial.
Self-care is especially important if you are experiencing from lack of self-esteem or confidence in general. Showing yourself love can help you to realize how you need to be treated by others too.
In addition to encouraging changes at a conscious level, practicing consistent self-care sends your subconscious mind the message that you are worthwhile, valuable and deserving of love. In contrast, treating yourself badly - for example by not eating well or by not getting enough sleep - strengthens the subconscious belief that you don’t deserve good things.
6. Change The Conversation
Conversations with friends, family or colleagues can have a big impact on how you feel, even without you knowing. If you find that the conversations are quite negative and are aimed at other peoples’ appearances or comments on your own appearance - try to change the conversation.
Some people may not realize that they could be hurting someone’s feelings or talking very negatively about something so personal, so it’s important to try and replace the conversation with a more positive one.
This way you can point out to others that what they are saying may be affecting someone’s confidence, and then you can steer the conversation to a more positive, productive topic. You may be worried about taking control of a discussion in this way, but there are respectful and empowering ways to do so.
For example, you could own the impact that such conversations have on you by saying something like “I have a hard time seeing myself in a good light, and when we have these kinds of conversations it makes me imagine other people making fun of me.”
7. Practice Affirmations
Affirmations are positive phrases that you repeat to yourself. If you tend to feel negatively about yourself and have a loud inner critic, affirmations can help to “drown out” this critical voice. If said enough and with conviction, affirmations can become beliefs.
Look at yourself in the mirror and say something positive about your body, whether it by general or specific. An example of a general affirmation might be “I love and appreciate my body” or “I look beautiful today and others will respond to it.” Meanwhile, an example of something more specific is “I love my eyes, my hair and my legs” (or any 3-4 features you choose).
It’s up to you when you recite your affirmations. Some people prefer to do so just before going out, while others feel saying affirmations before bed helps them to wake up the next morning in a positive mood. Experiment with different times, and with different wording until you find something that feels right.
8. Project Confidence
You’ll have heard of the old expression “fake it until you make it”, and there’s some truth to it. The basic idea here is that if you act confident for long enough, you’ll begin to absorb that projected attitude and start to feel genuinely good about yourself.
What does projecting confidence look like? It involves asserting yourself and your needs, making eye contact with people, and walking with your head held high. In addition, dress the way you want to in the clothes you truly love, rather than dressing to hide your body.
You may be surprised by how people respond to this kind of feigned confidence, and by how their perception of you starts to influence your own.
9. Consider Cutting Back on Social Media
On a rational level, you already know that social media misrepresents peoples’ lives as perfect, joyful and filled with beautiful people. You are aware that behind this polished facade, there are regular individuals struggling with the same things that bother you. However, it can be hard to remember this when scrolling through your feed.
For some people, images on social media can be shrugged off as misleading. However, if people’s photoshopped pictures niggle at you and make you harsher on your own looks, perhaps it’s time to reconsider the way you use the internet.
If, on reflection, you feel like your use of social media is playing a big role in your low body confidence, consider signing off for a while - whether temporarily or permanently. Alternatively, impose a time limit on your social media use and ensure that this time is spent looking at things you really care about.
There are also groups you can join where members commit to offering a realistic portrayal of their lives. This can be a big relief to new mothers in particular, who are often dealing with low self-esteem and worries about not being good enough.
10. See Your Unique Features in a Different Light
As mentioned above, social media and Hollywood constantly bombard us with images of how we’re supposed to look. Consequently, we think we should be eternally youthful, slim and yet shapely, and immaculate without “trying too hard.” This is an exhausting ideal to live up to.
Quite apart from being unrealistic and harmful, this type of ideal overlooks some of the value and meaning to be found in the things about our bodies that aren’t traditionally “perfect.” In particular, scars, stretch marks and other signs of difficulty are viewed as blemishes.
With a little effort, you can start to see these parts of your body in a different light. For example, the silvery stretch marks on a mother’s body are a sign of bringing new life into the world. The scar on someone’s chest represents their bravery in having surgery that has improved and extended their life.
For every unique feature about your body, there’s a story that relates to your success, your growth or your perseverance through tough times. You just have to remember what that story is and tune into it when you’re tempting to criticize your looks.
Improve Body Confidence With Self-Hypnosis
These easy changes can help boost your body confidence, and overall confidence too. Just by trying to replace negative actions with the more positive ones we have mentioned, should prove beneficial.
One of the more powerful tools that we mentioned is self-hypnosis. Self-hypnosis recordings can naturally and safely help to replace any negative, limiting beliefs and replace them with positive ones.
