“We accept the love we think we deserve.” ~Stephen Chbosky

Do you ever find yourself crippled by self-doubt? Have you missed exciting opportunities or given up on your dreams because you didn’t feel like you were good enough or felt that you didn’t “deserve” to get what you want? If so, you’re not alone. The fact is that nearly everyone has struggled with their confidence and self-esteem at one time or another. Some people recognize what they’re dealing with quickly and manage to pull out of it. But for other people, getting out of these existential struggles can feel impossible.

Whichever group you fall in, if you’re looking for sustainable ways to boost your confidence and self-esteem, look no further. It all starts in your own head. Seriously. Stick with me and I’ll explain how you can drastically change your life by simply changing your thoughts.

You’ve often heard me talk about intentional vibration management. That is where you keep an eye on your thoughts, your feelings and your general sense of self in order to ensure that you’re “putting out there” the kind of energy that aligns with the vibration of what you really want.

One of the components of this practice is mindfulness, and this is exactly what we need to boost our confidence and self-esteem.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is an intentional focus that you use in a psychological process of bringing your attention to what is happening right now, in this moment. This practice can be developed and used by anyone through the practice of meditation and through other training, such as the Intentional Vibration Management technique.

What does it mean to have confidence?

  • You Know You’re Worthy – Having confidence means that you view yourself favorably. You see yourself as capable and you don’t doubt your abilities to get stuff done. You know that you can do what you need to do, and you are fully aware that you have the skills and talents to be able to handle yourself.
  • You Trust Yourself – Being confident means that you trust that your instincts, thinking and abilities are sufficient.
  • You Are Unapologetically YOU – You totally accept who you are and you don’t apologize for it! In contrast, when you don’t have confidence, you struggle to accept who you are. You’ll lack the confidence to do things because you simply don’t trust that you can.
  • You Know You Are ENOUGH – You understand that you’re educated enough, skilled enough, smart enough, talented enough, pretty enough or handsome enough. You don’t judge yourself, and you don’t often beat yourself up, obsessing about what you could have, should have said or done. You don’t always worry that you’ll fall short of being “enough.”

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is very similar to confidence. It means being aware that you have value, liking yourself, respecting yourself and your own boundaries. It means being willing to stand up for who you are and what you believe, and it leads to true happiness. Self-esteem is NOT toxic narcissism. Toxic narcissists do not feel empathy, and they behave in ways that make that painfully clear to the people around them. People who have true self-esteem like themselves and do not need to tear down others to feel good about themselves.

How Can Mindfulness Help You Boost Your Confidence and Self-Esteem?

What mindfulness does to help you change this and build your confidence is to replace the feelings that you’re not enough with the trust that you are. Using mindfulness calls for you to not dwell on your past or on any negative experiences where you feel that you failed or fell short.

It helps you to not focus on the future or on what you hope to be and it helps train you to focus on who you are right now and see that who you are is good enough. You learn to accept yourself – and with that, strong confidence in yourself is built.

Practicing mindfulness can also boost your self-esteem. Mindfulness can lead you to a life settled in the present. With living in the present comes a non-judgmental acceptance of who you are.

A Mindful Method to Boost Confidence and Self Esteem

Listen to Your Inner Dialogue

We all have an ongoing “inner dialogue” where we sort of talk to ourselves. You might know it as “self-talk.”

Sadly, a lot of us seem to have an internal voice that’s extremely ugly. This internal voice has been conditioned to speak this way by us – or in some cases, by people in our lives who have been abusive and toxic to us. We almost continue the abuse on their behalf with our own thoughts – we can essentially “self-abuse” without even realizing it! The disturbing results are that when we allow our inner dialogue to be so negative, we can trigger stress, anxiety and even depression.

This self-talk has a direct impact on how you feel about yourself. Learn to be aware of this negative self-talk. If you call yourself names, that’s a sign that you’ve been engaging in negative self-talk that can lower your self-esteem.

Some people call themselves stupid or an idiot. When they consider doing something, this internal self-talk always tells them why they can’t. You’ll tell yourself things like “I’m not smart enough” or “I’m too dumb to do it.”

There’s good news and there’s bad news here.

The bad news? When you allow these thoughts to run rampant, you can get into the mindset that you can’t do something – that you’re unworthy – and then your feelings follow that internal self-talk until it becomes a belief. That belief can literally cause you to manifest more situations that make you feel “not smart enough” or “too dumb.”

This habit can be so ingrained within you that the negative self-talk plays constantly in your mind, so much so that it becomes like white noise.

The good news? You don’t have to live with that voice. YOU have control over it – even if you don’t realize it. And what mindfulness does is bring your attention to the inner dialogue that’s eroding your self-esteem.

You learn what this internal conversation is doing to you and how it’s impacting your emotions. Mindfulness helps you learn to accept who you are without expectations or blaming. You’ll gain skills that you can use to learn how to raise your confidence and acceptance of yourself.

You with me? Let me know in the comments section below!

Wait! Don’t stop here! There’s more.

Here are some additional resources on mindfulness, intentional vibration management, plus confidence and self-esteem.