People who want to boost their self-esteem are willing to pay 30% more for designer jeans, than someone with a positive self-image. The purchase of luxury items causes a temporary regain of self-esteem (research by the London Business School and Cornell University on a group of university students).
So less self-confidence costs money. Not only, however, through the purchase of more expensive products.
A negative self-image can also cost you a lot in your job/company. For example, you may doubt yourself, not dare to respond to a request for another project and lose out on promotion opportunities and income. Or you find it difficult to make contact, you and your achievements are rather invisible and it is your (concu)colleagues who run with the nicest jobs.
Besides money, it also costs you your feeling good and your well being: you are more likely to tense up, feel less, fret easily.
This has an effect on your performance: you are less able to get the best out of yourself.
Self-esteem, self-image and self-confidence are fortunately not fixed. You can grow in these. Much has to do with how you look at yourself and what you say to yourself.
4 tips for increased self-confidence:
1. Stop talking negatively about yourself
You don't benefit from bringing yourself down by, for example, thinking
that you should do things differently. It only creates doubt and insecurity.
Consider whether you are supporting or bringing yourself down. How do you know? You feel bad about yourself when you are critical of yourself; you feel good when you support yourself. Practice standing behind your choices. 'I made this decision and it's okay.'
2. Compliment yourself often
A common comment is "I don't feel appreciated. In that case, it is essential to learn how to appreciate yourself. Appreciate the little things you do, the energy you put into them, the intention with which you started something. Whether it has the result you want - or not - you did it.
Appreciate yourself for that, compliment yourself for that. If you keep this up for a day, you'll feel like a different (and better) person at the end of the day.
For the humble Fleming: no, this has nothing to do with arrogance and self-importance, it has to do with valuing yourself. Someone who can value himself, can also shine fully, has the most impact on a value for his environment.
3. Compare yourself only to the past version of yourself
Comparing yourself to others is usually destructive. There is always someone better than you. Comparing yourself in this way makes you feel inferior. More interesting is to compare yourself to your former self: what have you grown in? What can you do better now? In what have you become stronger? What is easier now?
4. Accept yourself as you are
The body, the intelligence, the dexterity, the patterns you have, you have. You will have to make do with it. Sometimes you wish you were someone else. But then you ignore
who you are and what you are capable of. Then you even prevent yourself from discovering that. Striving for growth is fine. Do it from satisfaction with yourself, from wanting to enrich yourself, and not from not accepting and appreciating yourself where you are now. The latter is more likely to undermine you.
You are who you are and that's fine!