Bulimia Help – A Few Ideas for How to Build Self Confidence

This week’s dose of bulimia help is all about sharing what I’ve learned recently about how to build self-confidence.  I want to start by sharing a great distinction I learned this week:

Self-confidence is the way you present yourself, self-esteem is the way you feel about yourself.  Boost your self-esteem and your confidence will go up. 

That’s pretty cool!

If you’ve read my recent bulimia help posts about creating positive self-talk and how to achieve your recovery goals, you can see I’m very focused on my inner game these days.  I think it’s the most important work I can do. I look for every opportunity to grow myself because I see myself as an ever-expanding being.

Now back to this week’s bulimia help idea…building self-confidence.

As I was working on my eating disorder recovery website, I found myself immersed in some of the great self-help masters and teachers like T. Harv Eker, Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield and Louise Hay.  I’ve heard before that if you want to be successful, study success.  Study and learn from successful people.  Success leaves clues.

As I found myself studying these masters (again) and looking over their lives and their amazing work I was inspired to new insights.  I realized that they all had positive self-talk, they valued themselves (high self-worth), and they refused to surround themselves with negative people.  I have been doing this to some extent for many years, but this year my theme is “I am thriving!” so playing at 80% isn’t what thriving is about so I’ve got opportunities to grow.

I was inspired by their words and work to look at my bulimia recovery lately and how I’ve been playing the game of life after an eating disorder.  I find that every one of these masters had a lot of self-confidence, self-esteem and were willing to put themselves out there in the direction of their dreams.

Recently I’ve been looking for ways I can build my self-confidence and self-esteem.  I asked myself how do I build self confidence?  No, really – how’s it done?  Are there steps I can take to love myself more?  Is there a method or processes I can use that will boost my self esteem?

Indeed there are!  How awesome is that?!

I’m thrilled knowing this and I hope you’re just as excited hearing it, too!

I’ve been working on building my self-esteem and self-confidence for the past week or so and thought I’d share some ideas with you here.   The two biggest things I’ve been doing are listening to self-esteem affirmations from Louise Hay and looking for opportunities to either speak up for myself or do something that takes courage (something I’m afraid to do).

We get a kinesthetic (in-body) boost of confidence when we actually experience the results of doing something we’re afraid of and surviving – getting past our fears to the other side.  When we put ourselves out there and speak up for what we believe and get to the other side there’s a huge boost in our self-confidence.   I love the phrase…

Everything we want in our lives lies on the other side of our fear.

I thought I’d share with you some other ideas I’ve found online about how to build self-confidence and self-esteem. I am playing with these and thought you might enjoy playing along, too.

Look Sharp

When you look good on the outside you’re more likely to feel better on the inside. No one is more conscious of your physical appearance than you are. If you don’t think you look good it will affect the way you act and behave around other people.  If you’ve been letting your appearance slack a bit, give your self-esteem a boost by getting a new haircut or wearing your favorite outfit.

Stand Tall

How we carry our body tells our subconscious mind and other people how we feel about ourselves.  If you’ve ever heard, “fake it ‘til you make it” this is true about your posture.  You can feel better and more confident if you just stand up straight (or sit up straight) with your head held high and shoulders back.   This applies to your walking, too.

Speak Up

This is one of my favorites.  When I notice my confidence has been on a decline I often find that I’m also not speaking up for myself and telling people what I think and feel.  When I hide my emotions and genuine thoughts/feelings about the world, I keep myself from being fully self-expressed.  Don’t keep your feelings a secret – just say it!

Acknowledge Success

I sometimes forget that I am successful and that I’m a good person.  If I take the time to think back on my life and look for things that I did do well, was good at and received praise for I instantly feel better about myself.  You might sit and reflect on your past success or how you’ve been a contribution to your family, friends or community.  Even better…write down your 10 biggest accomplishments in life.

Notice Confidence

Like I shared earlier when I was reading the stories and reviewing the work of these self-help gurus I was inspired by their success.  Look for opportunities, great and small, to appreciate confidence and success in others.  The idea here is sort of how when you put your focus on something it shows up more in your life.  When you buy a red car it seems like everyone’s driving a red car suddenly. If you start to look out for confidence in others, you’ll also begin to see confidence in yourself.

Be Thankful

When we have low self-esteem we feel like we’re not good enough, we’re ugly, we’re not where we want to be in our lives.  These are all feelings of lack.  By being thankful for what you have in your life, you have an opportunity to see how wonderful your experience really is and let go of the “not enough-ness”.

Accept Compliments

I hope you’ll try this one on…if someone pays you a compliment – say, “thank you!”  I was at the gas station this morning and a woman said, “that’s a nice car you’re driving” and I said “why thank you!”  I felt like a million bucks – it was like an automatic deposit into my self-esteem bank.

Think Positive

You’ve heard me share before that I believe positive self-talk can make all the difference in what we manifest in our lives.  I’m routinely catching myself thinking more and more positive thoughts. It takes a little work at first, but you’ll get the hang of it.  Concentrate on and create reminders in your space (post-its, pop ups) to think positive thoughts.  My energy vibration has gone up dramatically in the past few weeks just because I’ve been listening to positive self-esteem affirmations and saying nice things to myself.

I hope these bulimia help ideas will teach you how to stop bulimia because it starts and ends with self-love.  And if you want to listen to the self-esteem affirmations I’ve been listening to, check out YouTube for Louise Hay.  I’m listening every day and they make me feel great.