10 Habits of Highly Confident People

We all have a purpose, we just have to allow it to lead us.

We all have struggled with self-confidence—some of us have this problem till we are on our last breath. Insecurity is normal, but letting this insecurity hold us back from our potential and purpose is what is detrimental to our growth and strength.

Confidence vs Cockiness has been a topic discussed during my time in therapy, counseling, and coaching. Confidence has always been an issue for me personally which I struggle till this day, but I’ve worked on truly understanding what confidence actually is.

Confidence, according to Psychology Today, defines it as “A belief in oneself, the conviction that one has the ability to meet life's challenges and to succeed—and the willingness to act accordingly.”

What we must first be aware of is if our projections towards the world are confident or cocky. Cockiness, from my understanding, is an overcorrection of one’s ability or image due to a hurtful or traumatic experience that questioned one’s self-worth. From this past experience, we try our best to prove others wrong in our abilities or our looks by overcorrecting the judged trait or characteristic. This overcorrection or “cockiness” is a fear move that cries out “accept me” or “love me” which many of us aren’t aware of.

Most confident people are aware of this internal behavior and understand that confidence doesn’t happen overnight, but it is always a work in progress.

Below are 10 habits of highly confident people.  

Accepting your past

 Being stuck in the past within your mind is an act that many of us do. We beat ourselves up for not achieving a certain goal or feel ashamed of ourselves that a circumstance occurred. We may have felt hurt or embarrassed by a person or people that keep resurfacing when we get triggered—this is all normal. What we do with these thoughts is always a choice that we have.

 When we choose to accept our past, we don’t forget that these circumstances happened; we choose to mindfully process them to find peace from these experiences. Finding peace is basically letting ourselves not feel uncomfortable or fearful when these thoughts come into our minds. When we finally find peace and accept our past, we can finally move forward. Our thoughts of past pain and trauma don’t create the uncomfortable feeling in our stomach when we think about it.

 Forgiving yourself and others

Confident people don’t hold resentment towards others---also to themselves. Bitterness and grudges towards others are basically letting someone’s past behavior dictate your current outlook and actions in life.

Forgiveness is never for the other person or people involved, it’s for yourself so you can learn to move forward without letting the actions of the past affect your present self. We have to put into our thoughts that whoever hurt us intentionally was only doing the actions that they learned—they didn’t know any better. We also have to keep in mind of the famous psychological phrase “hurt people hurt people.” We don’t know the past of others, but we have the choice to accept that it happened, forgive the person, and move on.

Forgiving yourself is also a challenge. If we were never taught to forgive, how can we learn to forgive ourselves? We have to tell ourselves that “I only did what I did at the time with the knowledge I know.”

Forgiveness takes practice, work, and strength as re-living these past experiences in our minds triggers us.

The act of forgiveness makes us mentally stronger and more resilient.

Staying curious

What do you miss being when you were a child? What made our lives fun? What did we live for?

What many of us lose when we become older is our sense of curiosity in life—being curious about what life has and also the people in it. We move through the motions of what society tells us what we should and shouldn’t do—having this blanket of fear over us knowing that life is more than what others tell us.

How we build character, personality, and traits are from our resiliency through our curiosity in learning life’s endeavors. When we ask questions about the adventures in front of us, it gives us a door of opportunity to learn. When we become curious about people and learn to understand them, we build connections and rapport.

 Staying complacent or being fearful of change is what keeps us from growing.

 We must be confident in ourselves by staying curious about what life has to give.

Being empathetic

Sympathy and empathy are two terms that some may find confusing.

Sympathy often involves a lot of judgment. Empathy has none. Sympathy involves understanding from your own perspective. Empathy involves putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and understanding why they may have these particular feelings. In becoming aware of the root cause of why a person feels the way they do, we can better understand and provide healthier thoughts.

Sympathy’s favorite expression is “poor you”. It creates a sense of pity over the plight of the person. Empathy’s favorite expression is “I can understand how it feels. It must be really hard”. This helps a person to feel heard, understood, and validated. Sympathy focuses on the surface meaning of statements, while empathy is sensitive to non-verbal cues. Having an awareness of people’s true meanings is helpful in maintaining that connection.

Learning to be empathetic creates a sense of selflessness and a connection to others which allows others to connect back with you.

Being confident is not allowing yourself to judge others’ emotions, but to understand what others are going through.

Listening first before speaking

Being quick to assert your say in a conversation or jumping to a conclusion on a subject is something many of us do and also experience. What we gain from actively listening is knowledge and understanding—things we need to be resilient to grow.

Confident people don’t barge into conversations to prove their knowledge—they listen first to understand then state their opinion.

 Below are 5 technics to be better active listeners.

1. Pay Attention

Give the speaker your undivided attention, and acknowledge the message. Recognize that non-verbal communication also "speaks" loudly.

•   Look at the speaker directly.

• Put aside distracting thoughts.

• Don't mentally prepare a rebuttal!

• Avoid being distracted by environmental factors. For example, side conversations.

•  "Listen" to the speaker's body language

2. Show That You're Listening

Use your own body language and gestures to show that you are engaged.

• Nod occasionally.

• Smile and use other facial expressions.

• Make sure that your posture is open and interested.

• Encourage the speaker to continue with small verbal comments like yes, and "uh huh."

3. Provide Feedback

Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. As a listener, your role is to understand what is being said. This may require you to reflect on what is being said and to ask questions.

• Reflect on what has been said by paraphrasing. "What I'm hearing is... ," and "Sounds like you are saying... ," are great ways to reflect back.

• Ask questions to clarify certain points. "What do you mean when you say... ." "Is this what you mean?"

• Summarize the speaker's comments periodically.

4. Defer Judgment

Interrupting is a waste of time. It frustrates the speaker and limits the full understanding of the message.

• Allow the speaker to finish each point before asking questions.

• Don't interrupt with counterarguments.

5. Respond Appropriately

Active listening is designed to encourage respect and understanding. You are gaining information and perspective. You add nothing by attacking the speaker or otherwise putting her down.

• Be candid, open, and honest in your response.

• Assert your opinions respectfully.

• Treat the other person in a way that you think they would want to be treated.

Knowing where your drive comes from

 Are you acting on selflessness or selfishness? Are you living to serve yourself or others?

 Knowing where your drive comes from is important for our growth and character. What many of us aren’t aware of is if we are acting selfishly or selfish.

At a young age, we are all mostly selfish beings. “Mine. Mine. Mine.” is a common saying when it comes to children. At some point, we are taught to share, be kind, and be told to help others. My understanding of maturity is one’s transition from being selfish to selfless—changing from just serving yourself to using your skills, gifts, and traits to serve others.

When we only serve ourselves, we are trying to overcorrect a pattern in our minds that we need to feel validated. From solely serving and gifting ourselves, we have to understand that the underlying purpose of doing it is to make ourselves feel important.

There’s a saying, “We buy things that we don’t need to impress people that we don’t like.” Is very true if you own up to it. Our need to feel validated comes from points where we experienced times where the people we let down our walls to and gave our trust to hurt us. This pain made us feel invalidated. From this invalidation, we move through life overcorrecting ourselves to prove we are worthy of life and love.

 When we serve ourselves only, we are basically projecting that we are hurt and need these experiences to heal our pain.

 When we focus on serving others, we start understanding others’ views of life other than our own. We start gaining more clarity and knowledge from the lenses of other people which gives us a better perspective on how to approach different challenges.

 True happiness knowing what your role is in how you serve others—it can be with your family, friends, strangers, or those who seek help from your own experiences.

Confidence is knowing that you can’t keep your skills and gifts for yourself—it is learning to be selfless to help others.

 Allowing yourself to learn from failure

 Yes, nobody likes to fail, but how can we learn to move forward?

When psychologists talk about the fear of failure (or atychiphobia), what they’re really talking about is the fear of shame. And if you think about it, they have a point. What most often keeps us from taking a step forward isn’t a lack of desire, it’s an unwillingness to find out if we have what it takes.

When we maintain this type of egotism about ourselves, we go out of our way to protect our self-image. Whether it’s self-sabotage, some types of anxiety, low self-esteem, or a perfectionist persona—we go out of our way not to actually do anything at all. The problem with this lack of action is that it prevents us from ever realizing our full potential.

Life is about messing up. That’s why a number of people who live the greatest lives possible, also profess to be the biggest screw-ups. It just comes with the territory. So if we want to live the fullest life we can, we have to be willing to face the truth. We have to be willing to find out who we are, what we can do, and just how much failure we can possibly take.

When you step back and take a look at most of society’s “successful” people, they never gave up on their assignments and learned from their mistakes.

The strongest and most confident people out there are the ones who’ve suffered the most—they just didn’t let that suffering hold them back. They learned from it.

Aware of themselves

 One of the key elements of mental health is our ability to be self-aware.  

 Psychologists Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund proposed this definition: "Self-awareness is the ability to focus on yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or don't align with your internal standards. If you're highly self-aware, you can objectively evaluate yourself, manage your emotions, align your behavior with your values, and understand correctly how others perceive you."

To simply put it, those who are highly self-aware can interpret their actions, feelings, and thoughts objectively. 

It’s a rare skill, as many of us spiral into emotion-driven interpretations of our circumstances. Developing self-awareness is important because it allows leaders to assess their growth and effectiveness and change course when necessary.

Many people aren’t aware of their behavior because of their environment. If you live in a society where everyone is hurtful and there is no love, you start believing that this is true life. Being hurtful to others may be so common that your “comfortable” behavior is to be hurtful. If this behavior isn’t corrected, others will continue to enable this behavior.

That’s why so many people don’t question their behavior because they have never been corrected. They have been surrounded with similar behavior most of their lives and continue to stay in that mindset.

Confident people have the ability to pull themselves out of their box to see themselves from the lens of others to evaluate their current behavior. They have the strength to question themselves if their behavior and actions are beneficial to their growth and others around them.

Confident people seek to become better, more resilient, and more loving people by their sense of awareness.

Setting realistic goals

 We’ve all heard that we should label our goals using the S.M.A.R.T. method.

 S.M.A.R.T. usually stands for:

S – Specific (or Significant).

M – Measurable (or Meaningful).

A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).

R – Relevant (or Rewarding).

T – Time-bound (or Trackable).

 Each facet has its place, but being realistic in how you can obtain your goals is as important.

This way of setting goals is an easy way to start writing it out, but we have to also throw in the factor of how we live our daily lives—we all have different ways of achieving due to our circumstances. We must be realistic in how we can obtain our goals and also how big our goals are.

From my years of being an educator and a fitness trainer, many goals are too big. Having these big goals is great, but creating small habits to get to smaller goals has always been the winner.

Changing and creating healthy habits to reach small goals is the name of the game. When we start creating better habits, we slowly start to see that reaching small goals becomes second nature. Setting these small obtainable goals also gives us confidence that things can be achieved.

Once you start planning and hitting these small goals, bigger goals down the end look more achievable.

Finding their purpose

We all have a purpose, we just have to allow it to lead us.

According to William Damon, author of The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life, purpose is: “a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at the same time meaningful to the self and consequential for the world beyond the self.”

Purpose is what gets you out of bed in the morning, and more importantly, it gets you to do it willingly, even gleefully.

What do you look forward to each day? What can’t you get pulled away from because it’s so important to you and, by extension, the world? What gives meaning to your life?

Purpose can vary greatly from one person to the next. For some, it might be the work they do in their laboratory or the content they write for a publication, the art they produce in their off-hours, or even their foray into parenthood.

Whether it’s a job, an unpaid passion, or both, purpose looks different to all of us.

In a world where we have so many choices and not enough guidance, it’s up to us to give our life meaning and purpose.

Having a purpose is the most wonderful feeling in the world. Every minute counts and every action you take is deliberate. You see the world with absolute clarity.

By contrast, not having purpose is painful. There is an emptiness in the pit of your stomach and each day feels painful, but you must somehow get through. The world appears confusing and uninspiring.

In fact, a lack of purpose is a facet of depression and anxiety. It’s no wonder such feelings are on the rise. We are not given any time or guide for how to find purpose. We go straight from school to a job we may not love, and we’re pressured into starting a family before we may be ready.

To find our purpose, we have to think selflessly and with humility. We have to look at our strengths and weaknesses, our life experiences, our pains and traumas, and our successes and failures. We have to ask ourselves “Why am I doing this?” whenever we choose a career, relationship, or endeavor.

Our purpose is tied into saying to ourselves “How can I serve others with the skills, knowledge, and experience that I have?”

Some people search a lifetime for this purpose, while some find it early.

If you allow yourself to live with selfless and loving intention, you will find your purpose.

- Lloyd Sarte