Posted by Sage, January 13, 2019.
Are you looking to increase your confidence?
If you ask most women, confidence is one of the most attractive traits they look for in a man. Besides making you more desirable to women, confidence also helps with your personal and professional life.
Luckily, confidence isn’t a gene that you’re born with. It’s mainly a set of learned skills and beliefs. Anyone can become more confident if they’re willing to put in the hard work.
Follow this daily routine to give your confidence a massive boost.
Get a good night’s sleep
You probably already know that getting a good night’s sleep helps your body to recover. But did you know it also helps to improve your confidence?
In a study by the Postgraduate Medical Journal, it showed that doctors who had a good night’s sleep performed better and had higher levels of confidence. In contrast, doctors who were sleep deprived were more likely to make mistakes which impacted their confidence.
Regardless, it’s important to get enough sleep every night. Not only will you think more clearly, you’ll feel better too. And the better you feel, the more likely you’ll want to go out and talk to girls. I know personally for myself when I don’t get a good night’s sleep, I’m definitely less social. I just want to stay home since going out and interacting with people takes so much energy. So don’t underestimate the importance of a good night’s sleep.
A good tip to keep in mind is to avoid doing anything stimulating an hour before bedtime. So that includes playing on your phone, watching TV or surfing the internet. Studies show these activities stimulate your mind, which makes it harder for you to go to sleep. Instead, read a book or listen to some calm music to help relax you.
Exercise
Exercise is amazing for your mood and health. Besides helping to burn fat, exercise improves your cardiovascular health and blood circulation. All of these things work together to give you an extra confidence boost throughout the day.
The Mayo Clinic states that exercise is one of the best ways to improve your mood. Besides preventing high blood pressure and diabetes, exercise has been shown to improve anxiety and depression. While the links aren’t entirely clear, it’s believed that regular exercise releases feel-good brain chemicals, like neurotransmitters and endorphins, which help to fight depression. This also increases your body temperature which relaxes and calms your body.
In addition, regular exercise puts you in a proper state of mind and pushes you to commit to your goals. By committing yourself to go to the gym 3 times a week, you’re taking full responsibility for your health. This makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something.
A quick tip: if possible, exercising in the morning is the best. You’ll burn more fat and lose more weight. Even if it’s only for 20 minutes, you’ll feel more energized and productive during the day. As part of my morning routine, I’ve been doing daily yoga stretches, which helps to relax my body and clear my mind.
Eat a healthy breakfast
Start your day off right with a healthy hearty breakfast. Stay away from processed or microwavable foods. It’s best to stick with fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy. These types of foods will provide the necessary carbohydrates, fiber, protein, and fat to fuel your body for hours.
For the past few months, I’ve only been eating raw vegetables and fruits every morning. This has a number of benefits: Not only is it quick to prepare but by eating the vegetables raw, I’m gaining the maximum amount of nutrition, minerals, and vitamins. This gives me the needed fuel to power me through the day.
Just as the saying goes, you are what you eat. If you eat nothing but crap, you’re going to feel like crap. So eat the right foods and you’ll be giving yourself the best chance of feeling awesome.
Take a cold shower
There’s nothing quite like a refreshing shower to wake you up. One thing I’ve started doing is taking a cold shower in the morning. While this may sound unpleasant and takes some time to get used to, cold showers are actually good for your health (and confidence). Cold showers increase your alertness and overall oxygen intake. This raises your heart rate and sends more blood throughout your body, giving you an extra energy boost. Cold showers have also been shown to ease stress, stimulate weight loss and speed up muscle recovery.
The fact that you’re forcing yourself to do something that may be initially unpleasant, cold showers can help to promote hardening and make you more resilient to stress and challenges. I like to think of them as similar to pickup. While approaching girls may sound uncomfortable at first, once you go and actually do it, it can actually be quite exhilarating.
Meditate and read
I highly recommend taking at least 30 minutes out of your busy day to meditate or read an inspiring book. Whether it’s sitting quietly or reading Think and Grow Rich, it doesn’t really matter. What’s more important is that these activities are helping you to center yourself, collect your thoughts and inspire you to become a better person.
I understand that you’re probably busy and have a million things to do, but those 30 minutes are important. If you’re constantly on the go and don’t give yourself time to rest, eventually you’re going to burn out. I have an alarm that goes off every afternoon which lets me know that it’s time to relax. If you have to work in the day, meditate or read in the morning or after work. But whenever it is, make sure to give yourself that time. If you don’t, no one else.
Write down your goals for the day
If you don’t plan your day, chances are you’re not going to achieve much. So before doing anything, make a list of goals that you want to achieve. The goals could be as simple as saying hi to 3 people that day. Whatever they are, make sure they are actionable, measurable and that you can complete them by the end of the day.
Also, make sure to write them down. Studies show that people who write down their goals are 21% more likely to achieve them. In addition, it gives you an easy way check them off and review them at the end of the day.
I have a whiteboard that I write down my daily goals and thoughts on. Every night before I go to sleep, I review everything I’ve done in the day and write down what I have to do the next. This gets me focused since I know exactly what I have to accomplish.
Work on your body language
Because confidence is mostly a set of learned skills, you can fake confident behaviors until you internalize them. How, exactly? By simply improving your body language. This means standing up straight, shoulders back, chest out, looking straight ahead with feet shoulder-width apart. If this doesn’t feel natural, practice standing in front of the mirror and checking your posture until it becomes natural.
Also, don’t forget to smile. A study published in the journal Psychological Science shows that smiling decreases your stress and makes you feel happier, which has a direct impact on your confidence. Smiling also makes you look friendly and approachable, which is never a bad thing. Practice smiling for a few weeks and see how others start acting around you.
So to recap:
- Get a good night’s sleep.
- Exercise.
- Eat a healthy breakfast.
- Take a cold shower.
- Mediate.
- Read some inspiring stuff.
- Set action and measurable goals.
- Stand up straight and smile.
- Repeat.
If you’re not sure where to start, just pick one thing to focus on. It takes about 30 days to build up a habit so it’s much easier to focus on building one habit than five of them. So if you’re not getting enough sleep, start sleeping an hour earlier. If you’re not exercising, start walking for 20 minutes every day. If you bad posture, practice standing up straight wherever you go. By taking small, actionable steps, you’ll gradually be building the proper habits to improve your mood, health and confidence.
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