You see it all the time: someone who exudes confidence, letting everything slide off their back coolly. This type of person always seems to attract a crowd, and anyone who talks about them marvels at their amazing confidence and self-esteem.
You want to be like this too someday, but you’re just not sure how. It’s not like you can learn to be more confident, right?
Actually yes, confidence is something that can be learned and taught. It’s not all genetic and fixed at birth as many believe. You might take a class, read a book, or watch a video series to boost your confidence.
In this article, we’ll talk more about how you can learn to be more confident. We’ll also point you in the direction of where you might seek instruction to improve your sense of self. By the time you’re done reading, you’ll be well on the way to discovering your inner confidence.
Let's get started
Can You Be Taught to Be More Confident?
If you want to learn how to drive, you enroll in a driving course. If you wanted to learn to knit, you may watch YouTube tutorials or take a class. Those are things you learn to do and then put forth into the world on a regular basis. They have nothing to do with emotions and are instead reliant exclusively on ability.
It may seem strange then to think of the idea of learning confidence. After all, confidence isn’t a skill like driving or knitting, right? Well, not exactly. Those are hard skills while building your confidence is considered a soft skill.
What does that mean? Soft skills include such things as:
Other soft skill examples are conflict resolution, creative thinking, teamwork, networking, and time management.
As you may have guessed from the above, soft skills are mostly used to launch and improve your career, but that’s not their only application.
Your character, attitude, communication ability, people skills, social skills, and emotional and social intelligence all come into play regularly even outside of work.
These soft skills make you likable and help you win friends, so they’re just as important in your day-to-day life.
Self Confidence fits right in as a soft skill.
It’s generally agreed upon that it’s possible to finesse your soft skills as you would a hard skill. However, it’s not always nearly as easy to do so.
Let’s take the hard skills we used as an example earlier. If you’re learning to drive, there’s a very well-defined endpoint.
You take your written test, you practice driving, you pass the driving test, and you obtain your driver’s license.
At that point, anyone would consider you able to drive.
The same applies to knitting. You learn the techniques and start with small projects. Once you can knit your own clothes or a blanket, you’ve achieved the hard skill of knitting.
How will you know you’re doing well at such things as communication or even confidence? Someone who you know may tell you how much more confident you seem lately, but those offhand comments are your only gauge.
That doesn’t mean it’s not worth it to focus the time on mastering soft skills like confidence. It’s just the contrary, as a matter of fact. To succeed in both your personal and professional life, you need a strong combination of hard and soft skills.
Which Resources Can Teach You Confidence?
You now know it’s important to spend more time working on your soft skills, but how do we go about improving self-esteem and learning to be more confident?
Here are some options available to you.
Read Books
Endless self-help and confidence books abound that promise to help you hone in on and improve your confidence. Some of these are admittedly better than others, so don’t just pick up the first book you see on the subject.
You can’t go wrong with the classic Dale Carnegie title How to Win Friends & Influence People. Although this book was published in 1936, it’s still talked about to this very day. In fact, the book tops Amazon’s book charts often, proving it still has clout.
You may also want to browse Amazon’s list of best-sellers in the self-help genre, which updates frequently. Other popular, beloved books in this genre are:
Watch Videos
You can easily search Google or YouTube for videos on building confidence and be inundated with the results you get. Like with self-help books, some videos out there are worth your time and others, not so much.
Here are some to check out:
- Improvement Pill started as one YouTuber’s journey to self-improvement and has significantly evolved from there.
- Brendon Burchard, The Motivation Manifesto author, and personal development trainer also has a YouTube channel where he shares his knowledge.
- Skillopedia through the Learnex Network Channel focuses exclusively on mastering soft skills like confidence.
Take a Class
If you prefer a more hands-on approach to your learning, a soft skills class in confidence could be just what you’re looking for. These courses are typically offered online so you can take them at your leisure.
One such popular site for online classes is Udemy. A search for self-confidence revealed nearly countless courses to look into. You can see that list here. With ratings for each class, you have the freedom to choose one that best suits you.
We do want to mention that Udemy courses are not free. Upon looking at the list above, the classes start as low as $12.99, with some priced over $100.
Is It Worthwhile to Learn to Be Confident?
We all only have 24 hours in a day.
How you spend yours isn’t necessarily up to you. You may devote a chunk of your day to school, or perhaps you have a full-time job that demands a lot of out of you.
By the time you’re done for the day, you’re exhausted and want to relax. This puts your interest in learning to be more confident on the backburner again and again.
You may wonder if boosting your confidence is even worth the time and effort it will surely require.
We say it absolutely is worth learning.
Soft skills are rarely given precedence over hard skills, but truly, people should be encouraged to learn both in equal measure.
By working hard to improve your confidence, you’ll find it’s much easier to meet and talk to other people. Where before you may have struggled to make small talk, now you’ll know how to carry a conversation.
This can help you make new friends, impress at a job interview, and make a good impression on new colleagues as well as your boss.
Most importantly, by investing in your confidence, you’ll feel better about yourself.
No challenge will seem insurmountable when you believe in yourself. Where before, you maybe were deterred, you’ll now know how to break a challenge down into more manageable steps.
The goals you set for yourself will be more attainable as well, bringing with them more success.
Quick Tips to Improve Your Self-Confidence Today
While we still advocate for learning confidence, we thought we’d wrap up with some quick tips you can use going forward. Consider this part of your training!
Fix Your Posture
Confidence is as much about the way you carry yourself as it is how you feel.
Align your body, keeping your shoulders back and your spine straight so your posture is better. If you slump a lot, you may have to shift out of this posture into a straighter one.
With time, your posture will reflect how great you feel about yourself and your life.
Think Positively
The power of positive thinking is undeniable. Over the years, many studies have been done on the topic confirming as much. When you think something, it’s not only that you put that energy out into the world, but you also start to prepare for that outcome.
For example, if your boss asked to talk to you, do you think it’s because you’re going to be fired or that you’ll get a promotion? Depending on what you think, you behave very differently.
While positive thinking doesn’t mean that nothing will ever go wrong in your life, however you may find that more starts to go right.
Put Some Tunes on
ScienceDaily published a report in 2011 from the University of Groningen that found how music affects our perception and our mood. If you have a big presentation at work or school, turn on some high-energy, positive tunes to get you prepped for success! It does work.
Conclusion
Confidence is considered a soft skill, so it often gets less attention than hard skills like learning to drive or knit. Still, how you feel about yourself plays a role in everything you do, so it’s worth spending some time on.
Luckily, confidence can be taught and learned, be it through books, videos, or even online courses. Once you start making even small improvements in your confidence, you’ll notice how your life changes for the better.
Feel free to share this article and comment below. Good luck!
