Nobody should start any task without believing they are going to succeed. In other words, success is dependent on you having confidence in yourself that you can get the job done. This type of confidence can pay off—literally. Research from the University of Messina discovered a direct connection between self-esteem and what people earned. Those with high self-esteem earned around $7,000 more each year than others.
However, all too often we tend to get down on ourselves and have a low opinion of what we can do. One study found that 60 percent of people wished they had more self-respect. That lack of confidence can come from a number of places. It might stem from the constant comparisons we make between ourselves and our acquaintances in the workplace or on social media. Maybe you dwell too much on failures while ignoring your successes. Whatever the reason, one of your goals should be to build up your confidence.
As seen in the American Psychological Association’s Dictionary of Psychology, self-confidence is having trust in your “abilities, capacities, and judgment.” Improving your self-confidence starts with daily habits.
Easy ways you can learn how to be confident:
- Show compassion to yourself: Understand that everyone has weaknesses and that there’s nothing wrong with failing from time to time.
- Focus on your strengths: Do what you’re best at, and the chances for success will increase.
- Gain a positive vision of the future: Believe that your best days are always ahead of you as long as you keep moving forward.
- Maintain your connections: Keep close with your family, friends, and colleagues. They can help boost you up when you’re feeling low.
- Seek opportunities for improvement: Don’t rest on your laurels. Go out and learn new skills and bits of knowledge. As long as you’re improving, you will gain more confidence.
- Take care of your appearance: While you shouldn’t focus solely on how you look, you should still make an effort to look nice and professional. This can include exercising regularly.
- Write down past successes and future goals: Take a moment to write down what you’ve accomplished in the past. This will remind you of your successes. Then write down what you want to accomplish in the future.
In addition to these suggestions, check out the following quotes about confidence to get some inspiration.
101 Confidence Quotes to Help You Value and Believe in Yourself
“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” —Vincent Van Gogh
“We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” —Marie Curie
“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.” —Helen Keller
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble, but reasonable confidence in your own powers, you cannot be successful or happy.” —Norman Vincent Peale
“Always be yourself—express yourself, have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” —Bruce Lee
“Talk to yourself once in a day, otherwise you may miss meeting an excellent person in this world.” —Swami Vivekanada
“Self-confidence is the memory of success.” —David Storey
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” —Oscar Wilde
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.” —Joe Namath
“I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn’t fall down.” —Al Neuharth
”The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.” —William Jennings Bryan
“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
“The more prepared I can be . . . the less pressure I feel and the more confident I am. As your confidence grows, it’s only natural that the pressure you feel diminishes.” —Aaron Rodgers
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” ―J. M. Barrie
“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.” ―Henry David Thoreau
“Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” —Winston Churchill
“We are cups constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” —Ray Bradbury
“It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.” —Sally Field
“Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.” —Truman Capote
“With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.” —The Dalai Lama
“You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.” —Lou Holtz
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” —Mark Twain
“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember—the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.” —Zig Ziglar
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” —Dale Carnegie
“Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered—just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better.” —Barrie Davenport
“Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.” —T. Harv Eker
“Confidence doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s a result of something . . . hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.” —Roger Staubach
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” —Dr. Seuss
“Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.” —Mignon McLaughlin
“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.” —Samuel Johnson
“Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.” —Cicero
“Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.” —Vince Lombardi
“It is confidence in our minds, bodies, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures.” —Oprah Winfrey
“It’s not the lack of ability or opportunity that holds you back; it is only a lack of confidence in yourself.” —Richard Monckton Milnes
“Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend.” —Laozi
“Humor comes from self-confidence.” —Rita Mae Brown
“Don’t take anything for granted. If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will. Have a little more confidence.” —Cathy Moriarty
“If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.” —George Herbert
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” —E. E. Cummings
“Experience tells you what to do; confidence allows you to do it.” —Stan Smith
“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” —Suzy Kassem
“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.” —Norman Vincent Peale
“Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.” —Diane Arbus
“What’s important to me is not others’ opinions of me, but what’s important to me is my opinion of myself.” —C. Joybell C.
“Trust yourself—you know more than you think you do.” —Benjamin Spock
“The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we have in others.” —François de La Rochefoucauld
“When you win, you don’t get carried away. But if you go step by step, with confidence, you can go far.” —Diego Maradona
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” —Rumi
“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” —Michael Jordan
“Successful people often exude confidence—it’s obvious that they believe in themselves and what they’re doing. It isn’t their success that makes them confident, however. The confidence was there first.” —Travis Bradberry
“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.” —Louisa May Alcott
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” —Arthur Ashe
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” —Carl Jung
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” —Bernard Baruch
“Have confidence that if you have done a little thing well, you can do a bigger thing well too.” —David Storey
“Confidence is the most beautiful thing you can possess.” —Sabrina Carpenter
“You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.” —Rosalynn Carter
“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. ” —M. Scott Peck
“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” —Edmund Hillary
“You have no control over other people’s taste, so focus on staying true to your own.” —Tim Gunn
“Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” —Christopher Robin
“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.” —George Washington
“You sometimes lose by taking risks, but you always lose by holding back.” —Rachel Wolchin
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” ―Henry Stanley Haskins
“Self-confidence is contagious.” ―Stephen Richards
“The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he’s dead.” ―Bette Davis
“To overcome fear is the quickest way to gain your self-confidence.” ―Roy T. Bennett
“When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t.” ―Jodi Picoult
“First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, I believe.” —Norman Vincent Peale
“Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.” —Benjamin Disraeli
“A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
“Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.” —Erich Fromm
“Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how great your natural talent, there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.” —Jack Nicklaus
“Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.” —Michel de Montaigne
“People who ask confidently get more than those who are hesitant and uncertain. When you’ve figured out what you want to ask for, do it with certainty, boldness and confidence.” —Jack Canfield
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” —Buddha
“If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.” —Cicero
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.” —Mark Twain
“With confidence, you have won before you have started.” —Marcus Garvey
“If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” —Thomas Edison
“One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” —Arthur Ashe
“You’ve got to take the initiative and play your game. In a decisive set, confidence is the difference.” —Chris Evert
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” —Helen Keller
“Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.” —Paul Tournier
“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less-than-perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.” —Mark Victor Hansen
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.” —Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“As long as you keep going, you’ll keep getting better. And as you get better, you gain more confidence. That alone is success.” —Tamara Taylor
“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.” —Robert Kiyosaki
“The most beautiful thing you can wear is confidence.” —Blake Lively
“Confidence is key—once you have that, you are unstoppable.” —Timothy Weah
“I’ve always believed that success for anyone is all about drive, dedication, and desire, but for me, it’s also been about confidence and faith.” —Stephen Curry
“Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking tartar sauce with you.” —Zig Ziglar
“Kindness in words creates confidence.” —Laozi
“Confidence is not, ‘They will like me.’ Confidence instead is, ‘I’ll be fine if they don’t.’” —Christina Grimmie
“The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.” —James Madison
“Don’t listen to negative influences. Believe in yourself, and show others what you can do. Only ‘you’ can find your potential.” —Marla Runyan
“If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t you will see obstacles.” —Wayne Dyer
Building Confidence Takes Practice
Building your strength and confidence won’t happen overnight. It will take consistent practice to improve. You can start by practicing your communication skills. As you gain confidence in communicating, you’ll become better at it. Begin your journey to improved self-confidence by reading the following article:
When Is Assertive Communication Effective?
And if you’re looking for more inspirational quotes, check out the following: