Self-confidence issues are common in people who struggle with mental health disorders, including emerging adults. Struggles with self-esteem can lead to a lack of motivation in mental health recovery as individuals may not feel that they deserve to live a life of mental well-being. But, self-esteem is essential to meeting mental health goals as it can provide individuals with the tools needed to overcome challenges. Higher self-esteem can also help people become more prone to learning about and utilizing resolutions to problems rather than succumbing to them. Fortunately, improving self-confidence is possible – setting and achieving small goals to improve self-confidence can help you get there.

Benefits of Improving Self-Confidence

There are a number of benefits to working on improving self-confidence for both people with and without mental health issues. Some of these benefits include:

Improved Resilience: More self-confidence means the improved ability to be able to overcome various obstacles that you’ll encounter. When we have more trust in ourselves, we can better recover from negative things that happen to us in our daily lives.

Better Career Experience: Having more self-confidence can help to enhance your career experience as it can allow you to make more influential decisions. Thus, giving you the opportunity for growth in your career field and providing you with more opportunities to advance.

Enhanced Relationships: Being more confident in yourself can rub off onto those around you. And, can help people who are close to you feel that you are not only more confident in yourself but in your relationship with them. Therefore, more self-confidence can help to improve relationships in your life.

Reduced Anxiety: When you are no longer worried about how you are perceived by others because you have more self-confidence, you’ll be able to stress less about those things in your life.

How You Can Work on Improving Your Self-Confidence

Improving your self-confidence won’t happen overnight. It’s something you’ll need to gradually work on and get better at every day. There is no one thing that you can do to make yourself confident in who you are, but there are several small things you can do that will add up and eventually lead to more self-acceptance. Some things you can do to help to improve your self-confidence can include:

Be Kinder to Yourself: One of the best things you can do to cultivate more self-confidence is to be kinder to yourself. This can mean many things but most important, it means to give yourself grace. Work on encouraging yourself rather than beating yourself up, especially when you make mistakes.

Practice Mindfulness: Mindfulness techniques are great for enhancing self-esteem and confidence. Mindfulness is the practice of living in the present moment, which can be practiced in a number of ways including journaling, meditation, etc. When we are mindful, we are more aware of who we are and can learn more about ourselves, our present thoughts, and our feelings, which all can help to boost self-confidence.

Reaching Out for Support: Having a supportive network of people who are rooting for you and believe in you can help to improve your sense of self-worth and confidence. This can include engaging with mental health professionals and therapists, like the ones at Yellowbrick, who are always dedicated to seeing emerging adults gain more confidence in order to succeed in their lives.