How to Become a More Confident Person
Confidence isn’t simply about appearing confident on the outside. Genuine self-confidence comes from within—it comes from how you value yourself, respect yourself, and treat yourself; and it comes from the boundaries you establish, claim, state, and assert for yourself and for your life.
Through the lens of my Yin and Yang Coaching Framework, self-confidence is associated with healthy yang. Yang is connected with qualities such as self-confidence, self-respect, self-sufficiency, inner strength, and our relationship with the outer world.
We all have both yin and yang qualities within us, and both are equally important. The aim isn’t to become solely yang (or excess yang), but to develop a healthy balance of both yin and yang: confidence, self-respect, self-sufficiency, and inner strength (yang); and inner worth, self-esteem, self-nurturance, and self-love (yin).
However, if you tend to lean towards excess yin, you may find that some healthy yang qualities are underdeveloped or missing, and this can show up as people-pleasing tendencies, difficulty saying no, weak or unclear boundaries, putting other people’s happiness before your own, or lacking confidence and self-respect.
In this case of excess yin, becoming a more confident person involves consciously developing and integrating more healthy yang qualities, which include:
1. Knowing What Your Boundaries Are
One of the most important steps towards becoming a more confident person is knowing what your boundaries are.
Your boundaries begin with understanding your own values, wants, and needs. What is most important to you? What are you comfortable with? What are you not comfortable with? What kind of behaviour are you willing to accept—or not accept—from other people?
When you don’t know your own boundaries, it becomes much easier for other people to cross them, either consciously or unconsciously.
For example, one of your boundaries could be only being in relationships with people who speak to you and treat you in a kind and respectful way (this boundary should be standard for everyone).
Once you are clear on this boundary, you can consciously make decisions based around it. If someone repeatedly speaks to you or treats you disrespectfully, you recognise that they are crossing one of your boundaries and can respond accordingly.
Without having that boundary clearly established within yourself, you may find yourself accepting or tolerating behaviour that you are actually not comfortable with, and this can lead to a lack of self-respect and a lack of confidence in yourself.
You need to be able to respect yourself enough to have these healthy boundaries in place, and really claim, honour, value, state, and assert them.
Knowing what your boundaries are, and being willing to claim, honour, value, state, and assert them, develops greater self-respect—and the more you respect yourself and stand by what is important to you, the more you begin to develop genuine self-confidence.
And the more you respect yourself, the more other people respect you too, which only enhances your confidence even more.
So, becoming more confident means becoming clear about what your boundaries are and learning how to claim, state, and assert them in a very healthy and balanced way.
And the more you learn to honour and respect your own boundaries, the more you begin to develop greater self-respect and self-confidence overall.
2. Learning to Say No
If you want to say no, say no.
People-pleasing tendencies can make saying no feel incredibly uncomfortable because you are often more concerned with disappointing someone else, upsetting them, or creating discomfort than you are with honouring and respecting what you genuinely want and need for yourself.
But every time you say yes when you really want to say no, you can end up putting another person’s wants or happiness ahead of your own, which is another way of not respecting yourself and not putting yourself first—something that is incredibly important and an expression of healthy yang.
Think of the oxygen mask—you have to first put on your own oxygen mask (healthy boundaries) before you help others.
Those who are naturally healthy yang-dominant are very comfortable with saying no. It won’t even cross their mind not to say no when they want to say no. This is the type of person you need to become—being able to easily and effortlessly say no when you want to say no.
And how the other person responds is up to them.
On a side note: paying attention to how the other person responds shows you a lot about what type of person they are. Are they someone who respects you and your boundaries? Are they someone with a high level of self-awareness and emotional intelligence? Pay attention and act accordingly based on your boundaries!
So become someone who knows their boundaries; who knows their values, wants, and needs; and who doesn’t abandon their own boundaries for the sake of someone else’s happiness or comfort.
And remember that becoming more confident means practising saying no when you genuinely want to say no. Keep practising until it becomes like second nature—until you naturally, easily, and effortlessly say no when you want to say no, without feeling guilty or responsible for the other person’s happiness.
You can still be kind. You can still be considerate. You can still communicate respectfully. Saying no and being a kind person are not mutually exclusive.
3. Developing a High Level of Self-Respect
Self-confidence and self-respect are deeply connected and go hand-in-hand together.
Having a high level of self-respect means treating yourself as someone whose values, wants, needs, and boundaries are worthy of being respected.
You are worthy of being respected—most importantly by yourself, and by other people too.
This means considering the relationships you allow into your life.
Do the people around you value, honour, and respect you? Do they respect your boundaries? Do they respect your no? Do they treat you with kindness, consideration, and respect? Do they speak to you with kindness, consideration, and respect?
If the answer is no, then this has to change. You have to change.
Having self-respect doesn’t mean trying to control how another person behaves. It means recognising what you will and won’t accept, and deciding how you will respond when someone repeatedly crosses your boundaries.
Sometimes that means speaking up and out for yourself, and asserting your boundaries—saying that you don’t accept that type of behaviour. And sometimes it means being willing to walk away.
As you begin treating yourself with greater respect, you start behaving differently. You stop continually abandoning your own boundaries to keep other people happy; you become clearer about what you accept and don’t accept in your life; and you become increasingly willing to act in accordance with your own values, wants, and needs, as well as your own happiness, comfort, and self-respect.
When you do these things, you naturally become a more confident person.
And remember, this doesn't happen overnight. This takes time, effort, and energy.
Are you willing to put in the time, effort, and energy?
4. Stop People-Pleasing and Start Putting Yourself First
Putting yourself first doesn’t mean disregarding everyone else.
There is a significant difference between healthy selfishness and unhealthy selfishness.
Healthy selfishness means recognising that you have values, wants, needs, and boundaries, and that these matter. It also means looking after yourself rather than continually sacrificing yourself for other people.
If you continually put other people’s happiness, comfort, wants, and needs ahead of your own, you can gradually lose touch with yourself and end up going down the wrong path.
So ask yourself:
What do I want?
What do I need?
What is important to me?
How can I protect what is important to me?
What are my boundaries?
Learning to consider yourself first can be particularly important if your natural tendency has always been to consider everyone else before yourself (excess yin).
Putting yourself first in a healthy and balanced way is another expression of healthy yang—and another way of developing greater self-confidence and self-respect (remember, the two go hand-in-hand together).
5. Developing Confidence From Within
When people think about becoming more confident, they often focus on the external—how they look, what they wear, their body, their hair, or how they present themselves to the world.
Whilst these things can absolutely help you feel more confident, they represent only one side of the coin: the external, yang side of confidence.
The other side is yin—the internal confidence that comes from your relationship with yourself. This is where we develop self-respect, inner worth, self-esteem, self-love, and a deep sense of who we are.
If we focus only on the external, our confidence can remain dependent on how we look, how other people perceive us, or what is happening around us. My work focuses on developing the yin—the internal side of confidence.
Deep, long-lasting confidence comes from within. It comes from knowing who you are; knowing your values, wants, and needs; knowing and honouring your boundaries; and developing a high level of self-respect and inner worth.
When confidence is rooted within you, rather than dependent upon something outside of you, it becomes very deep, long-lasting, and unwavering.
6. Becoming Your Own Power in Life
Ultimately, becoming a more confident person is also about becoming your own power in life.
Within my Yin and Yang Coaching Framework, this means learning to become your own source of yin and your own source of yang.
Rather than continually looking outside of yourself for love, nurturing, validation, and a sense of worth, you begin developing these yin qualities within yourself.
And rather than relying on other people or external circumstances to make you feel confident, strong, or respected, you begin developing your own healthy yang qualities of self-confidence and self-respect.
You become increasingly able to give yourself what you previously looked for outside yourself. And this creates a much stronger internal foundation because your sense of confidence is no longer dependent upon another person’s presence, approval, validation, or behaviour.
Confidence Is Something You Practise Until It Becomes Like Second Nature
It is one thing to intellectually understand how to become more confident; it is another thing to actually become a more confident person.
Confidence requires continuous and repeatable action.
You have to practise knowing your boundaries.
You have to practise claiming, stating, and asserting them.
You have to practise saying no when you want to say no.
You have to practise respecting yourself.
You have to practise respecting your life.
You have to practise putting yourself first in a very healthy and balanced way.
You have to practise making choices that reflect someone with a high level of self-respect.
You have to practise making choices that reflect the confident person you want to become.
And you don’t do these things once or twice and expect everything to change immediately. These things become an aspect of your everyday inner work until change happens and you fully become someone who is naturally very confident within themselves—and the world will respond accordingly. As within, so without.
Over time, the behaviours that initially felt uncomfortable begin to feel natural, easy, and effortless. Saying no becomes easier. Asserting your boundaries becomes easier. Choosing relationships in which you are treated with respect becomes easier and more natural.
Eventually, these behaviours become a natural aspect of who you are—someone who has a very high level of self-respect and who is naturally very confident in themselves, in their life, and in their life path.
