You look at self-confident people, then you look at yourself and ask: 'Is self-confidence a skill I can develop, or is it a personality trait you just have to be born with?'

In this article you are going to discover ten self-confidence skills that, when practiced daily, will transform you into a confident person, and prove beyond doubt that confidence is NOT a birthright reserved for some and not others.

Confidence developed through position and experience

Take a look at the following three scenarios and see if you can spot the odd one out:

1. A judge on X factor talking to an entrant before they audition.

2. You being interviewed for a job.

3. A TV presenter interviewing an actor who is promoting a movie.

Did you get it? Here's a hint, in two of these scenarios one person has more to lose than the other.

Scenario one - here, the judge has all the confidence, while the individual auditioning, is all nerves. If the judge is not impressed by their performance their dreams of fame and self-esteem could be crushed.

Scenario two - here the interviewer has all the confidence and little to lose, while you stand to lose the opportunity of a job, steady income, security, and progression if your performance does not reflect your abilities.

Scenario three is the odd one out. The TV presenter and the actor have both developed their knowledge and experience, and therefore self-confidence through their career paths.

But for a twist of fate, a different path taken in life, an opportunity taken instead of avoided, any one of these roles could have been reversed.

Shyness and social anxiety can keep you permanently on the low ground in any scenario by forming a mental barrier between mixing with others, and embracing opportunities.

Lack of interpersonal skills practice, and reduced career opportunities, are the key reason your self-confidence levels continue being starved of opportunity to grow and flourish.

The Ten Self-confidence action plan list

The following are ten little self-confidence builders that will begin to erode those mental barriers and promote naturally confident behavior. Give yourself the goal of practicing them over the next week.

1. Decision Speed

We all know what happens when we stop to think too long about things – we end up talking ourselves out of doing them. Making a quick decision without thinking through the consequences, can feel like jumping out of a plane without a parachute - but it can also feel very liberating.

Making low-level decisions faster than you normally would, is the first of your self-confidence tasks.

2. Conviction

Lack of confidence and self-belief causes us to suppress our own thoughts and opinions, for fear of offending others or being challenged. The result is, we become bland, agreeable, and led by what others want to talk about.

Our lack of assertiveness also means we have less to contribute, due to getting less air time to talk about our own interests and areas of knowledge.

Asserting your own opinions more, regardless of the response, is step two for your self-confidence progress.

3. Inner Voice

That ever present, uninvited, and suspicious guest that lives in your head. As slow as we can be to make decisions, your inner critic is fast to give negative feedback, against you and everyone you come into contact with – especially when it's in a bad mood.

Challenging and silencing this inner critic on an ongoing basis when it delivers a negative report, will improve your stress management skills.

4. Outer Voice

If you have ever been asked to speak up, or to repeat yourself, this is either because your voice is going quiet when your anxiety is rising. Or you have set your default speaking volume quite low.

Anxiety can make your breathing become shallower. You may also have set the volume of your voice quite low in a subconscious attempt to become less visible.

Air passing over your vocal cords is what gives your voice its tone. Breathing evenly and deeply while speaking a little louder than sounds natural to your ear, is step four of your self-confidence training.

5. Posture Power

Hunching over or slouching, is the first stage of your subconscious trying to curl up into a protective ball. You may be unaware of your low confidence posture, but your body language is busy transmitting the evidence to others, and ensuring they are treating you accordingly.

Straightening up whenever you consciously remember to do so is a fundamental action of step five.

6. Extend Pleasantries

Little everyday interactions may be something you have gotten into the habit of minimising or avoiding. Waiting for your neighbour to go in before you step out for instance, or using self-service tills at the supermarket to avoid cashiers etc.

Embracing any and all opportunities for a brief social interaction, or just extending some pleasantries, are short term actions that can give compounding, long term future results.

7. Represent Yourself

When was the last time you won an argument? Or really stood your ground and said 'no', when somebody took you for granted, or made one request too many?

When you have low confidence, people can sense you are someone they can take liberties with, unload their stress on, or take advantage of. All with little resistance or comeback.

Standing your ground against the person responsible, and saying no to unfair demands will quietly gain respect. This should be a major goal of your self-confidence journey.

8. Energy Leader

Do you know of individuals who are either naturally exuberant and high energy, individuals who are always sad and low energy, or individuals who are always complain about everything?

When you are with one of these character types, your own energy seems to go up or down a degree to match theirs. In any conversation, you can either lead with your energy - or you can be led.

Raising your energy levels and bringing a positive vibe to conversations (by as little as ten percent), will be enough not to raise fake flags with the critics in your circle.

9. Eye-Contact

Meeting someone's gaze during conversation, or even raising your eye-line from the ground when walking down the street, for a shy person, this can feel like trying to raise the Titanic.

Whatever level your gaze naturally rests, is also a good barometer of your self-esteem level.

Raising your eye level, and prolonging eye contact with others (at least ten percent longer than feels comfortable), is step nine for developing a well-rounded self-confidence.

10. Self-Pacifying

When we are feeling self-conscious or anxious under the spotlight of attention, we begin performing subconscious little calming actions, such as stroking our hair, rubbing our neck, our chin, our thighs etc.

Joe Navaro, ex FBI agent and author of, 'What every body is saying', calls these self-pacifying actions. Internally, these actions are designed to calm ourselves down by releasing the mood-stabilising - Serotonin. But externally, our body language is once again broadcasting our dips in confidence, to the subconscious of others.

Breaking pacifying habits is the tenth step for developing self-confidence skills

Conclusion

Just remember, changing lifelong habits such as a slouch, or a quiet voice, cannot happen overnight. There are no magic bullets, and no weird little tricks for this, simply a dogged persistence in a process of retraining your brain, over a protracted period of time. As much as two years.

What this also means is, you don't have to go from zero to a hundred with any of these confidence actions. Simply change the situation whenever you catch yourself in a slouch, a pacifying action, avoiding eye contact, or dodging your neighbour.

To help you out, we here at Lifeconfident have developed the confident week seven day challenge to turn confidence-building into a game. Compete against yourself to continually improve in all ten confidence scenarios.

Thanks for reading and all the very best - Richard Gray

Founder of Lifeconfident and creator of the ‘The Small Talk Master Keys'.

Find the Seven day challenge at www.lifeconfident.com/the-confident-week