How to build your confidence and self-esteem

Want to put yourself out there, but you’re holding yourself back? It might be that you need a confidence boost. If you want to build confidence and bring out your best self, use our tips to help you.

What's it all about?

Self-esteem is how you think and feel about yourself. Feeling confident means feeling good about yourself, your abilities and your thoughts.

Lots of us feel that we want to be more confident– even people we think could never struggle with their self-esteem. Sometimes your confidence can go up and down depending on the situation. You might be really chatty around your mates, but struggle to put yourself out there with new people. This is totally normal.

Building up your confidence can take time. But taking small steps can often lead to big changes, which can make a big difference in how you feel every day.

Bring out your confidence

We’re all unique, and what makes each of us feel our best is going to be different for everyone. And everyone’s best is going to look different day to day. One day your best might be feeling confident enough to get out of bed, the next it might look like trying out some public speaking.

But when you find what gives you that spark, pay attention to it. It might be the change you’ve always needed.

Need a hand with starting out? Give these things a try:

Unbox Your Brain - Rosie McClelland about feeling self-conscious

“My confidence wasn’t always the best, until I learnt not to care what people think.

I don’t mean that in a way where it’s like, you shouldn’t be a nice person. It’s more that I learnt that other people don’t really care what you look like , so try not to worry about it. The only thing you can do is be yourself”

 

- Jordon Wilson, Content Creator

Confidence and your relationships

When we’re with the right people, they bring out the best in us. They lift us up, rather than bring us down.

If you’re hanging out with people that leave you feeling worse about yourself every day, it can really knock your confidence. But there are ways that you can take control of the situation and build yourself back up.

Tune into your feelings

Pay attention to what’s making you feel the way you’re feeling, and what’s or who is knocking your confidence. You might want to write things down to make sense of it, or chat to someone you trust about how it’s making you feel.

Chat to someone new

Putting yourself out there isn’t always the easiest thing to do. But you’ll never know who you’re missing out on getting to know if you don’t try. Who knows? The person you’ve never chatted to in afternoon Biology might become your closest mate.

Confidence after a break up

People break up for all sorts of reasons. But when it happens, it can leave you thinking, ‘What’s wrong with me?’

You might start to question yourself, the way you look or whether you should've done something differently. But a break up doesn't define you, someone else will like you for who you are.

If you need a post-break up boost, you could:

  • Remind yourself of everything you like about yourself
  • Chat to your mates about what you're going through
  • Put yourself out there with new people

Why is my confidence so low?

Confidence is knocked by so many different things, like not doing as well as you’d like in an exam, or missing a goal. Or some people struggle with longer-term low confidence, maybe around how they look or if they feel they’re not good enough.

It can take time to build confidence, especially if you feel like you’ve had a lot of setbacks recently. With some patience, and some practice, things can start to change and your low confidence may start to improve.

Try the tips on this page - you could even keep track of them in the mood journal or share what works on the message boards. But if these feelings keep sticking around, or if you feel like they’re getting worse, always reach out to someone you feel you can chat to. And you can always contact a Childline counsellor.