Confidence is like a superpower.
“Self-confidence is linked to almost every element involved in a happy and fulfilling life,” writes psychologist Barbara Markway.
In particular, it can help you by:
- Reducing fear and anxiety
- Giving you greater motivation
- Building your resilience
- Improving your relationships
- Giving you a stronger sense of your true self
And because confidence can lead to greater success both in your career and in your personal life, it can become a self-reinforcing character trait. After all, the more you achieve and the better your life is going, the more capable and confident you are likely to feel.
We all think we can recognize confidence when we see it. Confident people tend to stand up straighter, speak more clearly and firmly, and make their presence felt wherever they are.
But confidence can also give itself away in the things that people say.
Here are some phrases confident people use every day. If you want to be more confident – and why wouldn’t you? – it might be time to start saying some of these things yourself.
1) “I can do this”
One of the clearest signs of confidence is that a person believes in their ability to get what they want.
“Building confidence means taking small steps that leave a lasting sense of accomplishment,” writes Dr. Markway. “If you’ve ever learned a language, mastered a skill, reached a fitness goal, or otherwise overcome setbacks to get to where you wanted to be, you’re well on your way.”
Having confidence means believing in your ability to achieve even lofty goals. While other people tell themselves they aren’t good enough to do things, confident people go after what they want and don’t let a little adversity stand in their way.
When they encounter a new challenge, their first thought is not the difficulties they will face. Instead, they focus on the rewards and trust in their ability to get things done.
2) “Let’s figure it out”
This is another thing you’ll hear confident people say when encountering a problem, whether at work or in their personal life.
Confident people don’t wallow in self-pity. And they don’t let problems defeat them. Instead, when something goes wrong, their first reaction is not to look for somebody to blame or to look for validation of their feelings, but to come up with realistic solutions.
“When we overcome the lack of self-confidence and feelings of self-doubt, then problem solving and decision making becomes second nature to us,” says mindset coach and writer Don L Price. “True self-confidence comes about by understanding our abilities, strengths and having the willingness to change what we choose.”
Confident people know that they can figure out the problems they encounter. And funnily enough, this willingness to approach problems head-on means they are much more likely to overcome them.
3) “There’s always a solution”
Having confidence means not accepting that things can’t be changed. No matter how tough the problem is, a confident person has faith in their own ability to find a solution.
The solution may not be ideal. But for a confident person, there is no problem that can’t be solved.
Check out this study, which is just one of many that demonstrate that having confidence enables you to find solutions to problems.
The study found that medical students became better surgeons when they had more confidence in their ability. In the case of the study, that confidence came from additional training, making the students feel like they had the skills to perform at a higher level.
Very few of life’s problems have no solution. And while sometimes finding a solution means accepting a compromise, confident people understand that the worst thing you can do is just give up and say that a problem can’t be fixed.
4) “I welcome feedback”
This is something I’ve had to learn the hard way.
As a writer, I’ve been exposed to more rejection and criticism than most people will ever face in their lives. That’s just part of the territory of doing this job.
At first, it’s difficult to take criticism, especially when you’ve poured your heart and soul into something.
But the more often you get feedback, the more you come to understand that being criticized is the best way to improve your skills and become everything you have it in you to be.
“Criticism is inevitable, especially if we invite diverse perspectives and boldly lay out a big vision,” says business coach Sabina Nawaz in the Harvard Business Review.
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For most of us, being criticized strikes at our sense of self. We have a tendency to take it personally and internalize the criticism, thinking it means that we ourselves are no good.
But confident people have a strong enough sense of self not to do that. As a result, they welcome feedback on the things they’ve done, both positive and negative.
5) “I trust my gut”
Intuition is a funny thing. While it can seem hard to explain and almost mystical sometimes, it’s often the case that it’s been built up over years of experiences. This enables people to make very quick decisions that still have a solid basis in reality.
But it’s hard to trust our gut. When you don’t always know why you feel a certain way, it’s easy to let doubts creep in and undermine your intuitive decisions.
On the other hand, confident people know that sometimes the best decisions are the ones we make intuitively. Whether it’s knowing when somebody is lying or making the best hiring decisions, a gut decision can often be the best.
6) “Let’s try something different”
As you’ve probably noticed if you’ve read this far, confident people make awesome problem solvers. Partly, that’s because they aren’t afraid of things getting tough. And partly, it’s because they are willing to try something new.
Sometimes, solving problems requires a fresh approach. But for people who lack confidence, it seems safer to stay with your old patterns of behavior instead of risking something you’ve never tried before.
“We don’t ever grow from taking action we’ve always taken,” writes doctor and author Alex Lickerman. “Thrusting yourself into new situations and leaving yourself there alone, so to speak, often forces beneficial change.”
This is another way that confident people become more confident, by growing through challenges and trying new things.
7) “I’m not tolerating that”
A huge part of living a healthy and fulfilling life is having strong boundaries.
That means that you have firm lines for how you will allow people to treat you. And if you don’t get the respect you know you deserve, you are willing to walk away from a relationship that no longer serves your needs.
Unfortunately, it takes enormous confidence to do that. Many people who lack self-esteem find themselves trapped in relationships, whether at work or at home, with people who refuse to respect their boundaries.
“Boundaries can help you assert what you’re OK and not OK with,” writes counselor Marissa Moore. “Personal boundaries in relationships are necessary because you may feel resentful and exhausted without them.”
An inability to set boundaries is a good sign of someone with low self-esteem. Meanwhile, maintaining strong boundaries is often a sign of someone with a high level of confidence.
And this is another example of how confidence can reinforce itself. Maintaining strong boundaries helps to build confidence, too.
8) “Thanks for telling me that”
I already mentioned how confident people are good at taking feedback. They are also great at learning from others.
That’s because their ego is not tied up in how other people perceive them. Because they can validate themselves and their own choices, they don’t feel threatened when somebody knows more than them.
Instead, they often take that as an opportunity to learn more about the subject and improve their own knowledge base.
9) “This could be great”
Confident people tend to be optimistic.
Instead of focusing on the downsides of something or examining all the ways a project could go wrong, they focus on the possible benefits.
Lots of studies show that confidence and optimism go hand-in-hand. Because confident people trust in their own ability to solve problems, they tend to have a belief that things will work out for the best. And, as is often the case with confidence, this belief ends up becoming self-fulfilling.
Things confident people say
There are lots of different ways you can spot a confident person. But one of the most obvious is in the things they say.
Confident people have an upbeat and optimistic attitude, and they trust in themselves to get through any problem. Not only does this make them highly effective at getting what they want, but it can also become a self-reinforcing behavior.
In other words, confident people prove themselves right every day.
