Discover the Power to Face Life With Confidence

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Some people meet adversity with confidence and an earnest smile. They exude a sense of humility, knowing they know they have human foibles, while also knowing that they are worthy and capable people. Their very presence gives you a sense that they are someone you’d like to know and maybe even emulate. You may wonder, How can I be like that… even when things get hard? While there is no simple answer to this, one very helpful tool is self-affirmations.

Self-Affirmations

Psychologist Claude Steele (1988) developed the concept of self-affirmations. It suggests that thinking about important values can help you maintain a positive sense of yourself, even when you feel threatened. The “values” he refers to can be anything about yourself that makes you feel good or proud, such as a trait, an ability, or a basic belief about what is important in life. It’s not that self-affirmations increase your self-esteem, but rather that they help you keep a positive feeling you already have about yourself by bringing your focus there.

For example, Janine acknowledges that she is a capable painter and a caring person—though she is uncomfortable doing so. When she directs her attention to these positive traits, she notices that she feels more positively about herself. Though she continues to fear that she will be rejected by friends and eschewed by co-workers, the intensity of these fears lessens. She is also more likely to feel warmed by positive feedback, like when her gym buddy Gina one morning let out an impressed, “You are so toned. You look great!”

Research has shown that by engaging in self-affirmations, people are less defensive and more accepting of emotionally challenging feedback. While self-affirmations are unlikely to cure you of insecurity, they can lessen it. You might find that by feeling positively about yourself, you are less likely to assume others will see you in a negative light. And when someone does clearly take issue with something you have done or is critical of you, self-affirmations might help you to hold on to positives about yourself, enabling you to be resilient.

List Your Strengths

As I explain in my book, Bouncing Back from Rejection, you can develop and use self-affirmations by completing this exercise:

Grab a piece of paper and follow the prompts below to identify your traits, talents, and values in three lists.

While brainstorming about these three aspects of yourself, you might be inclined to leave “unimportant” things off the list—don't. Include everything. Perhaps you are a good friend, a talented cook, or have great hair. You may minimize these qualities, but they are there. (Before you write off something like having great hair as being “too superficial” to feel good about, think about how critical you are for other “superficial” shortcomings, like a shrill karaoke voice.) All of your positives are affirmations of you as a whole person.

List traits about yourself that you value. For instance, you might think that you are funny, persistent, curious, caring, social, creative, or logical.

List your talents. For instance, you might include being a good carpenter, negotiator, or comforter to those in distress.

List the basic values that you live by. Examples of these are honesty, integrity, compassion, or generosity.

By completing your lists, you will create a pool of inner resources that you can use for self-affirmations. To learn about self-affirmations that you can use, see my three-minute video, A Simple, Powerful Tool to Increase Inner Strength.

Face Life With Confidence

The lists you created are reminders of the positives that you perceive within yourself. By reviewing them regularly, you can reinforce the experience of feeling positively about you.

Does the thought of doing this make you uncomfortable? Do you fear becoming self-centered and egotistical? If so, consider that you already have a balance within you of recognizing your weaknesses and limitations. The lists are not meant to make you forget them. Rather, they are a reminder that you also have strengths. It might help to look around at the people who fill your life. Make note of how they all have strengths and weaknesses, too. This does not make them lesser. It just makes them human.

So, give yourself permission to focus on your positives. Allow the lists of your traits, talents, and values to roll around in your brain. With time, they will settle in and reside more comfortably there. When you let self-affirmations take up real estate in your brain, you empower yourself to face life’s adversities with confidence in you.