5 Activities & Hobbies To Help You Build Unshakeable Confidence

People often make the mistake of categorising confidence as something you either have or don’t have, or as regarding it as something that can be lost in the blink of the eye. The reality though is that confidence is something you amass and work on.

To use an analogy, your confidence is much like your bank balance, you must constantly work on building it and maintaining it. Every positive action can be seen as a deposit and every negative action, such as self-criticism or negative feedback is a withdrawal.

Whilst that might sound somewhat daunting at first, the positive news is that whatever your situation or background, you can get to work on building your confidence right away.

In this article we have compiled 3 activities which, if you start doing today will help you to build your confidence bank account.

If once you’ve finished reading, you want to learn more about the tools and techniques used by psychologists to help boost confidence, have a watch or listen of this podcast with Dr Nate Zinsser, author of The Confident Mind:

Activity 1: Cold Exposure

Shame is one of the biggest barriers to confidence and it tends to rear its ugly head when we make promises to ourselves that we don’t keep. Like the New Year’s resolution we make to run 25k a week or read 5 books a month.

One way that you can flip the script on that shame loop is by committing to small, daily actions that are hard but can be overcome. Cold exposure, AKA cold showers or ice baths, are a superb way to help you build your confidence.

When you step into a cold shower or ice bath, every cell in your body will be telling you to jump out and grab a warm towel. If you can sit with that feeling of uncomfortableness for a minute, your body will relax and adapt.

After that your body will be flooded with endorphins, the feel good chemicals, and you’ll go into the rest of the day not only with a mental boost, but with the knowledge that you can do hard things and overcome them.

Activity 2: Playing Poker

There are plenty of games that you can play to build your confidence, but of all of them, poker is perhaps the most accessible.

If you are careful with your budget and don’t overspend, poker can be great for your confidence. That’s because it teaches you three key lessons, the first being that you need to stay focused and present at all times, ignoring that nagging voice in the back of your head trying to distract you.

Secondly, it is a game that constantly puts you out of your comfort zone, pushing you to your limits and forcing you to trust yourself. Finally, it forces you to think confidently and trust in your own judgement.

Activity 3: Cardio

If you can run, if you are unable to do for whatever reason, then find a cardio activity that suits you and throw yourself into it. Remember at the beginning of this article when we discussed how self-criticism can act as a withdrawal from your confidence bank account?

Well, cardio is one way to silence that voice of self-doubt and to show you that it doesn’t need to be listened to in the first place. If you aren’t a big runner or have a low level of cardio fitness, the first time you go out for a run or cycle you’ll feel great for the first couple of minutes.

After that, when the blood is pumping and your lungs feel like they’re draining of oxygen, your mind will start to tell you that it’s time to stop and that you can’t carry on. If you ignore that voice of doubt and push on you’ll quickly realise that you are far more capable than you think.

Make cardio a habit and within no time you’ll learn that negative, doubting voice in your mind is nothing but a faulty alarm system and not something you need to take any notice of.

In Summary

Now that you know confidence is something you can build and nurture, it’s on you to start choosing activities that help you with that goal. All of the activities discussed above are great examples of how you can silence that voice of self-doubt and have more confidence in your abilities and your capacity to cope.

Aside from these activities, look for ways to move out of your comfort zone every day as by doing so, you’ll quicker boost your self-esteem and confidence. Then you can start to change the narrative you tell yourself from, ‘I’m not a confident person’ to ‘I’m strong enough to deal with anything’.