How to Have the Habits of a Confident Woman

Last Updated: February 24, 2023 References Approved

Our confidence has a big impact on how we enjoy life. People who are confident and happy with themselves unconsciously and positively affect the people around them. If you want to be more confident, there are several habits you can use. You can start with your body language. Stand tall and make eye contact with others. Work on developing a confident attitude. Be comfortable with yourself and your decisions. From there, change your lifestyle. You can increase your confidence by pushing yourself to take more risks.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Using Your Body Language

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Stand tall. If you want to be confident, make yourself look bigger. A tall stance tends to exude confidence. Work on being conscious of how you're carrying yourself throughout the day.^{[1]
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- Keep your posture straight. Hold your shoulders behind your back. Make sure to hold your head high.
- When standing, keep your feet close together. Relax your knees while centering your weight on your lower body. This way, you’ll stay grounded to the earth.
2
Make eye contact. Confident people give off enthusiasm in conversation. If you want to appear more confident, you can look people in the eye as you speak. However, make sure to hold eye contact when others speak as well. Do not look away when you finish talking. Maintain eye contact throughout the course of a conversation.^{[2]
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- Avoid common behaviors that imply distraction, such as looking at your phone or scanning the room.
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Engage in fronting. Fronting means aiming your torso towards the person you're talking to. This can help make you look confident and engaged in conversation. As you go about your day, be aware of your body's position during conversation. Make sure to keep your torso directed towards the person you're speaking to, as this will make you look more confident.^{[3]
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Gesticulate. Talking with your hands can make you look animated about the topic. Excitement and enthusiasm can be read as confidence about the matter at hand. Also, you may sound more animated when you gesticulate.^{[4]
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- Move your hands as you talk to help illustrate a subject. Go with what feels natural to you. If you don't gesticulate often, try practicing in front of a mirror to find hand motions that feel comfortable.
- While gesticulating can help, strive to keep your hand movements under control. Something too wild or out of control may be off-putting.
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Keep your gesturing open. Staying relaxed and open makes people feel at ease with you. You appear confident as you look more comfortable talking with others. Make sure you're not closing yourself off with your body language. Open gestures can help exude confidence.^{[5]
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- Make sure to show the palms of your hands when you're talking.
- Avoid crossing your arms or hiding your hands.
- Hold your arms around waist level when speaking. This will make you read as open and confident.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Cultivating the Right Attitude

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Embrace your imperfections. It may sound strange, but recognizing your flaws can actually make you come off as more confident. No one is perfect. An attempt to mask imperfections can be read as insecurity. Instead of trying to hide your flaws, embrace and accept them as part of who you are.^{[6]
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- You don't have to define yourself by an imperfection. Learn to love and accept the fact you sometimes talk too much or that you dislike something about your physical appearance. This is only one small part of who you are.
- If you're aware of and accepting of your imperfections, you will feel less of a need to hide or cover them up. This can be read as confident to others.
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Take responsibility for your own actions. Insecure people tend to make excuses or cover up mistakes. If you're confident, you know that a mistake or error is not the defining factor of your life. Work on taking responsibility for your decisions, both good and bad. This will make you read as more confident to those around you.^{[7]
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- Remember, you are the only person who can make things happen for yourself. You have the power to direct your life, for better or for worse.
- If you make a mistake, don't minimize it. Instead, think to yourself, "That was a mistake. It was poor judgment on my part. I should try to do better next time."
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Have an "as-if" mentality. Whenever you feel yourself holding back, ask yourself "So what?" Take actions with outward confidence, even if you feel uncertain. Remind yourself that the worst that can happen is your won't succeed exactly as you envisioned. For example:^{[8]
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- “I want to stand up for myself and say something, but they are going to disagree with me”. So what?
- "I want to go to that event, but I'm scared that I won't know very many people." So what?
- "I might forget what to say next during a presentation." So what?
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Avoid certain habits when talking. Be aware of how you talk. Certain words and phrases undermine your confidence, and can make you look like you have an insecure attitude. Learn to watch out for vocabulary or tone that diminishes confidence.^{[9]
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- Never open up a sentence with something that undermines yourself. Avoid starting off saying something, "I'm no expert, but..." or "This is just my opinion, but..." Also, things like "What if..." can sound insecure.
- Words like "just" are unnecessary and can make you look nervous or uncertain.
- Watch out for question inflection. This is when you end a sentence as if it were a question. This can come off as nervous, so avoid doing so.^{[10]
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Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Changing Your Lifestyle to Increase Confidence

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Develop and follow through with action plans. Confident people have excellent follow through. They do not make big plans only to let them fall to the wayside. If you want to give off confidence, make plans and then follow through with them every time.^{[11]
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- Select an area where you need to grow. It can be something personal. For example, you want to be better about keeping up with household chores. It can also be something professional. For example, you want to work harder on finding a better job.
- Develop an action plan. Set specific deadlines and actions you can take to achieve these goals.
- Follow through with your plans. Even small steps will boost your confidence. You may not achieve everything exactly as you envisioned, but that's okay. Taking action in and of itself can raise your confidence.
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Find a mentor. If you want to feel more confident, one way to do is to surround yourself with confident people. Seek out someone you admire. Seek out a confident woman. Ask her to help you develop your own sense of confidence.^{[12]
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Harvard Business Review
Online and print journal covering topics related to business management practices
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- You can find someone at work. You can ask a very confident co-worker to have coffee with you so you can pick her brain.
- You can also ask someone in your social circle. Maybe you know a very confident friend. She can give you advice on how to raise your own confidence.
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Prioritize self care. Self-care should not be something thought of as self-indulgent. If you want to maintain a confident attitude, you need to care for yourself. You deserve rest and relaxation in order to maintain your confidence.^{[13]
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- Give yourself small rewards. This can be as simple as a warm bath at the end of each day, or a long walk to clear your head after work.
- Make time for the basics. Get enough sleep, eat well, and give yourself some downtime.
- Schedule regular self-care time and make sure you stick to it, even when life gets busy.
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Exercise to bolster confidence. Regular physical activity has a lot of health benefits. However, it can also boost your sense of self-confidence. If you work out regularly, you will feel better about your body and its capabilities.^{[14]
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PubMed Central
Journal archive from the U.S. National Institutes of Health
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- At first, work out schedules can feel taxing. It's not unusual to find yourself dreading your daily workout when you're getting into the routine.
- Stick with it, even if you dislike working out. Eventually, you'll find yourself looking forward to your daily workout routine and valuing the benefits to your mind and body.
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Experiment with new things. Your comfort zone is not the place to stay. If you want major change in your life, you must push yourself out of your comfort zone. With every step you take out of your comfort zone, you'll grow more confident.^{[15]
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- Do something that intimidates you. Go to a bar alone to make new friends. Try a new workout routine at the gym. Take up a hobby that you've always felt nervous about.
- Push yourself intellectually. Read a difficult book. Take a class in an unfamiliar subject area.

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Expert Q&A

Question

How can I stop getting nervous when I talk to people I'm attracted to?

Sarah Schewitz, PsyD
Licensed Psychologist
Sarah Schewitz, Psy.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist by the California Board of Psychology with over 10 years of experience. She received her Psy.D. from the Florida Institute of Technology in 2011. She is the founder of Couples Learn, an online psychology practice helping couples and individuals improve and change their patterns in love and relationships.

Sarah Schewitz, PsyD

Licensed Psychologist

Expert Answer

Deep breaths. Don’t forget to breathe. Take deep breaths down into your belly. When you’re nervous, usually your nervous system is responding with a fight or flight response. Your brain has sent some sort of signal that there's danger, so your body is reacting in the same way it would if you were physically in danger. When you take deep breaths, you're actually sending a signal back to your nervous system saying “We're good, everything's fine here." You wouldn’t be able to breathe calmly and deeply if you were in physical danger, and so that will help reduce the adrenaline. It'll help reduce the cortisol, which is a stress hormone, and get you back to feeling calmer.
Question

My confidence is very low. What can I do to improve it?

Klare Heston, LCSW
Licensed Social Worker
Klare Heston is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker based in Cleveland, Ohio. With experience in academic counseling and clinical supervision, Klare received her Master of Social Work from the Virginia Commonwealth University in 1983. She also holds a 2-Year Post-Graduate Certificate from the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, as well as certification in Family Therapy, Supervision, Mediation, and Trauma Recovery and Treatment (EMDR).

Klare Heston, LCSW

Licensed Social Worker

Expert Answer

There are many small steps you can take in order to start improving your confidence. Don't expect to turn things around in a day or even in one week. You can start with how you hold your body--practice good posture and make eye contact when you talk to people. Try writing in a journal for a few weeks to sort out the sources of your lack of self-confidence. It might be possible that you need to work some of these issues through with a friend or even a mental health professional.
Question

How can I act like a confident woman as a shy person?

Klare Heston, LCSW
Licensed Social Worker
Klare Heston is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker based in Cleveland, Ohio. With experience in academic counseling and clinical supervision, Klare received her Master of Social Work from the Virginia Commonwealth University in 1983. She also holds a 2-Year Post-Graduate Certificate from the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, as well as certification in Family Therapy, Supervision, Mediation, and Trauma Recovery and Treatment (EMDR).

Klare Heston, LCSW

Licensed Social Worker

Expert Answer

You don't have to be an outgoing or extroverted person to be confident. Try adjusting your nonverbal behaviors. Make sure you make good eye contact, hold your body with your shoulders pulled back, and have your torso aligned with the person you are either addressing or listening to. You don't have to speak constantly to be confident, or to exude it! But when you do have something to say on a topic, choose your moment and put your idea or thought across with carefully chosen words and with little regard for whether or not the other person will also see it your way. People notice the ideas of quiet people when they speak up and make a point.