Self-confidence is something that a lot of people struggle with. In our ever growing social media based world, the desire to look spectacular and project an image of confidence to compete with each other has never been more relevant. Self-doubt plagues millions of people all over the world and for many different reasons; looks, intelligence, success, sporting ability, you name it.
Confidence is definitely a topic that comes up time and time again with bald or balding men, as it seems there are doubts about whether or not bald men area considered attractive or have good genetics. So this is something I would like to address here at Bald World to remind you firstly that you are amazing, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. Bald is not bad!
But, if you do struggle with self-confidence, there are things you can do to help overcome it. I've personally dealt with self-confidence issues and I know it's nothing to be ashamed of. I never really worried about going or being bald, but as a 5'8 man I sometimes felt I was on the short side, I have a slim frame so at times felt less masculine than others around me, less capable of doing well at work than others... and other things. So I'm going to take you through some things that are tried and tested (many by myself as well!) in helping you overcome your self-confidence issues.
What are the benefits of working on your Self-Confidence?
Your overall happiness will improve because you'll spend less time worrying and more time just living your life. This will also reflect in your relationships, both personal and professional. If you project a more confident attitude then others will feel more drawn to you and happier to be around you.
You also might be open to taking a few risks, which will help put you in new situations and to experience more things. And if those risks fail, a confident person won't spend too much time worrying about them. Confident people take it on the chin, learn from failure and move on.
1. Stop Comparing yourself to Others
No one is the same, not even identical twins. That means that you'll never be exactly the same as someone else, so why compare yourself to them? You can only be who you are, so just be the best version of yourself and be proud of your uniqueness. If you spend your time scrolling social media and comparing yourself to photoshopped fitness pictures or millionaire actors, you're going to lose sight of what's important, and that's you, your goals and your relationships.
Learn to be grateful for what you have and who you are, I guarantee you have a lot of great qualities, great skills, amazing attributes and things about you that people love - I challenge you to take 5 minutes now and write down 5 things you're good at or that people like about you. Remind yourself that you're amazing, and other people are amazing too. But you're amazing in your own way.
This is particularly true when it comes to hair, a lot of bald men are very concerned about comparing themselves to other men who have a full head of hair - but as I've said before in other articles, this is just one factor to your entire look and personality. It's not the main basis of comparison for life, attractiveness or success, so don't worry about it!
2. Surround Yourself With Positive People
How do your friends make you feel? Do they inspire you and encourage you? Support you and make you feel good about yourself? If that's true then you have good people around you and it's important to keep them in your life because life is damn hard, and we need people around us to don't make it harder.
If you find yourself surrounded by negative people or people who makes negative comments about you or others then this is eventually going to wear you down and it's going to affect your attitude. People who want to lift you up will help you to naturally build confidence by being reassured and encouraged.
If you're about to shave your head for the first time and you know your friends and family are going to support you and not judge you and make you feel comfortable with your decision then you have the right set up. If you have people in your life who say "you looked better with hair" then maybe these people don't understand you or who you are they aren't the most positive people you could be around.
3. Take Care of Your Body
I cannot stress this point enough. If you eat shit and never take any exercise, you are not going to feel good about yourself. Filling your body with sugar and saturated fat is going to make you feel drowsy and unenthusiastic, your cortisol levels will spike and you won't feel good about yourself. If you eat well and exercise your body is going to be full of energy and endorphins and you're going to have a natural boost to your confidence.
It comes down to 3 main things:
Eat well - I'm not saying you need to be on a strict diet forever, but you should try to eat more fruits and veggies, lean meats and oily fish, a good amount of protein and some good fats. Try to cut back on saturated fat and excess sugar.
Exercise - you should be aiming to take at least 2-3 hours of exercise every week, whether that's a bit of cardio, some resistance training or even a HIIT class. You don't have to be running 5k a day or hitting the gym for 1.5 hours, and don't tell me you don't have time. You can go for a quick 30 min walk/jog or do a 45 minute work out at home a few times a week.
Get enough sleep - this can be more difficult for some (myself included) if you suffer from insomnia, you have a stressful work life, you have young children, or other factors. But whenever you can it's very important to try and get your 7-8 hours of sleep a night as it will really help your body and mind to rest, reset and repair.
For further reading on this, have a look at my article on Simple Steps to Muscle Gain.
4. Stop being so Hard on Yourself
Have you ever heard of Emotional Intelligence? Well, this is the ability to recognise and control your own emotions and to empathise with others. What you need to understand about yourself is that challenge is good, and it's good to push yourself and strive for better, but you need to give yourself a break sometimes.
In the first point we covered, I asked you to write down some things that you're good at. This time, write down 5 things that you like about yourself; these could be physical, professional or social things that you admire in yourself. You have good qualities! So whilst it's good to set yourself standards and try to achieve things, it's also really important to show yourself a little compassion. Once you start to do that, some of your insecurities are likely to fade away.
5. Get Stuck In
Confident people don't wait and put things off, they get stuck in. Have you ever held back from asking someone out or applying for a job that might be slightly out of your skillset? You're not the only one, but it will not help your confidence by always sitting on the bench and waiting for things to come to you, because life often doesn't work that way.
By facing tough or scary situations you're going to learn resilience and you're going to become more comfortable taking risks and even not caring if you fail. The more you get stuck in the more you will learn and you can build on that. Don't be afraid of failure or rejection, everyone fails and everyone gets rejected. Literally everyone. Ask any successful person, I highly doubt their success was an instant win that didn't take a lot of getting stuck in and taking risks and failing before they got it right and were onto a winning path.
If you spend all your time procrastinating you'll build this natural mindset of constant "what if" rather than just going for it and finding out yourself. This is also true when it comes to men shaving their head for the first time - it's very common to be concerned and to wait and worry about what people will think or what you'll look like, but that worry will eat you up and it's not going to help your confidence in the long run. So get stuck in! Confident people make moves.
6. Learn some new Skills
Learn a new language, learn a new sport, learn how to cook, take a course on workplace sales techniques... whatever it is, do it. Have you ever heard the phrase "knowledge is power"? Well, confident people know this, so they work on their self-development and they spend time improving themselves in order to have that power.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone on a topic that you know a lot about? I bet you're not shy when you talk about it, because you know a lot about it. Having that knowledge is like having a whole load of arrows in your quiver, you're going to feel comfortable to have the conversation because you have the knowledge to do so.
Approaching a situation equipped with the right set of skills and abilities will absolutely boost your confidence going into that situation. The more skills you know, the more situations you're going to be ready for. Which leads me nice onto my next point...
7. Prepare for High-Stakes Situations
It's normal to feel less confident about new or tough situations. You don't know what's going to happen and you might not be prepared for every eventuality. But if you take time before going into these situations (assuming you know what they are!) and prepare for them and plan for any curveballs and focus on the outcome you want, you'll feel more confident going into the situation.
Take a job interview for example. You're going to feel pretty out of your depth if you go to an interview having done no research on the company, not prepared your blurb about yourself and have some examples of "when you showed great teamwork" or even some really good questions to ask the interviewer. You won't enter that meeting with confidence, you'll be worried and concerned about what the interviewer is going to ask and you'll umm and ahh and stutter your way through it.
How about a date? Obviously you're not going to do research on the person, but you might want to read up on some current affairs so you always have some conversation to fall back on. You also might want to shave or trim your beard, wear a nice clean shirt, some aftershave, look up some good restaurants you go to... I can assure you that you'll feel more comfortable in your skin.
9. Buy some new Clothes
This might sound like a weird one to some of you but it's an important one. If you look in the mirror and you don't like what you see, then how are you ever going to expect someone else to? You need to project your confidence outwardly and if you're wearing ill-fitting clothes and old scuffed shoes then that's not going to show.
You don't need to go crazy and buy only designer clothes, but try to up your budget a little and buy some good quality items that fit you well and compliment your body shape and skin tone. If you walk out into the world wearing clothes that look good on you, you're going to feel confident to step out into that world, and other people will notice.
Buy a few nice shirts that are form fitting and not too loose, buy a couple of good pairs of shoes and matching colour belts. 2-3 pairs of well fitting pants (these could be dark jeans, chinos, whatever). Even t-shirts are ok as long as they don't hang down below your bum. Some polo shirts look good, a nice fitting jacket or coat (this is something you shouldn't cheap out on) and a good watch to complete your look.
9. Positive Thought
You can do anything you set your mind to. Well, maybe not anything, but you can certainly do a lot more than you think.
If you approach life thinking that things are hard and you're probably going to fail and you're not good at this or no one likes you etc etc. then you're probably not going to succeed at a lot of things. Having a positive mindset and thinking about winning will help motivate you towards achieving your goals.
Negative thoughts can lead to self doubt which will inevitably hurt your confidence. By spending time to focus on yourself and improve your happiness, your outlook will change and you'll begin to feel naturally more positive. Have that winning attitude, approach situations thinking you're going to win.
Spend some time doing whatever it takes to rid yourself of some of the negative thoughts you have. Do some more exercise, spend more time with family and friends, meditate, take an hour to watch something funny on TV to make yourself laugh, spend more time with your hobbies. Whatever it is that helps to put you in a good mood, you need to find some time to do it, because being more happy overall is going to help boost your confidence.
If you want to do some reading in your own time and find out about ways to improve yourself, be sure to check out these books:
Dale Carnegie
Robert T. Kiyosaki
Stephen Covey
Timothy Ferriss
If your struggle with self-confidence is affecting your life and you spend time alone, worried, scared, hating yourself and others, then this could be signs of depression. Mental health is incredibly important so if you feel that you're struggling with it, please talk to someone about it and never suffer in silence.
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