13 Confidence Building Activities For Professionals

Confidence building activities are monumental for growing as a professional.

With this new mindset, you stretch past your limits in a sprint to reaching your full potential. Without confidence, you’re a mere mortal going through the motions.

Think about anyone you know who is competing at the highest level. Be it actor, artist, athlete, politician, or CEO, they all share one trait: confidence oozes out of them.

Plus, look at the data. According to Indeed, 98% of job workers say they perform better when they feel confident. Not only that, 96% of employees will stay at a company when they feel good about themselves, and 94% are happier when confident at work.

The long term productivity from you, and the people around you, being confident is astronomical.

Professionals, entrepreneurs, and HR managers, pay attention. Whether you’re looking to get more out of yourself or your team, this is for you.

Confidence Building Activities

Sure, you can “fake it until you make it”. But how long does that last? And what if you’re not cut out for faking it. Or worse, you’re exposed as a fraud?

It’s far better to not fake and actually be confident. This will radiate in your every interaction. Be it a Zoom meeting, in person, or phone call, you’ll present yourself as someone who knows their value. Plus, you’ll have a natural self-defense when insecurity or doubt comes knocking.

As a business owner or manager, having confidence allows you to better inspire the people around you, and yourself.

Here’s how to build confidence.

1. Vision Sharing

As the Bible says in Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

This statement holds true not just for organizations, but also yourself.

What is the vision for your life?
What do you want your legacy to be by the time you’re 80 years old?
Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
What’s your goal in five years?
Where do you wish to be next year?

This is not fluffy work. It’s the most important thinking you can do. Nothing else stacks up in priority.

Recommendation: Set aside 30 minutes every Sunday to review your life goals and evaluate your progress. Be it a mental exercise or journaling, find a way to get it done.

This will inspire confidence that you know where you’re going, and you’re on the right track. If you’re not, it gives you a roadmap to course correct before it’s too late.

And if you lead a business, do the same thinking exercise you did on yourself for your organization. Then share it with your team to inspire them to greatness. Casting a vision flat out works.

If casting a vision is your only takeaway from this list of confidence building activities, then you’re going to be much farther ahead than most.

2. Self-Affirmations

My favorite self affirmations include:

I am enough
I can do anything I set my mind to
This too shall pass
I am in charge of how I feel, and I choose happiness
I am my own hero
If I can get through this, I can get through anything
I love me

Choose one of these or make up your own affirmation. Then repeatedly tell yourself this each morning.

Your thoughts influence your actions and your actions determine your life. By thinking positive, self-affirmations, you’re literally changing the course of your days for the better.

It’s easy, simple, and flat-out works.

3. Work Out

Of course you’re going to look more attractive and get more eyes on you once you commit to working out. This brings its own confidence.

By far the biggest benefit is mental. You see, when you work out consistently for six months, you don’t suddenly get amnesia.

You’ll know how hard you’ve been training. The times you chose to go to the gym when it was the last activity you wanted to do that day. Running in the rain. And the mornings you pushed yourself with weights until failure.

These are weekly lessons that you’re strong, can commit to something, and have the muscle of perseverance.

You didn’t, and can’t, purchase being in top shape. It’s only earned. And you earned it.

That alone will transition to a more confident you at work.

My recommendation: Work out at least three times a week, at a minimum of 30 minutes.

4. Celebrate Yourself

Many type-As, including myself, will quickly move onto the next goal and do nothing special after a big achievement.

This isn’t good. Subconsciously you’re signaling that you’re not worth a celebration. Stop doing that. Smell the roses, at least for an hour.

Even getting a steak and a nice glass of wine will do the trick. If it’s a super big deal, then plan a weekend trip somewhere special. Or purchase the item you’ve been eyeing for months, for some that may be hiring a personal stylist.

People celebrate random holidays like National Donut Day. You hitting a milestone that requires your focus, hard work, and perseverance is a much bigger deal that deserves recognition.

This builds confidence because you’re showing your worth to yourself and others, by spending time and money on you. These celebratory moments become deposits for your confidence to ensure it’s never empty.

5. Study Greatness

Reading biographies, learning about the top companies and professionals in your field, following people you look up to on Twitter, watching documentaries of the best, studying the elite pros in other fields will inspire your own confidence.

Now this is only if you view greatness in the right mindset. The mistake most make is comparing their day one to someone else’s day 10,000. That, and feeling shame or disappointment in their situation.

Instead, viewing greatness in the lens of another human being with only 24 hours in their day has achieved incredible success. If they can do it to that level, surely you can make a lot of yourself with dedication.

That mindset alone builds confidence that “you got this”.

6. Invest In Yourself

You’re your greatest investment. Are you treating yourself like it?

Naturally your confidence is going to falter if you wake up, rush to work, and then go non-stop until you hit your pillow.

What energy did you spend on yourself? How are you processing life and improving?

To help some think of ideas, this investment in yourself may be in the form of investing in your home office via hiring an interior design or constructing a new office build out. Having good energy in your space gives good energy to yourself.

Even waking up an hour early to start a side project, read, or exercise is an investment in your well being. That adds up to over 360 hours of investment in yourself over the year. In a decade, that’s over 3,000 hours invested.

How can you not be more confident at work (and overall) after this?

7. Build Relationships

Relationships can come in all shapes and sizes.

Be it your spouse, parents, siblings, friends, co-workers, or random strangers across the world on Twitter, knowing other people have your back provides assurance that you’re not alone.

And making friends often requires you to step out of your comfort zone to get to know them, and let them learn about you.

Work is a beautiful path to achieve massive impact, skills, and wealth. But a life with no solid relationships is lonely, sad.

Make time for others to destress. Knowing others have your back if you fall gives you confidence to take risks. These risks could include:

Expanding into a new territory
Making a major investment into Facebook ads
Hiring new employees
Quitting your job for another one, or to start your own business
Creating a side-hustle
Asking for a raise

Again, confidence is required to make the leaps.

8. Gratitude Journal

A gratitude journal is a notebook for you to write down three to five things you’re grateful for each day. This activity is always a positive one leading you to greater perspective.

If you have a roof over your head, food in your stomach, and a bed, you’re better off than millions of people across the world.

This gratitude journal exercise inspires confidence because it reminds you that you’re already in good shape. You have what you need. By taking the pressure to perform off at work, ironically you’ll perform better.

Gratitude is one of the best drivers of internal confidence that everything’s going to work out.

9. Put Yourself In Uncomfortable Situations

Ironically, the things you’re most cautious to avoid are what help you grow in boldness.

Examples

Go to a social gather alone
Eat dinner alone
Send a text to an old friend you haven’t spoken to in years
Call and forgive someone who wronged you
Take cold showers
Explore virtual reality
Wake up early
Do adventurous activities like skydiving, white water rafting, and anything that scares you
Try learning a new skill like website design, Spanish, or cooking

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Whatever makes you uncomfortable (you know) do that!

10. Focus On Body Language

Did you know that smiling can trick your mind to feel happier? It’s true. Smiling tells your brain it’s happy, and then it can start feeling happier. And happy people are confident people.

If you’re leading a meeting, try this exercise. Have everyone look at you, then do and hold a big smile. If you really want to improve the energy in the room, have everyone stand up, look at you, hold a big smile, and look around.

This science applies to yourself as well. If you’re feeling bummed or anxious, start smiling. The dopamine in your brain will kick in leaving you feeling better to tackle your professional challenges.

11. Travel Often

Traveling forces you to think fast, make decisions, and be assertive in where you’re going—even when you don’t know all of the details.

By being in a foreign country where you don’t know the language, you’re going to learn that you can survive anywhere. Talk about confidence building.

Then when you come back to the professional world, you’ll have that confidence to call upon at all times. The memories and your ability to navigate uncertainty sticks with you.

12. Practice Vocal Authority

Are you an executive who consistently leads team meetings, or does office speeches? Maybe you’re a course creator who wants to be more confident in front of the camera.

Or maybe you’re a confident person, but you know your voice makes you out to be an insecure, weakling at and outside of work.

Even if your job never has and never will require you to give a speech, consider how many:

Phone calls do you take per week?
Zoom chats do you go on?
Times you speak to your family and friends?

In every interaction, you can feel good about your vocal speech or disappointed.
Mastering vocal authority builds confidence.

How’s it done?

Start by watching YouTube videos on the topic, pause, repeat after them, play, and then repeat. If you commit to doing this even 10 minutes a day, you’ll see a tangible improvement.

If you have the money, hire a vocal coach to help you sound your best. The dividends are endless.

13. Gain Experience

There is one confidence builder that is out of your immediate control: time. Gaining experience in a craft takes years of hard work.

Wonder how someone can run through a difficult task at record pace and make it look easy? It’s not because it’s easy. They’ve put in their dues.

That can be you, if you stick to your pursuits, never quitting.

Now consider the opposite. You have zero confidence because every few years you’re switching to entirely different careers and having to learn the basics.

And if you are going to make a change, at least do it in an industry with similar patterns. This way your experience carries some weight into your next venture.

Confident Employees Benefit Employers

Imagine if every employee — from leadership to the lowest paid worker — is feeling confident. They’re 100% engaged in their work.

What would that do to your company’s revenue, talent pool, and team productivity?

Confidence is contagious. When someone has the internal certainty that the mission is going to be a success, the problem will be solved, and we won’t screw up, everyone around them is more peaceful.

It also gives your team the fire power it needs to achieve what many call the impossible.

For example, a SaaS company competing with a giant will have a slim window of opportunity. If they can manage a strong company culture with shared confidence, there’s a fighting chance. If 90% of the team is doing the bare minimum so they don’t get fired, then that startup is doomed.

I’d much rather have 10 confident employees firing at all cylinders than 100 slow ones who are simply working for a paycheck.

Inspire confidence and you will have that team that takes down Goliath.

Conclusion

Once you put these confidence building activities into practice, the results will be compounding. I bet you’ll be addicted to your newfound confidence.

Your responsibility is to remain in this state of certainty and pass on this skill to everyone you know.

Remember, these exercises apply to both individuals and teams. Sharing confidence is caring!

What are your favorite confidence building activities?