How to Rebuild Your Confidence After a Setback

Confidence is something many of us take for granted - that’s if we’re fortunate enough to have it in the first place. It can seem like some of us naturally possess confident personality traits over others, and while this is somewhat true, confidence is determined by several other factors. If we believe that confidence is something you’re either born with or born without, we will ultimately feel like we can never change or improve.

​It’s helpful to understand all the different elements that play a part in our self-confidence to help us take back control and feel comfortable in our own skin. Even those of us who are full of confidence can experience losing their security and assurance, whether that's due to a specific life event, a pressurising environment or changing social stereotypes. When facing these situations, no matter how much confidence you started with, it can all change in a heartbeat - and also take a significant amount of time to rebuild. Not only can these experiences knock your self-confidence, but they may give rise to other mental health issues like anxiety or depression. In this article, we will explore all the factors that affect our self-confidence, as well as methods and techniques to rebuild it after a setback.

Factors that Influence Self-Confidence

Although confidence can be influenced by our experiences and environment, there is evidence to suggest that certain individuals may naturally be more predisposed towards confident behaviours and traits.

Self-confidence is a skill, not just an emotion that we sporadically feel with no real control over. But with that said, confidence can be inherited through genetics. It’s not to say that within our DNA, some people carry a gene that’s responsible for confidence, and if you’re lucky, this gene will be passed down through generations. Instead, when we say that confidence can be inherited, we’re generally referring to two different processes. Let’s take a closer look at them both:

Genetic Factors

While confidence isn't carried within specific genes in our DNA, other personality traits can be, such as emotional reactivity, sensitivity and stress levels. Indirectly, these traits can influence how confident we feel and appear. For example, someone who is naturally emotionless - a trait they could have inherited from their parents - would likely feel more confident in situations where other people are commenting on how they look at school. One study, carried out by King’s College London, suggested that self-confidence can be up to 50% heritable.

Environmental Factors

Another way that confidence can be inherited from our parents is through our environment and childhood as we develop. It’s a subconscious process that occurs every day, but as children, we often observe those around us more than we think, taking in how they respond to different situations and how confident they appear. As children grow older, they often model these behaviours because it’s what they’ve seen and what they’re familiar with. Another environmental factor that can influence self-confidence at a young age is different parenting styles. Typically, parenting that’s supportive, loving and uses reinforcement over punishment, raises children who have a strong belief in their skills and abilities. Contrastingly, adults who adopt strict and unstable parenting styles can leave their children feeling hopeless, unloving and lacking self-confidence.

How to Rebuild Your Confidence After It’s Lost

Getting your self-confidence back to where it needs to be takes time and consistency, but thankfully there are a few well-regarded methods which can help to make you feel more capable and self-assured. Here are just a few of them:

Challenge Yourself

By definition, confidence is the belief in your own abilities, qualities and judgement, and we know that a belief is simply an idea that we believe to be true. We have full control of our beliefs, which means we have control over how confident we feel in ourselves. The most effective way to challenge the negative self-belief that you have in yourself is to do the things that scare and challenge you. By completing tasks that you would typically avoid, you prove to yourself that you are capable of more than what you believe.

Positive Self-Talk

Often what stops us from doing the things that intimidate us or make us feel uncomfortable is the negative voice inside our heads. Everyone has one, but some of us have louder and more aggressive voices than others, which can make them hard to ignore at times. By challenging this voice with positive self-talk, you will train your brain to ignore what the negative voice says, and focus on the positives instead.

Express Yourself

Pretending to be someone you're not only leaves you feeling confused and less deserving than everyone else. A key step towards improving your self-confidence is making decisions for you - and nobody else. This could be in the type of friendships you’d like to have or the hobbies that you take an interest in. An easy way to express yourself in day-to-day life is through how you decide to show up every day; in other words - what you like to wear. While there are hundreds of fashion retailers to find your unique style from, Smiley Company is a brand dedicated to encouraging positivity through colourful and bold fashion pieces. When you start embracing how you like to dress and live your life, the opinions of others become much quieter and almost insignificant.

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Amy Jones is a freelance health and wellness writer from Manchester, UK. She loves researching and writing about health topics, as well as keeping up to date with the latest health news and eco-friendly brands. Her passion for health and wellness stems from her innate desire to educate people on how to properly take care of their bodies, spot any early signs of illness and take the best preventative methods. When not writing, you can find her taking long walks in the countryside with her dog, listening to groundbreaking podcasts or browsing her nearest bookstore.