Marcel Deer
You know when someone walks into a room, and you can instantly see their self-confidence shining through to the outside?
There’s something about confidence that we all admire and that most people find to be one of the most attractive traits they look for in a romantic partner.
At the same time, we all detest false overconfidence. When a person’s confidence isn’t based on anything real, we tend to see this as a fraud, maybe even an insult to confident people everywhere.
So what is it about these people that instantly lets us know they’re confident? What do they do to express it even without trying?
People who are naturally confident often display these eight behaviors, sometimes without realizing it. By recognizing these behaviors, we can start to explain what confidence looks like and even learn to emulate it ourselves.
1) Expressing themselves
When I was a lot younger, I decided to try my luck working abroad and got a job in South Korea.
As well as having a different language and culture, I also found that the country was really drab. Not the weather or the architecture but the way that people dressed.
Walking in downtown Seoul, you’d see black, grey, and beige and pretty much no other colors. People were very conformist at the time, and fashion was basically whatever everyone else was wearing.
But every once in a while, you’d round a corner and see someone dressed in bright colors like a bright red dress or a shocking pink three-piece suit.
Of course, they’d draw every single eye around, but it wasn’t just the splash of color. You could tell there was something different about these people.
It was in the way they walked and the way they held themselves. And I realized that it was supreme confidence.
They clearly didn’t care that everyone else was dressed the way they were. They wanted the world to see who they were and express themselves to the fullest.
They didn’t put limits on themselves – they were living out loud and didn’t care who knew it.
And this is a hallmark of naturally confident people everywhere. They don’t place limits on their expression but unabashedly show their true selves to the world.
2) Helping others
When you have low self-confidence and trust that I’m speaking from experience here, you don’t feel like you have any value.
You don’t trust your own instincts or the choices you make.
So when it comes to helping others, you’d normally feel like you don’t know what you can do and that you have little to offer.
It’s not true, of course, but these feelings often stand in your way, blocking you from making efforts to help. But in behaving this way, you miss out on the incredible benefits of helping others.
It feels good when you do, and when you can help successfully, your self-confidence gets a great boost.
People who already have a lot of natural confidence, on the other hand, are a lot more willing to lend a hand to others because they have faith that their actions can actually make a difference.
So they do things to help and often succeed and that boosts their confidence even more.
3) Not shying away from conflicts
When I was a lot younger, I had a serious confidence problem. I was an extremely angsty teen and was quite antisocial.
Because of this, I kept to myself a lot and didn’t have a lot of successful, positive social interactions that helped me improve my view of my own worth.
And a big symptom of this was that I was practically terrified of interpersonal conflicts.
I’m not talking about fisticuffs here.
I just mean actively disagreeing with people, debating issues, and even asserting myself when I felt I was wronged.
One experience stands out. For a couple of summers, I worked as a student painter for a local crew manager. The first summer went well and I learned to paint efficiently and made decent money.
But in the second year, the manager had financial issues while I was tearing through jobs and expecting big paychecks. However, I was being paid late all the time, and at the end of the summer, I was owed a few thousand dollars.
Yet, I agreed to let the manager take his time to pay me. He did, but only just before Christmas.
For almost four months, I was angry, frustrated, and basically broke, and yet I was too timid to assert myself and demand my pay sooner.
I don’t think a confident person would have done the same.
I’m sure they would have told the manager this was unacceptable and wouldn’t have feared standing up for their rights. Because confident people know how and when to assert themselves, generally without even having to think about it.
4) Taking risks
Confident people also take risks that most others wouldn’t.
But don’t think I’m talking about foolish risks like jumping into water without checking how deep it is first.
They take calculated risks that might be physical but are just as likely to be financial, business-based, or even romantic.
They might dare to invest in a tech start-up because they trust their own assessment of its potential. Or they could bravely walk up to a stranger to see if they’re interested in a date.
In both cases, they certainly have something to fear – losing money or being publicly rejected – but they calculate that the risks are worth the potential rewards.
Confidence helps them trust their own instincts. It also helps reduce the fear of failing. Instead, they embrace the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and thereby make them less likely to happen in the future.
5) Speaking their minds
People who are naturally confident will say what they think and feel directly and honestly.
They probably don’t even realize that this is actually quite strange for most people.
When people lack confidence, they often overthink things and aren’t sure about what they should say or how much they should divulge to whom.
They may even lie about or cover up aspects of themselves they are ashamed of and don’t want others to find out about.
But confident people don’t have the same kinds of limitations. They don’t feel like they have giant blots on their souls, they need to hide at all costs, and they don’t feel they have to censor their own thoughts.
This doesn’t mean they speak without tact.
Of course, they don’t spill trade secrets or reveal their deepest desires to anyone who happens to pass by.
But they do speak their minds, give opinions, and offer commentaries a lot more freely than other people do.
6) Practicing self-care
One thing you can notice instantly in a naturally confident person is the way they hold themself. Rather than have a slumped posture and a tendency to shoegaze, they stand up straight and proud even if they’re proud not to be straight!
Your mom was right, you know. Great posture is better for your digestion and circulation, plus it just looks more appealing.
But that’s not the only way confident people take care of themselves.
They eat well, exercise, take care of their skin, focus on getting enough sleep, and look after their mental health better than people with low self-confidence.
Honestly, people with little confidence don’t feel they deserve self-care, but confident people wouldn’t think of doing without it.
7) Listening to others
Rather than trying to talk over others or racing to get their point of view expressed so they can look intelligent, confident people are able to keep their mouths shut and listen.
Wait, don’t they always speak their minds?!
They do, but that doesn’t mean they feel like they need to be the only one to talk all the time.
Someone who’s confident can afford to be more receptive to other people’s ideas and opinions. They’ll gladly listen to what others have to say and aren’t afraid to change their minds when they find themselves convinced by someone else.
8) Asking for help
One last behavior that naturally confident people will display is being able to ask for help – and they don’t even know this is hard for other people!
It might sound contradictory. You might think people who have a lot of faith in themselves will feel extra-embarrassed when they find they can’t do something.
But that’s a false pride that isn’t the same as real confidence at all.
Confidence is about trusting your abilities and knowing what you can do. So it’s no problem for a confident person to ask for help doing something they know they can’t do on their own.
Final thoughts
People who are naturally confident often display these eight behaviors without realizing it.
They may not know what it’s like at all to have low self-confidence because they’ve never been in that position. But those of us who don’t have it naturally can work towards building up this confidence in our lives.
