Having confidence means that you view yourself favorably. You know that you can do what you need to do, that you have the skills and talents to be able to handle yourself.

You trust that your instincts, thinking and abilities are sufficient. When you don’t have confidence it means that you struggle to accept who you are. You’ll lack confidence to do things because you simply don’t trust that you can.

You go through life feeling as if you’re not educated enough, skilled enough, smart enough, talented enough, pretty enough, or handsome enough. You judge yourself, often thinking of what you could have, should have said or done, and you always fall short.

What mindfulness does to help you change this and build your confidence is replace the feelings that you’re not enough with the trust that you are. Using mindfulness calls for you to not dwell on your past or on any negative experiences where you feel that you failed or fell short.

It helps you to not focus on the future or on what you hope to be and it helps train you to focus on who you are right now and see that who you are is good enough. You learn to accept yourself - and with that, a strong confidence in yourself is built.

Practicing mindfulness can also boost your self-esteem. Mindfulness can lead you to a life settled in the present. With living in the present comes a non-judgmental acceptance of who you are.

So many people have an internal voice that’s extremely ugly. This internal voice has been conditioned to speak this way by us. The disturbing results are that when we allow this internal voice to have a negative say, we can trigger stress, anxiety and even depression.

This self talk has a direct impact on how you feel about yourself. Learn to be aware of this negative self talk. If you call yourself names, that’s a sign that you’ve been engaging in negative self talk that can lower your self esteem.

Some people call themselves stupid or idiot. When they consider doing something, this internal self talk always tells them why they can’t. You’ll tell yourself things like “I’m not smart enough” or “I’m too dumb to do it.”

When you allow these thoughts to run rampant, you can get into the mindset that you can’t do something - that you’re unworthy - and then your feelings follow that internal self talk until it becomes a belief.

This habit can be so ingrained within you that the negative self talk plays constantly in your mind, so much so that it becomes like white noise. What mindfulness does is bring your attention to the inner dialogue that’s eroding your self esteem.

You learn what this internal conversation is doing to you and how it’s impacting your emotions. Mindfulness helps you learn to accept who you are without expectations or blaming. You’ll gain skills that you can use to learn how to raise your confidence and acceptance of yourself.