Having a healthy level of confidence is so crucial to your success as an actor; beyond the performance aspect of your job, you also have to look, act, and FEEL the part. You have to constantly set yourself up for success by believing and trusting in your talent, your training, and your natural ability to adapt. The funny thing about being a professional actor is that your self esteem waxes and wanes between confidence and insecurity. I mean, let’s face it – a big part of the gig is being judged and directed and told how to be. From there, it’s all about trusting yourself to be malleable enough to accomplish what you need to. Your talent is not in question. That has certainly carried you far enough to this point. Your CONFIDENCE is what will carry you past your success and your hangups. That’s your engine you need to keep maintained and cared for.

We happened upon a piece of advice that spoke to this issue of increasing CONFIDENCE and having that translate positively in your professional and creative life. We loved it so much we absolutely had to pass it on to our network. Please take a look at this list of tips written and compiled by author and life coach Kent Sayre – all ways to immediately boost your confidence:

1.) Ask yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Too often, we place
excess importance on potential problems. We all have a certain amount of
energy so let’s apply it to creating extraordinary relationships, advancing
our careers and meeting our goals INSTEAD of wasting that energy worrying.
Take action on what you have control over and minimize risks for what you
don’t. Then invest your energy wisely.

2.) In doing something for the first time, imagine that you have already
done it in the past. Close your eyes, then vividly imagine you succeeding
wildly at what you are really going to do for the first time. The mind does
NOT know the difference between something VIVIDLY imagined and something
real. Make it vivid by involving all 5 senses.

3.) Find someone who is already confident in that area and copy them.
Model as many of their behaviors, attitudes, values, and beliefs for the
context you want to be confident in as you can. How can you do this? Talk
with them if you have access to them. If you don’t have access to them, get
as much exposure to them as you can. This could be talking to people who
know the person and/or buying their products if they have some.

4.) Use the “as-if” frame. I literally love this frame of mind. If you
were confident, how would you be acting? How would you be moving? How
would you be speaking? What would you be thinking? What would you tell
yourself inside? By asking yourself these questions, you are literally
forced to answer them by going into a confident state. You will then be
acting “as-if” you are confident. Now just forget you are acting long
enough and pretty soon you’ll develop it into a habit.

5.) Go into the future and ask if what you’re faced with is such a big
deal. This might be a bit morbid and yet this works tremendously well.
Imagine yourself on your deathbed looking back over your life. You are
surrounded by your friends and family. You’re reviewing your life. Is what
you’re faced with now even going to pop up? That’s highly unlikely.
Keeping things in proper perspective really diminishes fear.

6.) Remember that you lose out on 100% of the opportunities that you never
go for. To get what you want, ask for it. I fully believe that if I ask
enough people for whatever I want, I can get it. This is not necessarily
true and yet it’s a useful belief. As you think about your goals and what
you are striving for, how effective would it be for you to believe that all
the people out there want to help you if you only ask? Whether that is true
or not in the “real world” does not matter. If you find that belief
empowering, I invite you to adopt it as your own.

7.) Disarm the nagging, negative internal voice. That negative internal
voice can keep anyone stopped. To disarm the internal voice, imagine a
volume control and lower the volume. Or how about changing the internal
voice to Mickey Mouse? Do you think you could take Mickey Mouse seriously
if he were criticizing you? Change the voice to a clown voice. The point
is to disarm the voice by altering the way it nags at you. If I hear my own
voice nagging me, it stops me. If I hear a clown voice, I laugh and
continue onward.