10 Unexpected Signs You Are Much More Confident Than You Think You Are

1. You are very aware of your own weaknesses and are comfortable talking about them.

Your greatest challenges and shortcomings are not things you’re embarrassed by or ashamed of. Sure, they are frustrating, but they are never things you try to avoid or sweep under the rug. In fact, nothing makes you feel more invigorated than contemplating your weakest areas and striving to improve them.

2. You don’t actively try to talk about yourself.

You’re happy to respond when someone asks you a question about yourself, and you’re very comfortable talking about your life. But you never try to turn the conversation back to you. You love learning about other people, and you’re much happier just letting the conversation unfold naturally and seeing where it goes.

3. You always stand up for yourself, but when someone addresses an issue with you, you are never defensive.

Instead, your instinct is to listen to them, to be as neutral as you can, and then to be very honest with yourself either way. If you stand by your decisions or actions, you’ll explain why. But if there’s even a small chance you are in the wrong, you try very hard to be truthful with yourself and to look your behavior in the eye.

4. You don’t frenetically launch into a list of successes when someone asks ‘what’s new?’

Your first instinct isn’t to discuss your promotion, your new job, your weight loss. If it’s a close friend, you’re more prone to give them specific updates. But usually, when someone asks, you just tell them how you’re feeling and how you’ve generally been doing. And then you always make sure to ask how they’re doing too.

5. You keep a lot of your accomplishments to yourself.

Often, you will tell your loved ones about your successes in person. But you don’t feel a panicked desire to post every single accomplishment on social media. You like to share some of your successes with your network of friends, and when you do so, it’s always something you are very proud of. But a lot of the time, you find more joy in keeping these things more private, so that you can really know for sure that you’re doing them for you and only you.

6. You are okay with asking other people for help, and you’re always appreciative but never ashamed of needing advice or guidance.

You never view asking for help as a sign of weakness. To you, asking for advice, guidance, assistance, support, or any other type of help is crucial to your personal and professional growth. You believe you have something to learn from everyone around you, and reaching out to others for help and encouragement only brings you more joy and confidence.

7. Even if you don’t like criticism, you are very comfortable handling it and dealing with it when it’s given respectfully.

You know it’s supposed to feel uncomfortable, and that’s part of the reason why you’re comfortable with criticism. You know that feeling uncomfortable is a sign that you’re challenging yourself, you’re searching for growth, you’re looking for ways to get better, and you’re being honest with yourself. Even when you don’t agree with someone’s criticism, you look at it as just another helpful perspective, instead of giving it permission to cripple your self-esteem.

8. You spend less time on social media now than you have in the past. Even if it’s still ‘too much time’ in your opinion, you’re still spending way less time online now than before.   

You know it’s not something you’re going to ‘cure’ overnight, or maybe even at all. But if you use social media, you do your best to be wary of it, and conscious of how much time you spend on it. You try to be aware of when you’re using it for fun and to relax, versus when you’re using it for an unhealthy amount of time or using it to compare yourself to others in some way. Even if you still think you have a long way to go in terms of cutting down your usage, you understand that it’s a process and that you’re getting better at using it less every day.

9. You know how to apologize, even if you really dislike doing it.

Even when it’s irritating, humbling, annoying, or frustrating, you know how to apologize. You know how to own up to your mistakes, to fix something when you’ve screwed up, how to not only say sorry but also how to address your actions when you’ve hurt someone. You’d much rather swallow your pride and apologize than slowly become someone who can’t own up to anything. So even when you hate apologizing, you still like yourself.

10. When you experience success, you let yourself enjoy it and you let yourself feel proud. But you are just as focused on what you could have done better and what you can improve upon for next time.

Although you never belittle yourself, you are constantly thinking about how you can improve in all aspects of your life. You always give yourself time to reflect and to feel proud of yourself when you’ve worked hard, but you never allow yourself to grow complacent or self-congratulatory. It’s all about enjoying the process, pausing for a moment to feel joyful over the outcome, and then moving on to the next challenge.