confident man at sunrise to symbolise confidence in the new year

Each year, many of us set new year resolutions only to see them fail. Setting high-reaching goals and failing to achieve them can damage confidence and impact mental health. What if we stopped setting these unrealistic resolutions and instead tried to understand more about the psychology of confidence, how to set SMART goals and creating healthy habits?

Confidence plays a role in our motivation to pursue goals and so when we address how to change our existing undesirable behaviour (e.g., excess eating, drinking, vaping, spending), or want to pursue new healthy behaviours (e.g., travelling, exercise, nutrition, socialising), having a confident foundation is key. However, having good levels of confidence doesn’t mean being over-confident; it means a confidence that respects others too. Over-confidence can be as destructive as low confidence, and is related to traits of arrogance and narcissism.

What is confidence?

Confidence is a feeling of trust in your abilities, qualities and judgements, alongside a sense of healthy self-acceptance. It can be more general about trusting yourself in life, or more situation-specific when you feel more confident in a specific area or ability you have. Growing confidence requires action. We have to ‘do’ stuff in order to experience life, test ourselves and grow.

As well as self-confidence, other areas where confidence has a specific impact are your body, your finances, your work and your relationships (click the links to discover more help here). However, when you understand the nature of confidence, its relationship to mindset and mental health, and how to improve it, you can make a difference in all of these areas.

A drop in confidence is a natural response to increased stress and uncertainty, and 2022 certainly gave us that. When life is difficult our brain’s threat system may kick in and make us more cautious and doubtful, perhaps evident in avoiding situations or people more than usual. The links between low confidence and poor mental health are generally well established.

The link between confidence and mental health

Human behaviours are guided by how confident we feel in our abilities, so when we feel low in self-confidence it can impair life quality. Distorted decision-making, imposter syndrome and significant symptoms of anxiety and depression are all associated with low confidence (Benwell et al., 2022). If you recognise these in yourself and your self-confidence interferes with your work or social life, consider talking to a mental health professional.

SMART goal setting and confidence

SMART goals give you focus, direction, purpose and a clear path to follow to achieve the things that matter most to you (family, work, health, the environment, etc). Choose goals that reflect who you are and what you value and has meaning to you. If goals are the path then ‘what matters most’ is the guiding values compass directing you towards success. Add confidence to this mix and your mind is motivated towards achievement by thinking about your goals in an optimistic and flexible way. Discover 12 ways to increase your confidence in 2024.

confident, happy woman at bottom of stairs with arms out

Create healthy habits in 2024 and drop the resolutions

At the heart of a resolution is giving up a bad and unhealthy habit and creating a good and healthy habit, and it’s time we changed the language to reflect this and guide us more helpfully towards permanent behaviour change.

In a very small window, the New Year invites us to imagine our future and improvements we can make over the course of a 12-month cycle. For example, I can save £X by December or I will have lost XX pounds by the end of the year, but it doesn’t give us any tools by which we can achieve this. Creating healthy habits through SMART goal setting, using a values compass, and a large dash of confidence, does provide the means and tools to do this.

Changing an embedded part of your routine, which is what a habit is, requires support, motivation, clearly defined goals and a time frame benchmarking progress. Here are 5 tips to achieve this:

Set small, specific and regular SMART goals. Instead of saying “run more often” say “compete in a local half marathon this Spring” and instead of “run twice a week” say “Run 5K twice a week by April”
Use a diary or planner to help track progress and keep within your time frame
Apps can be helpful motivators and reminders
Tell family and friends what you plan and gain their support
Habits are triggered by events. Eating junk food can be triggered by watching TV, so combine new good habits with particular triggers, e.g., drink a whole glass of water every time you brush your teeth, or chew sugar free gum when watching TV

In summary, when you are confident, you believe you are valuable, worthwhile and capable, and achievement follows. By choosing a path that’s guided by your key values with confidence, and applying smart and sound goal setting, you can succeed in creating new healthy habits by the end of the year.