Wondering how to be more confident? Whether it’s for modelling or even just life in general, a little confidence can take you a long way. Throughout my modelling career, confidence has been a journey of many years and learnings. I’m going to share with you my top 3 recommendations on how to be more confident, whether that’s for your modelling career or anything else you decide to pursue in daily life.
Practise builds confidence
Just like anything in life, confidence is built through practise. Just like a bodybuilder going to a gym, if you want to have a strong sense of confidence, then you’ve got to work that muscle hard and regularly! Confidence is something that takes time to build, there’s no magic pill to take to make you confident overnight. So, without this magic solution, how do we build confidence?
I’ve learnt that a huge part of building confidence is from knowing that you have the skills to back yourself when the time comes to show what you’ve got. Whether that’s through building your modelling skills by doing more photoshoots more often, practising your runway walk regularly until it becomes second nature, or putting yourself in new situations to practise the sparkling art of conversation with new people, these are all skills that you need to practise to build confidence in your abilities (and, therefore, yourself).
When I first started out as a competitive Irish dancer, I would do dance competitions every other weekend. I was 18 years old when I began learning and competing (which is pretty late!), so I was going up against other competitors that had 15 or so more years experience than I did.
Now that was intimidating!
During my years of competing I noticed that the more I built my dancing skill and the more I practised, the more confident I became in my dancing abilities (and myself). I sunk hours and hours, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into my competitive dancing career. The process took me from a shy beginner who was totally intimidated by the much more confident dancers around me to eventually dancing at State and National level and then training with a small dance troupe.
So, when I started modelling, I transferred that same mindset towards practise that I learnt from competitive dance into my new journey - and it worked.
If you want to become a more confident model, one of the most important ways to achieve this is through practising your modelling skills and putting yourself in new and challenging situations that push you beyond what you’re used to and comfortable with, and proving to yourself that you can do it.
Wear the crown, be the crown
If you didn’t know this, my modelling career began after competing in a beauty pageant. So, I do hold a lot of love and respect for the confidence building experience of being part of pageantry. But what exactly is it about beauty pageants that build confidence?
You might have seen videos of beautiful women walking on stage at Miss Universe and admired their walk, their dresses, or their makeup. But there’s a lot more to beauty pageants than the end result of walking on stage in a gorgeous gown.
In the lead up to beauty pageants, there’s a lot of preparation and community engagement that competitors get involved in. For example, in my most recent pageant - Ms. Galaxy Australia 2024 - I spent multiple sessions with a pageant coach to improve my personal branding and interview skills, as well as 25 hours of community volunteering and attended 16 community events.
That’s a lot of time to practise my skills and gain confidence in my abilities in supportive environments.
Whether it’s panel interview skills or learning about how to express yourself in situations when you feel like the stakes are high, beauty pageants give such a great level of exposure to experiences that can unlock new avenues and levels of confidence that you might not have considered before.
Get different perspectives
These days, we have so much information flying at us in all directions, which means there are so many great resources and perspectives to tap into that can help us to build our confidence. That might look like finding social media groups with likeminded people who want to build their confidence, following influencers online that share their confidence journeys, listening to podcasts, or my personal favourite - discovering audiobooks.
I’m a self-professed audiobook fiend. I listen to them on the way to work, on my lunch break, or before bed. Sometimes I listen to the same one multiple times over. The reason why I recommend them so highly is because they’re easily accessible, great for busy people on the go, and can open your mind to new and interesting stories from real people.
One of my favourites is Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. It might seem like a left of field suggestion and you might be thinking: what sort of value about confidence could a fashion model get from an ex-Navy Seal, when they seem like so many worlds apart?
Listening to David Goggins’ story of overcoming hardships and the ways he learnt to think about himself is relevant to anyone, even fashion models. David taps into really important life lessons about resilience and mental strength that made me see my own life and myself in a new way, which is why I’m recommending this audiobook in particular.
There are sections scattered throughout the book that talk about confidence building and set the scene of a journey towards self confidence in a holistic way, because sometimes it’s the people who seem the most different from ourselves that we can learn the most from.
Looking for more modelling tips? Make sure to visit my Instagram for more advice.
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