Self-Confidence: How Do I Get Some?

Self-confidence is a point of view that is conditioned through experiences. When a person experiences success, that person will tend to expect to be successful. And that expectation will cause a feeling of confidence.

For example: A young man wants to be a prizefighter, so he gets a manager and takes lessons. His manager will not put him into a competition until he has built up proficient skills. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a contender that he knows his fighter can conquer. When his fighter beats the rival, he is successful, and starts to gain confidence in his proficiency.

With each match, the manager puts his warrior up against a contender who is only a little bit better of a rival then the last, but not good enough to beat his man. By the end of the third fight, the young fighter begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to evolve. This scenario continues to repeat itself. And as long as the fighter is victorious, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to evolve.

If a person who has a long history of success and feelings of self-confidence does fail, they still tend to expect success the next time out. Conversely, when a person who is weak in the self-confidence department fails, they tend to lose confidence, and begin to expect failure, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Having self-confidence doesn't mean that individuals will be successful at everything. Most people who have true self-confidence have attainable expectations. Even when some of their expectations are not met, they continue to be positive and to accept themselves.

People, who are not self-confident, tend to rely disproportionately on the agreement of others in order to feel self-esteem. They avoid risks because of the fear of failure. They often belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

Conversely, self-confident people are willing to risk the disapproval of others because they generally trust their own qualifications. They accept themselves; and they don't feel they have to conform in order to be accepted.

Just because a person feels self-confidence in one or more aspects of their life, doesn't mean that they will feel confident in every part of their life. For example, a person might feel confident about their musical ability, but not feel confident where members of the opposite sex are involved, such as in a dating situation, or social relationships.

HOW IS SELF-CONFIDENCE INITIALLY DEVELOPED?

Various realities have an affect on the course of self-confidence. Parents' attitudes are crucial to the way children think about themselves, particularly in their early years. When parents provide acceptance, children receive a solid foundation for seeing themselves in a positive light. If one or both parents are disproportionately demanding or critical, or if they are overprotective and discourage moves toward independence, children may come to believe they are incapable, inadequate, or inferior.

However, if parents encourage a child's moves toward self-reliance, and they are not overly critical when the child makes mistakes, the child will learn to accept herself, and will be on the way to developing self-confidence.

isn't necessarily related to a lack of ability. A lack of self-esteem is often the result of concentrating completely on the unrealistic expectations of others, especially parents and friends. The domination of peers can be more powerful than those of parents in shaping the feelings about one's self.

Assumptions That Continue to Influence Self-Confidence

In response to external influences, people develop beliefs; some of these are positive and some are negative. Several assumptions that can interfere with confidence and alternate ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: It's imperative that I am successful at every challenge that I undertake. This assumption is unrealistic. In real life, each person has his strengths and his weaknesses. While it's important to learn to do the best that one can, it's more important to learn to accept the self as being human, and fallible. Feel good about what you are good at, and accept the fact that you don't know everything and you are not an expert at everything.

ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this assumption is unrealistic. All human beings are fallible. It's better to develop personal standards and values that are not completely dependent on the approval of others.

ASSUMPTION: Everything that happened to me in the past remains in control of my feelings and behaviors in the present.

ALTERNATIVE: While it is true that your confidence was especially influenced by external influences when you were a young child, as you mature, you can gain awareness and a new slant on what those influences have been. In doing so, you can choose which influences you will continue to allow to have an effect on your life. You don't have to be helpless in the face of past events.

HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize Your Strengths. Give yourself credit for everything you can do. And grant yourself acknowledgment for every new adventure that you are willing to experience.

Take risks. Adopt the frame of mind of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I find out what doesn't work, and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can attempt some other action.

Use Self-Talk: Talk to yourself in positive terms to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting perfection, remind yourself that it's impossible to do everything perfectly, and that it's only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself as you are working towards improvement.

Make mental movies: Visualize yourself in the various scenarios that you currently lack confidence in. But see yourself behaving as like a person who has tremendous self-confidence would. There are many powerful self-hypnosis and NLP approaches that are effective and will create a huge amount of confidence from within your unconscious mind. There are even NLP techniques that will let you take confidence that you do have in areas of your life, and then transplant that confidence to areas of your life that are lacking confidence!

Self-Evaluate: Learn to rank yourself as an individual. Avoid the frequent sense of chaos that comes from relying on what other people think.