Self-confidence is a mentality, which allows people to have positive, yet realistic views of the themselves and their position. Self-confident people have confidence in their own know-how, have a general sense of control over their lives, and have confidence that, within reason, they will be able to do what they want to do.
Self-confidence is a disposition that is learned 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 man wants to be an extreme fighter, so he gets a manager and a trainer. His manager will not put him into the ring until he has generated enough skill and stamina. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a contender that he knows his fighter can crush. When his fighter beats the competitor, he is successful, and starts to gain a feeling of confidence in his proficiency.
With each competition, the manager puts his warrior up against a contender who is a slightly better competitor then the last, but not good enough to beat his man. By the end of the third fight, the young competitor begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to improve. This series of events continues to repeat itself. And as long as the competitor continues to win, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to improve.
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 true self-confidence doesn’t mean that individuals will be able to do everything. People, who have true self-confidence, usually have expectations that are down-to-earth. 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 lean excessively on the agreement of others in order to feel good about themselves. They avoid risks because of the fear of failure. They belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.
Conversely, secure people will risk the disapproval of other people because they generally have faith in their own aptness. Just because a person does not have confidence, it does not mean that he/she doesn’t have abilities. A lack of self-esteem is often the result of centering too strongly on the unrealistic expectations of other people, especially those of friends and parents. The domination of friends can be more powerful than those of parents in shaping the feelings about one’s self.
Beliefs That Continue to Influence Self-Confidence
In response to external influences, people develop assumptions; some of these are good, and some are bad. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and better ways of thinking are:
ASSUMPTION: It’s imperative that I am successful at everything that I do. This assumption is unrealistic. In real life, each person has her strengths and her 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 no one knows everything nor are they 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 flawed. 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 very young child, as you grow to adulthood, you can gain knowledgeunderstanding and outlook 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 based on what happened in the past. HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE
Emphasize your strengths. Grant yourself credit for everything you can do. And give yourself credit for every new adventure that you are willing to experience.
Take risks. Adopt the perspective of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I learn what does not work, and once I’ve learned what doesn’t work in a given situation, I can attempt something else.
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 striving to improve.
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 powerful NLP and self-hypnosis processes that are effective and will instill a monumental amount of self-confidence from within your subconscious 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 appraise yourself independently. Circumvent the constant sense of chaos that comes from relying too much on the opinions of others.
===============================
Alan B. Densky, CH. is certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner. He opened his practice in 1978. He is the inventor of Neuro-VISION, an NLP / Video hypnosis technology that received a US Patent because of its effectiveness. Neuro-VISION has been perfected for video hypnosis for weight loss and video smoke cessation hypnosis. Visit the Neuro-VISION NLP & Hypnosis site and download FREE MP3’s hypnosis newsletters, and original articles on hypnosis & NLP.
- Alan B. Densky, CH
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
