Various Articles

Self-confidence is an outlook, which allows people to have emphatic, yet realistic views of the themselves and their plight. Self-confident people have confidence in their own capability, have a general sense of control over their lives, and believe that, within reason, they will be able to do what they want to do.

Confidence is a posture 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 man wants to be an extreme fighter, so he gets a trainer and a manager. His manager will not put him into a bout until he has built up proficient fighting skills. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a rival that he knows his fighter can hammer. When his fighter beats the challenger, he is successful, and starts to gain belief in his capablilty.

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

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.

Even if an individual has true self-confidence, it doesn't mean that they will be successful at 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 refrain from taking risks for fear of failure. They often belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

Conversely, self-assured people will risk the disapproval of other people because they generally believe in their own expertise. They tend to acknowledge themselves; and they don't believe that 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 athletic 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?

Many realities affect the growth 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 great foundation for feelings of self-esteem. If one or both parents are excessively critical or demanding, 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.

A lack of confidence (is not necessarily related to a lack of ability. A lack of self-esteem is often the result of focusing much too strongly on the unreal expectations of other people, especially those of parents and friends. The affect of peers 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 constructive and some are harmful. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and alternative ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: It's imperative that I am successful at every challenge that I undertake. This is totally unrealistic. In real life, everyone has his/her strengths and weaknesses. While it's important to do the best that you 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 person knows everything nor are they an expert at everything.

ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this is totally 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 controlled by external influences when you were a very young child, as you grow to adulthood, you can gain appreciation and perspective 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 because of your past. HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize your strengths. Think about and give 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 try something else.

Use Self-Talk: Use an inner dialog with yourself and 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 while still 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 many Hypnosis and NLP approaches that will create a monumental 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 judgerank yourself independently. Bypass the perpetual sense of chaos that comes from relying too much on the opinions of others.

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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 weight loss NLP and video stop smoking hypnosis. Visit the Neuro-VISION NLP & Hypnosis site and download FREE MP3's hypnosis newsletters, and original articles on hypnosis & NLP.