Confidence is a frame of mind 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 trainer and a manager. His manager will not setup a fight for him until he has acquired enough skill and stamina. And even then, the manager will only put him up against an opponent that he knows his fighter can surpass. When his fighter beats the adversary, he is successful, and starts to gain a feeling of faith in his capablilty.
With each engagement, the manager puts his warrior up against an opponent who is only a slightly better adversary then the last, but not good enough to beat his man. By the end of the third fight, the young contender begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to escalate. This scenario continues to repeat itself. And as long as the contender is victorious, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to escalate.
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. Most people who have true self-confidence have sober 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 depend excessively on the recognition of others in order to feel good about themselves. They avoid risks because of the fear of failure. They often belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.
On the other side of the coin, self-confident people are willing to risk the disapproval of others because they generally have faith in their own potential. Just because a person does not have confidence, it does not mean that he/she doesn't have abilities. A lack of self-confidence is often the result of concentrating too strongly on the unreal expectancy of others, especially parents and friends. The affect of friends 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 create assumptions; some of these are good and some are not. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and better ways of thinking are:
ASSUMPTION: I must always be successful at everything that I do. This is totally 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 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 is totally unrealistic. All human beings are less than perfect. 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 subject to external influences when you were a young child, as you grow older, you can gain insight 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. Bestow upon yourself credit for everything you can do. And give yourself credit for every new thing that you are willing to undertake. Take risks. Adopt the attitude of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I find out what does not work, and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can attempt some other action.
Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as a method to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting perfection, remind yourself that no one can 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 improving.
Make mental movies: Visualize yourself in the various scenarios that you currently lack confidence in. But see yourself behaving as a person who has tremendous self-confidence would. There are
powerful NLP and Hypnosis processes that you can use to
build a monumental amount of self-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 appraise yourself as an individual. Circumvent the constant sense of chaos that comes from relying too much on the opinions of others.
Alan B. Densky, CH is a certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner. His site offers hypnosis CD's for self-confidence. His Self Confidence CD's were reviewed by Personal-Development.info in England. Visit him for Free hypnosis & NLP newsletters and MP3s.
Self Esteem Affirmations
