Improve Self-Confidence

By Diane C. Kuhn


There is no doubt that one sure way to improve self-confidence is to model highly self-confident people. Self-confidence is all about believing in yourself, your own worth, your power and abilities, regardless of the situation you are in.A lot of people believe that self-confidence comes from the possession of high skill sets or knowledge. While being excellent in a particular area of expertise can give you a sense of high self-worth, it is not a necessarily a prerequisite for self-confidence.People who have high self-confidence have a strong sense of assurance and belief in themselves. They exude calmness, composure and self-awareness, and that is because, they have formed a set of habits that have become part of who they are and how they live their life.

Tactic One: Understand who you are. Do you truly understand yourself? The Grecian philosopher Socrates stated it best when he uttered the statement, "Know thyself." If you don't know yourself or understand yourself, how do you think someone else will be able to identify and relate to you. Have you ever asked a close acquaintance, "Tell me the truth; what do you think about me? What can I do to change for the better? What are my strengths and weaknesses? " Being at peace with yourself is a manifestation of good self-esteem. You are the captain of your ship and only you can come to a conscious self-awareness state of who you truly are. You must be in tune and totally honest with yourself so that you can grasp a clear picture on what is going on inside of you.

This is incredibly destructive to your self-confidence, because you don't get to trust and know who you say you are and do. You say one thing, but don't deliver, and this costs you your trust in yourself and your self-confidence.High self-confident people understand the importance of keeping their word. They understand that coming from this space of integrity, where their word is law, IS the key to accessing their own power and self-confidence, and in my opinion, is also the most important habit that leads to success in life.The trick is to start making smaller promises that you know you won't let yourself or others down. Be honest with yourself. Don't say yes to something when you know you can't fit it in.

Tactic Five: Give and receive compliments. Do you feel special when someone gives you a beautiful compliment about yourself? Do you think you make others feel good about themselves when you give them wonderful compliments about themselves? Hopefully your answer to both questions would be yes. People want and need to feel special. Practice giving compliments on a daily basis and soon the favor will be returned upon yourself.We must not allow bad circumstances whether they be past or present to effect our daily lives. Improve your self-esteem to make a better you. We all tarry along in this life with many challenges and gaining a conscious grasp on who you are and learning to love yourself will assist you in building self-esteem. Better self-esteem equals better results in your life.

Highly self-confident people have learned the habit of catching negative thoughts before they can have an effect on their moods, feelings and performance. They consciously choose to cancel these thoughts and replace them with positive empowering thoughts instead.They have formed the habit of saying: stop, cancel or pass, whenever they catch a negative thought... not giving any power to that thought... not reacting to it.Affirmations are a very powerful way of re-educating our minds to think empowering thoughts rather than the counterproductive negative thoughts.So CHOOSE to improve self-confidence by choosing positive thoughts and practice these using affirmations.

Focus On Your Strengths.Lack of self-confidence is a result of losing sight of our great qualities, and exaggerating our flaws instead.High self-confident people know their strength and focus on what they can do, rather than what they can't.When you think you are not good at something, try to consciously focus on the qualities that you have that are important to carry out that task.For example, if you are doing public speaking and are not confident at delivering a speech, but you are a great researcher, writer and organiser... focus on these attributes instead, and know that you can be confident and proud of the content of that speech. Focusing on the great content will make the delivery of the speech less significant.

Disengage the nagging, negative internal critical voice. That negative internal critical voice can keep anyone stuck. To disengage the internal voice, imagine a volume control and lower the volume. Or simply change the internal voice to the Disney Channel. Do you think you could take Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck seriously if they were criticizing you? The point is to disengage the critical voice by altering the way it nags at you. If you hear your own voice or a critical parent voice nagging you, it will paralyze you. If you hear a funny voice, you laugh and maybe hear the irony of your negative internal critic and continue onward.

Other things you can do to build your self-confidence are:Learn something new. Learn a new language. Chicks are impressed by French and Italian. They're not impressed by Ancient Greek. Some women are impressed by your vast knowledge of the opera, some by your skills at cooking. Not many will be impressed by your love for Starcraft 2.Hit the gym. How important is it to look good? For yourself, VERY important. For her, somewhat important.

Find someone who is already confident in the area of expertise you need and watch how they do it. Model as many of their behaviors, attitudes, values, and beliefs for the context you want to be confident in. How can you do this? Talk with them if you have access to them. If you don't have access to them, get as much exposure to them as you can. This could be talking to people who know the person and/or buying their products if they have some.

Act "As-if." Act as-if you already have the habit/behavior you desire. If you were confident, "How would you be feeling? What would you be doing? How would you be speaking? What would you be thinking? What would you tell yourself-self-talk?" By asking yourself these questions, you compel yourself to answer them by going into a confident state. You will then be acting "As-if" you are confident. As you continue to act "As-If" you will notice you are acting less and less as your behavior becomes a habit. Within 30 to 45 days you'll develop it into a natural habit/behavior.

You might get the odd one who tells you to piss off, but mostly they'll be flattered if you approach them. Of course a lot of that is down to you, but I can count on one hand the aggressive and humiliating rejections I've had, and I've been rejected a LOT.Sit down by yourself for 10 minutes and list the reasons why you lack self-confidence. This will work only if you are honest with yourself.Then write a list of what you think you can do to overcome these issues.




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