How Can You Increase Your Self-confidence?

Why You Should Increase Your Self-confidence!

We all know why we want to increase our self-confidence. It gives us courage and allows us to do the things we never thought we could do - but probably always wanted to. And when we define success as achieving the things we want to do, then it's clear that increasing self-confidence and success go hand in hand.

The unfortunate thing is that so many people struggle to find their self-confidence when it is so important in life. The world makes way for a self-confident person, and it's a quality that gains respect and admiration. Whether or not it's right that society values self-confidence so highly is another question: the fact is that a high level of self-confidence contributes greatly to success in the way that society defines that term.

Consider, for example, if you were an employer searching for the right employee: would you prefer the one who spoke confidently and self-assertively or the one who looked at the floor and mumbled his responses to your questions?

What's more, people increase in confidence when they're around a self-confident person. Great leaders are inspiring because of their self-confidence: we admire them because of their willingness to stand up and be counted, not to be one of the masses, to be, in short, themselves. And this is another aspect of success: gaining the confidence of others, so that they co-operate, they work with you, and they support you. 

Fortunately, as you may realize by now, confidence can be increased without too much difficulty. It's a flexible quality over which we have some control - whether that's our own self-confidence or that of the people around us. And because of the value of success in our society, it's obviously well worth making the effort to increase your self-confidence. Self-confidence is often the one quality that marks out a successful person from all the unsuccessful ones - not talent, not intelligence, not ability, not skill. And if we had to choose one other quality which contributes more than any other to success, we'd say persistence - the ability to get up and carry on in the face of setbacks. And yet, what is persistence but another manifestation of self-confidence?

The good news is that self-confidence really can be learned and built on. And, whether you’re working on your own self-confidence or building the confidence of people around you, it’s well-worth the effort! All other things being equal, self-confidence is often the single ingredient that distinguishes a successful person from someone less successful.

You almost certainly know if you feel confident. But it might be a surprise to you to know that many people who appear confident are actually just acting confident. Here's a table of attitudes and values which will help you decide how confident you really are.

Low self-esteem - which leads to low self-confidence - is unpleasant and destructive to your sense of well-being. It's no exaggeration to say that people find it uncomfortable to be around someone with low self-confidence - unless they lack it themselves, in which case their self-image is supported by being in that company.

Self-confident people are positive people - they like life and they live it to the full because their increased self-confidence lets them see the chances and opportunities which others miss.

However, like all things in life, it's important to get the balance right. Being over-confident can be as unpleasant to others and as unhelpful to yourself as being under-confident. On another page, we looked at how people develop an increased sense of self-confidence. From that, it's clear that when you are confident, you are just confident, not over-confident. Over-confidence comes from a lack of confidence, and it tends to be nothing more than an acting out of the characteristics of self-confidence. It's a facade which guards against being seen as weak, or less than good enough. When you have the right amount of confidence, you don't feel the need to act it out. You can take risks, well, confidently! You can try things that stretch you without fearing your whole self-esteem will collapse if you do so.

But when a person is over-confident, they may make misjudgments that lead to mistakes; and when they make mistakes, they may feel like a failure. The whole cycle becomes self-reinforcing, and repeating. It's no substitute for real self-confidence.

An under-confident person, a person who is less confident than appropriate, will avoid taking risks, and therefore probably not reach his or her potential.

To sum this up - the whole principle here is about having the right mount of confidence - about increasing your confidence to the level which helps you to be who you really are.

Increasing Self-Confidence 

Well, it isn't necessarily a quick process. But there's a good way of doing it which is based on constant small forward movements - or incremental changes. This "small steps" approach will build a foundation of rock-solid confidence based on real achievements as you stretch yourself little by little. Together with our other recommended approach of self-hypnosis, over time this can bring about real increases in your self-confidence.

The first step is to consider carefully where you are now and where you want to get to. What have you achieved  that represents success for you? These need not be big achievements, but they should be things that are personally significant to you. List about ten of them.

Make a list of them and pin them up on your wall. Or place the list on the bathroom mirror, so you see it last thing at night and first thing in the morning! The important thing is to understand that you have had achievements in life which are significant. Those are examples of the kind of thing you can build on.

Next, consider what you want to achieve in life. Thinks about the strengths and vulnerabilities you face. What skills do you have? How do these open the way to activities which might increase your self-confidence? What could you do that would make you feel better about yourself and give you more self-confidence?

There's more on goal setting elsewhere on this website, so suffice it to say here that setting goals is the key to success in life. And achieving them is a key aspect of increasing self-confidence. These must of course be targets that you can measure, so you know when you have achieved them!

It's essential that when you start to improve your self-confidence, you manage your mind. It is designed to be your servant, not your master, though very often we find ourselves being ruled by an all-too-unruly mind. For example, the enemy of self-confidence is negative thinking or self-talk. This is the negative material which often goes through your mind when you fail to achieve something. There are several ways you can deal with this: you can decide to intervene with a behavioral check, like "No!" followed by some positive self-talk. You can use vivid visual imagery to replace negative self-images with positive ones. You can seek out the company of like-minded individuals who support you in your goals and objectives.

And finally you must commit absolutely to increasing your self-confidence and doing everything that it takes to make this a reality. When you begin to have doubts, you can challenge them with a process of adult, logical reasoning.

The path to increased self-confidence is under your control

The mental work involved in increasing your self-confidence is only half of the task - the other half is the action in the real world which you have to take to back up the changes in your mental attitude. Again, the principle of incremental change is important here. You take small steps, not large ones, and they become manageable markers of success on your journey. If you find yourself taking larger steps than you are able, gently ease back on your objectives, but always aim to stay just outside your comfort zone.

Small goals and small steps taken daily will lead to a massive move forward over time. The habit of setting goals, achieving them, and then moving on to bigger objectives can be a massive boost to your self-confidence.

It's important to keep in mind - and to celebrate - the successes you have along the way, because they act as reference points and prime your expectations for success. 

Of course there will be times when you don't succeed. Mistakes - sometimes even cataclysmic ones - are a natural part of life and a natural part of being human. They are also a natural part of growing as a human and developing and increased self-confidence. But mistakes need not be a sign of failure - they can be a sign of  learning, and if you adopt the positive thinking principles we mentioned earlier, then you stand a much better chance of not being overwhelmed by them.