Whether it’s the quiet confidence of your doctor whose advice you willingly follow to the self assured financial adviser you entrust your money to or the charismatic confidence of a public speaker, we all admire self-confident people. Self-confidence is an essential element in almost every aspect of our lives affecting everything from our careers to our relationships yet many people struggle to gain it. Sad too is the fact that low self confidence can be a vicious circle as negative outcomes, the result of low self-confidence, tend to confirm a person’s low self-image thereby lowering self-confidence even further.
Self-confident people, on the other hand inspire confidence in others be it their friends, co-workers, employers or customers. This confidence increases the level of success the self-confident person enjoys thereby increasing their self-esteem and continuing the process.
If you struggle with low self-confidence, there is good news. Low self-confidence is a learned behavior and so is self-confidence. The difference is, you didn’t set out to learn low self-confidence but you can learn to become more self-confident and, like any other skill, you can practice it and elevate it.
How Self Confident Are You?
- Do you do what you believe to be right, even with others may mock you or critize you for it or do you change your position and behavior based upon what others think of you?
- Do you take risks and view failure as an opportunity to learn and grow or do you fear failure and stay in your comfort zone while enviously watching others go for the brass ring?
- Do you admit your mistakes and learn from them or do you attempt to cover up your mistakes and hope it will pass or that you can fix it before anyone notices?
- Are you self satisfied with an accomplishment accepting congratulations from others if it comes or do you fish for compliments relying upon others to validate and raise your sense of worth?
- When someone does compliment you, do you accept it graciously and fully or do you tend to dismiss or diminish the compliment by suggesting it wasn’t that big a deal?
Low self-confidence can be self-destructive and often leads to poorer results and even trouble. Self-confident people on the other hand usually have a more positive outlook and are generally a lot happier in life.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” Likewise, relying on others to validate your ability or your worth is sure sign of low self-confidence. So, how do you begin to build your self-confidence?
The key to building self-confidence is in changing the internal dialog you have about yourself. People with low self-confidence have thoughts like “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not smart enough” or “I always screw things up.” Negative thoughts like these usually stem from childhood and have an enormous affect on our self-confidence. So do beliefs like “If I fail at something, that will mean I am a failure.” Just imagine how that belief will affect a persons willingness to take risks.
One way to change the inner dialog to a more positive one is to take stock of your qualities, your talents and accomplishments, jot them down and remind yourself of them every day. Remind yourself every day that the road to success if paved with failures because failure is one of the best ways to improve your knowledge, your skills and your sense of humor. Remember, unconscious negative thoughts can be changed, in time to positive ones by conscious repetition of positive input.
Another, quicker way to effectively eliminate those negative thoughts, beliefs and emotions that lie within your unconscious mind is through Hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. These powerful tools work directly on the parts of the mind that store negativity and can help you let go of negative emotions and thoughs that keep your self-confidence down quickly and effectively. As a result, many people find Hypnosis and NLP are a great way to jump start their journey to high self-confidence and a more successful and rewarding life.
Regardless of how they get there, everyone deserves to feel proud of their special gifts and talents in life and to live a positive and joyous life. You already possess all the resources you need to realize your goals in life. If you want help getting out of your own way and accessing those resources, schedule a session today. You’ve got nothing to lose but your low self-confidence, your self-doubt and your fear.