Recent Articles of Interest

Self-confidence is a feeling, which allows people to have confident, yet realistic views of the themselves and their plight. Self-confident people count on their own abilities, have a general sense of control over their lives, and have confidence that, within reason, they will be able to do what they want to do.

Self-confidence is a demeanor 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 young man wants to learn how to be a prizefighter, so he gets a manager and a trainer. His manager will not put him into a competition until he has developed proficient skills. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a contender that he knows his fighter can conquer. When his fighter beats the adversary, he is successful, and starts to gain faith in his capablilty.

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

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. People, who have true self-confidence, usually have expectations that are common-sense. 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 rely excessively on the agreement of others in order to feel self-esteem. They tend to avoid taking risks because they fear failure. They often belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

On the other side of the coin, confident people are willing take a chance on disappointing others because they generally believe in their own abilities. They tend to accept. A lack of confidence is often the result of centering too strongly on the unrealistic expectancies of other people, especially those of friends and parents. The influence of peers 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 constructive and some are harmful. Several assumptions that can interfere with confidence and alternate ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: It's important that I'm successful at every challenge I undertake. This assumption is unrealistic. In life, each person has his strengths and his 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 no one knows everything nor are they an expert at everything.

ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this assumption is unrealistic. All human beings are flawed. 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 during your childhood, as you mature, you can gain knowledgeunderstanding 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 in the face of past events. HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize your strengths. Give yourself credit for everything you can do. And bestow upon yourself acknowledgment 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 learn what doesn't work, and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can attempt something else.

Use Self-Talk: Talk to yourself in positive terms 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 as you are working towards improvement.

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 powerful self-hypnosis and NLP methods that are effective and will create a tremendous amount of self-confidence from within your subconscious 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. refrain from the endless sense of chaos that comes from relying too much on the opinions of others.

===============================

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 hypnosis 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.