Vitality News Health Articles

Self-confidence is a demeanor, which allows people to have definite, yet realistic views of the themselves and their plight. Self-confident people rely 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.

Confidence is a feeling 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 young man wants to learn how to be a prizefighter, so he gets a trainer and a manager. His manager will not setup a fight for him until he has developed enough stamina and skill. And even then, the manager will only put him up against an opponent that he knows his fighter can crush. When his fighter beats the opponent, he is successful, and starts to gain faith in his proficiency.

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

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 lean unreasonably on the agreement of others in order to feel self-esteem. They avoid risks because of the fear of failure. They belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

On the other side of the coin, secure people will risk the disapproval of other people because they generally trust their own abilities. They accept themselves; and they do not feel that they have to conform in order to be accepted.

Just because a person feels self-confidence in one or more aspects of their life, doesn’t mean that they will feel confident in every part of their life. For example, a person might feel confident about their musical ability, but not feel confident where members of the opposite sex are involved, such as in a dating situation, or social relationships.

HOW IS SELF-CONFIDENCE INITIALLY DEVELOPED?

Numerous factors influence the maturation of self-confidence. Parents’ attitudes are revalent to the way children view themselves, particularly when they are very young. When parents provide acceptance, children receive a solid foundation for self-esteem. If one or both parents are overwhelmingly critical or demanding, or if they are overprotective and discourage moves toward independence, children may come to believe they are incapable, inadequate, or inferior.

However, if parents encourage a child’s moves toward self-reliance, and they are not overly critical when the child makes mistakes, the child will learn to accept herself, and will be on the way to developing self-confidence.

isn’t necessarily related to a lack of ability. A lack of confidence is often the result of focusing too strongly on the unrealistic expectations of other people, especially those of parents and friends. The importance 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 develop beliefs; some of these are good, and some are bad. Several assumptions that can interfere with confidence and alternate ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: I always have to be successful at every challenge that I undertake. This assumption is a totally unrealistic assumption. In 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 a totally unrealistic assumption. All human beings are deficient. 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 gain maturity, you can gain insight and point of view 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 because 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 experience that you are willing to test.

Take risks. Adopt the point of view of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I learn what does not work, and once I’ve learned what doesn’t work in a given situation, I can try some other action.

Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as a technique to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting yourself to be perfect, 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 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 many powerful NLP and Hypnosis methods that are effective and will create a tremendous amount of 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. Bypass the endless sense of chaos that comes from relying on what others think.

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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 appetite suppression hypnosis and video quit smoking hypnosis. Visit the Neuro-VISION NLP & Hypnosis site and download FREE MP3’s hypnosis newsletters, and original articles on hypnosis & NLP.

- Alan B. Densky, CH