The magic of self-confidence

There is something common in all achievers and that is self-confidence. It gives them courage to take greater risks and achieve more than they ever thought possible. Self-confidence extends their reach and makes them do miracles.

Self-confidence is our attitude which gives us a positive and realistic views about ourselves. It helps us to trust our abilities and believe that we can achieve what we dream.

Self-confident people have realistic expectations of themselves and others. Even if some of these expectations are not met they remain positive, accept themselves and look optimistically to conquer greater heights.

They feel good about themselves even when others don't appreciate and acknowledge their efforts. They don't long for the approval of others and are willing to risk and do what others are scared of doing because they believe in their ability to win. Jack Welch says, "Self-confidence gives you courage and extends your reach. It lets you take greater risks and achieve far more than you ever thought possible."

Self-confidence is contagious. Self-confident people instill confidence in others and gain the confidence of others. It is the secret of effective and successful living.

Our self-confidence is expressed in our behaviour, body language, the way we dress, talk, look, walk, what we say and think, the way we act and relate etc. A self-confident person fears nothing, has attained the truth and lives free of error.

The signs of low self-confidence are feeling of guilt, skepticism, self-shame, pride, fear, pretension, laziness, unforgiving attitudes, depression, lack of trust in oneself and others, pessimism, inferiority complex, procrastination, self-doubt, passivity, submissiveness, isolation and jealousy etc.

Be glad there are ways by which we can build up our self-confidence.

1. Have faith in yourself
Our self-confidence increases when we believe in our abilities to perform and manage things. All of us have innumerable talents and potentials, only we are often not aware of many of them. To believe a in our capabilities we first of all must identify what we have. For his we have to do a SWOT analysis and realistically look at ourselves. We will discover that we are people of great possibilities and potentials. This faith in our abilities will boost our self-confidence. We must dwell more on our strengths and use them to negate and correct our weaknesses.

2. Look at your achievements
We can successfully do so many things. We too are great achievers. But we often brood over our failures and make our lives miserable. Think often of your successes and this will help you to increase your self-confidence. Our fear of failures prevents us from taking up anything new and challenging. Remember that we have so many qualities and abilities and that we too can be successful if we perform with all our energy, mind and heart.

3. Feel good about yourself
No one can make us feel inferior without our permission. To boost our self-confidence first of all we must feel good about ourselves. The secret of all successful and happy living is to love oneself. When I am unhappy with myself I see unhappiness everywhere and I make all those around me unhappy. I must accept myself and feel good about the way I am, the way I look, my colour, my size, my shape and believe that the world can't be same if I am not there. Enjoy yourself once in a while by joining your friends for a night out, enjoying a good meal, going for a movie, playing some games etc. Laugh and forget yourself and enjoy some moments and run away from your work and stress. Such activities can boost your self-confidence.

4. Fix challenging goals
Goals can do miracles in our lives. Greater the goals greater is our self-confidence. We should have both small goals and big goals. The achievement of small goals will give us enough enthusiasm and self-confidence to run towards bigger and more challenging goals. We must think positively about our abilities to achieve our goals and reward ourselves when we achieve them.

5. Bring in commitment and passion
Our self-confidence depends on the degree of our commitment to a cause. If we are mediocre and half-hearted the result will also be same. We must commit ourselves to success and become passionate about what we do. Our commitment is expressed in our eagerness and desire to learn and develop new skills, knowledge and talents. When we are more prepared with commitment, knowledge and skills to do a thing we become more confident.

The elephant and the maina were great friends. But the elephant always felt sad that he was not able to fly like his friend maina. So one day he asked maina to teach him how to fly. The maina agreed and led him to a cliff.

Pulling out a feather she said: "hold this feather tight in your mouth and flap your ears and jump down this cliff and you will fly."

The elephant belived her words, held the feather in his mouth and flapped his ears and behold he began to fly.

He flew over the villages, the rivers and cities and returned to his friend very happy and told her " Your feather is very powerful. Can I have this feather because I want use it whenever I want to fly."

The maina said, "its not my feather. It's a hair from your tail. You only need to believe in your ability to fly. Believe in yourself and you will do miracles."

Believe in yourself, have confidence in yourself and you will indeed do miracles.

Joshy Thomas
HR Trainer and Leadership Formator


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How to Overcome a Confidence Crisis

A confidence crisis can be caused by normal life transition such as getting a new job, moving to a new city, starting a new business, or starting a new relationship. Life's losses can also cause confidence to sink - the loss of a relationship, the loss of a job, the loss of a big client, the loss of a dream we come to realize will never happen.

At times, our confidence is already shaky as a result of a transition or loss and a single incident like missing a deadline, getting a bad haircut, or spilling coffee on a document can send us storming out of the confidence cafe.

When you crash, it is usually because your daily diet of life has not included enough confidence causing foods. Confidence is like Vitamin C. You need it in your diet. Your body can only store it for a short time before it needs some more. You have to take responsibility for planning your confidence meals and making sure you have large enough portions.

When you have a confidence crisis, don't despair, don't reach for the bottle of bourbon or the bon bons. Instead, start to use some of these confidence boosting techniques. Begin with at least two, then add a third and a fourth. You will gain a lot more than confidence you will learn to love, honor and appreciate yourself more and more.

Keep a Journal
Keeping a journal is a great way to process, and clarify your feelings. Forcing yourself to write everyday also forces you to take time for daily reflection. Daily reflection can help you solidify what you know, what you have learned, and what you still need to pay attention to.

Show Gratitude
Practice gratitude - be thankful for what you already have and put your attention on all the blessings you already possess. Keep a gratitude section in your journal. Everyday write down five things you are thankful for. This will help you feel richer and stronger in character and that translates into confidence.

Use Affirmations
Affirmations work. Write a list of statements that say what you want and how you want to be in life such as, "I get more confident everyday" "new clients come to me easily", "I am an expert at what I do". State all affirmations in the present. Some people stand in front of a mirror and say them. I also encourage you to record them and play the tape over and over. Read your affirmations at least once a day.

Evaluate Your Relationships
Assess the relationships in your life. Do they support you or sabotage you? All Relationships change with time; some get better, some get worse. If you have relationships in your life that are more of a burden then a joy, it may be time to sever your ties - or at least loosen the reins.

Start New Relationships
Identify people that have the qualities you admire - people you feel you could learn from and who could learn from you, as well. Look for people you can have fun with. Boosting your confidence can be really fun, if you want it to be.

Get into a Good Group
This may be time for a traditional support group. Chatting over a cup of carrot juice with your pals might be a remedy. Organize your own group of confidence boosters and support each other in making changes.

Change Your Behavior
What do you do that boosts your confidence and what do you do that brings it down. Exercise, getting enough sleep, speaking your mind, and dressing well are behaviors that tend to boost confidence. Staying up late, spending all your time with Ben and Jerry, and saying "yes" to avoid confrontation when you really want to say "no" will bring your confidence down.

Speak Up
When we withhold communication because we are afraid of how we will be received, we chip away another bit of our confidence. Share your thoughts, opinions, and preferences. Speak up in all situations. The insignificant situations will be practice for the important occasions that are sure to follow.

Take a Risk A Day
A risk is something you would do in an instant if you knew you would be successful. It is the fact that you do not know how it will turn out that makes it a risk. The best way to bolster your confidence is to start doing things you are afraid to do. make a list of risks for you and start to do them one by one.

Sometimes, it takes a few days to boost your confidence, sometimes, it takes a few weeks. Occasionally it can take a few months to overcome a confidence crisis. Know that if you are consistent with your confidence boosting techniques, you will eventuality find yourself renewed, stronger, and more confident.


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7 Helpful Tips To Immediately Increase Your Confidence

1.) Ask yourself, "What's the worst that could happen?" Too often, we place excess importance on potential problems. We all have a certain amount of energy so let's apply it to creating extraordinary relationships, advancing our careers and meeting our goals INSTEAD of wasting that energy worrying. Take action on what you have control over and minimize risks for what you don't. Then invest your energy wisely.

2.) In doing something for the first time, imagine that you have already done it in the past. Close your eyes, then vividly imagine you succeeding wildly at what you are really going to do for the first time. The mind does NOT know the difference between something VIVIDLY imagined and something real. Make it vivid by involving all 5
senses.

3.) Find someone who is already confident in that area and copy them. Model as many of their behaviors, attitudes, values, and beliefs for the context you want to be confident in as you can. 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.

4.) Use the "as-if" frame. I literally love this frame of mind. If you were confident, how would you be acting? How would you be moving? How would you be speaking? What would you be thinking? What would you tell yourself inside? By asking yourself these questions, you are literally forced to answer them by going into a
confident state. You will then be acting as-if" you are confident. Now just forget you are acting long enough and pretty soon you'll develop it into a habit.

5.) Go into the future and ask if what you're faced with is such a big deal. This might be a bit morbid and yet this works tremendously well. Imagine yourself on your deathbed looking back over your life. You are surrounded by your friends and family.
You're reviewing your life. Is what you're faced with now even going to pop up? That's highly unlikely. Keeping things in proper perspective really diminishes fear.

6.) Remember that you lose out on 100% of the opportunities that you never go for. To get what you want, ask for it. I fully believe that if I ask enough people for whatever I want, I can get it. This is not necessarily true and yet it's a useful belief. As you think about your goals and what you are striving for, how effective would it be for you to believe that all the people out there want to help you if you only ask? Whether that is true or not in the "real world" does not matter. If you find that belief empowering, I invite you to adopt it as your own.

7.) Disarm the nagging, negative internal voice. That negative internal voice can keep anyone stopped. To disarm the internal voice, imagine a volume control and lower the volume. Or how about changing the internal voice to Mickey Mouse? Do you think you could take Mickey Mouse seriously if he were criticizing you? Change the voice to a clown voice. The point is to disarm the voice by altering the way it nags at you. If I hear my own voice nagging me, it stops me. If I hear a clown voice, I laugh and continue onward.


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