How to Gain Confidence

How to Gain Confidence

Confidence is a positive emotion that most people would like to experience with greater intensity.

All emotions are a reaction to earlier thought.

• If you think confidence-building thought patterns, then you will feel confident emotions.
• If you think confidence-destroying thought patterns, then you will destroy your confidence.

Here are three, common confidence-destroying thought patterns. If you engage in any of the following, then that will be enough to destroy your confidence.

1. Repeatedly asking yourself, "What if they don't like me?"

Everyone wants to be loved and liked, to the degree that most people carry a fear of being unpopular.

When this fear of unpopularity becomes the centre point of a person's thinking, it erodes their confidence. You take your mind off your performance and you put your focus on the reaction of your audience. You become oversensitive to other people and under attentive to your performance.

You need to reverse that order of priority. You need to increase the intensity of your mental focus onto your performance: And lessen your worry over whether or not other people like you.

When you focus more on your performance and less on your likeability, ironically, you end up being more likeable, because you are not so self-conscious.

2. Continually asking yourself, "What if I fail?"

Nobody likes to fail, in fact most people carry around a fear of failure.

When this fear of failure becomes the centre point of your thinking, it erodes your confidence.

You take your mind of your performance and you begin to worry about mental images of your impending failure. These images of failure, destroy your confidence and interfere with your performance, and will be the cause of the failure they predicted.

The solution is to refocus your mind away from images of impending doom and instead, focus one hundred per cent on the actual process of the task in hand.

3. Continually comparing yourself against perfection.

Many people continually lose confidence because they are measuring themselves against an unrealistic standard. Causing them to believe that they don't "measure-up" and they lose confidence. For example:

1. Many young people measure their looks against airbrushed images of pop stars and movie stars.
2. Many amateur sports people measure themselves against drug-enhanced professionals.
3. Many of us measure ourselves against the standard of perfection: we try to measure ourselves against Superman or Superwoman.

Measuring yourself against an ideal is sometimes helpful, but only if you see the ideal as a guiding light to steer by. Don't use the ideal as a beating stick.

Some people beat themselves-up, because they don't have the perfect body, or the perfect job, or the perfect face, or the perfect relationship. So, they feel in some way, they are losing out. They feel like they are never "good enough".

Instead of using "Perfection" as the standard, use your "Previous Best Performance", as your standard.

You don't have to be perfect; but you should strive to improve upon your personal best performance.

If you see yourself never being "good enough", that may be enough to steal your confidence.

Instead, strive to be better than your previous best, in this way you will improve your confidence.

To improve your confidence

In summary, to improve your confidence, please remember these key points:

1. Keep your mind off other people's reaction to you; instead concentrate on giving your best performance. Overcome the fear of failure.

2. Keep your mind off thoughts of failure; and focus instead on the actual task in hand.

3. Keep your mind off trying to beat perfection, and put it onto beating your best past performance.

Definition: confidence

Confidence is a mental state in personal development, built on belief in your own skill, that keeps your mind on the task and cuts fear of failure or rejection. It grows as you practise, succeed and speak to yourself in positive words.

Article Summary

Confidence grows when you train your mind: ignore the crowd, focus on the task, and judge progress by your past best. Drop fears of dislike, failure and perfection, and self-belief will follow.

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Did You Know: Key Statistics

About the Author: Chris Farmer

Chris Farmer is the founder of the Corporate Coach Group and has many years' experience in training leaders and managers, in both the public and private sectors, to achieve their organisational goals, especially during tough economic times. He is also well aware of the disciplines and problems associated with running a business.

Over the years, Chris has designed and delivered thousands of training programmes and has coached and motivated many management teams, groups and individuals. His training programmes are both structured and clear, designed to help delegates organise their thinking and, wherever necessary, to improve their techniques and skills.

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Further Reading in Personal Development

• Seeking the Approval of Others
  Silence your fear of rejection, quit seeking social approval and measure progress against personal ideals. Simple steps build lasting self-esteem and calm focus
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• How to Develop Abilities and Talent
  Learn how to develop talent with sharp focus, clear theory, spaced memory drills and daily practice. Follow nine steps and turn hard work into expert skill.
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• How to Handle Negative Feedback at Work
  Learn seven steps to handle negative feedback at work: listen, ask for facts, judge fairness, defend or adapt, and turn every comment into faster career growth.
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• How to take criticism
  Learn how to take criticism, spot the lesson not the insult, and turn every piece of feedback into clear action that builds confidence, skills and your career.
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• How to Improve Self-Confidence
  Learn ten clear steps to improve self-confidence: positive self-talk, daily progress, smart goals and healthy habits build lasting belief in yourself daily.
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