“Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered–just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better.” – Barrie Davenport
Self-confidence is described as an important aspect that works in every area of a person’s life and some of us struggle with it. It is a known fact that people who lack in self-confidence, find success in what they do difficult to achieve.
Self-confidence is a state of an individual’s mind that can be improved through positive thought, language, learning and practice which will help boost your levels of confidence. Self-confidence comes from feeling good about yourself, accepting and believing in yourself (self-esteem), believing in your skills, knowledge and experience which in turn help improve your confidence and self-esteem.
The Difference Between Self-Confidence And Self-Esteem
Not many people know that there is a difference between confidence and self-esteem, they’re often confused as the same thing. Self-esteem is described as the way we look and feel about ourselves – our feeling of self-worth or whether we feel valued amongst our friends and society. Confidence is described as our capability to carry out our roles and tasks successfully in a manner so we can achieve our goals. Some people who have low self-esteem can have low self-confidence as well.
Here are 5 powerful ways you can build self-confidence:
- Plan and prepare when you think you will face a difficult situation: For example, when you have an interview for a new job you will have to practice and prepare intensively so you gain knowledge and can feel confident, you can do the same for other situations too. Whether this is walking into a new fitness class, delivering a presentation at work, meeting a prospective client, or meeting your partner’s family for the first time – build your confidence in your ability to cope with these situations by preparing in advance.
- Teach yourself, or get support, in learning some valuable skills like decision-making and problem solving that can help when dealing with unusual or new situations. When you feel insecure about your task the knowledge you have acquired and experience will help with building confidence.
For example, if you are having your first baby and are nervous about how you will cope. You will do a lot of reading, join NCT groups and learn all you can to deal with this new adventure and gain knowledge.
- Create a positive motivational state through the power of positive thoughts.
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” – Helen Keller
Positive affirmations, working on your strengths and by feeling good about your successes you can achieve your goals. Learning from your mistakes, not dwelling on past mistakes and by not making these to be bigger than they are, you will be able to highlight the things you are good at. Negative thoughts can damage your confidence and inhibits your ability to move forward.
- Improve your self-belief and confidence: Condition your mind to believe in yourself and don’t dwell on your mistakes. Learn to take control, praise yourself, challenge any negative thoughts and learn to relax. Try to take any criticism as a learning experience, gain perspective, be assertive with the things you like to do, and try not to react or be defensive as this will knock your self-esteem.
- Develop and learn mental toughness as this will build resilience: build strong self-belief, persevere through the challenges that life throws at you and respond to difficult situations with the perspective that you can learn from.
“Being positive does not mean that you don’t have negative thoughts. It means you don’t let those thoughts control your life.” Anon
Deep breathing and training your mind to stay calm and focus on what causes you stress and anxiety. Persist and change the things you can, and embrace new challenges.
These powerful strategies to increase your self-confidence can be enhanced with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. This form of therapy will help you focus on positive thoughts, and put those negative ones in perspective. If you find that negative thoughts undermine your self-confidence and ability to perform at your best, CBT can really help to change the way you think.
Building self-confidence is a skill that has to be mastered and learned like any other skill.
For a confidential chat about your concerns and to explore further how CBT can help you with confidence issues, please contact me on 07967 151790 or email:info@formindssake.com
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