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Self-confidence is a feeling that is garnered 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 be a prizefighter, so he gets a manager and a trainer. His manager will not put him into the ring until he has developed proficient fighting skills. And even then, the manager will only put him up against an adversary that he knows his fighter can hammer. When his fighter beats the competitor, he is successful, and starts to gain confidence in his capability.

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

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. Usually people who have self-confidence have practical 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 rely disproportionately on the approval of others in order to feel good about themselves. They refrain from taking risks for fear of failure. They often put themselves down and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

Conversely, confident people will risk the disapproval of other people because they generally have faith in their own talents. They tend to accept. A lack of self-confidence is often the result of centering completely on the unreal expectancy of others, especially parents and friends. The importance of friends can be more powerful than those of parents in shaping the feelings about one's self.

Beliefs That Continue to Influence Self-Confidence

In response to external influences, people create beliefs; some of these are positive and some are negative. 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 their strengths, and their weaknesses. While it's important to do the best that you 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 person knows everything nor are they an expert at everything.

ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this is unrealistic. All human beings are fallible. 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 when you were a young child, as you grow to adulthood, you can gain consciousness and outlook 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. Bestow upon yourself credit for everything you can do. And give yourself credit for every new thing that you are willing to experience.

Take risks. Adopt the frame of mind 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 try some other action.

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 yourself to be perfect, remind yourself that it's impossible to be an expert at everything, and that it's only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself while still improving.

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 effective Hypnosis and NLP procedures that will build a huge 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 judge yourself as an individual. Bypass the frequent sense of chaos that comes from relying on what other people think.