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How To Boost Your Confidence

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Do You Lack Self Confidence?

Do you doubt your self and your abilities?
Are you afraid to try new things in case you fail?
Do you make excuses to get out of doing things or going places?
Do you worry about what people think of you?

If this sounds like you then you are either suffering from low self confidence or low self esteem.

Would you like to learn how to turn things around? Read on to understand confidence better, learn how it is different to self esteem and find out how to boost your confidence.

Where is Your Confidence Failing?

It is perfectly normal to lack confidence in certain situations. Consider the following areas where you find yourself struggling and then keep this in mind as you read on.

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What is Self Confidence?

Self confidence is all about feeling capable of taking action to do something. It is often confused with self esteem as a lack of belief in yourself can also lead to you holding back from trying things.

To clarify the difference, self esteem is all about how you view yourself and your personal self worth. Self confidence is all about your view of your ability to do things.

As with self esteem our confidence will grow or diminish depending on our experiences and environment. However if you have low self esteem you are likely to hold back on trying things as well.

It is important to understand the difference between the two as you could go through life feeling confident but having low self esteem. However if your self esteem is low in most areas then you are also likely to lack confidence.

Confidence is built by taking risks and learning to be independent. It is all about having a go and learning from your mistakes. The more skills and experience you build the more able you feel to accomplish anything.

By having a 'can do' attitude you are willing to give things a go, knowing that your world won't fall apart if you make a mistake and you can always try again.

Even if you have tended to be someone who lacks faith in their own ability you can learn to build your self confidence to achieve what you want in life.

Think you may have a problem with your self confidence? If you are not sure take a quick confidence test to find out.
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Five Tips to Build Your Self Confidence

The following tips are to help you boost your confidence. Self confidence comes with practice and experience.

A little bit of acting confident will also help you feel more confident!
  1. Think Confident
    is a state of mind. Think confident, act confident and you are half way there! Everyone has doubts about their ability, successful people are those who keep trying again and again after they make mistakes or fail at things. For all those you see as successful business people, actors, singers or athletes you can be sure that they have worked hard to get where they are. They will have made mistakes, possibly even douted themselves sometimes.

    The key will be that they pulled themselves up, accepted that errors are inevitable, focussed on their success and left their mistakes and weakness behind.
  2. Find a Role Model
    Focus your mind on someone who you see as a great confidence role model. They may be real, fictional or imaginary. How do they act and behave? Try to emulate their posture, movements and actions. You will notice that they walk tall, keep their shoulders back and look people in the eye. Practise in front of the mirror and slowly bring yourself to physically emulate their actions. You will start to feel more confident as you act confident.
  3. What's The View Like?
    Other people are entitled to their opinions just as you are. Even if that opinion is different to yours. It doesn't mean they, or you, are right. Everyone views the world from their own perspective; based on their experience and interpretation. Feel confident about what you believe as your current reality and politely accept others' viewpoints.

    Consider your attitude to yourself, your abiltiies and your view on the outcome of things you do. Think about being successful, focus on it as your goal.
  4. Fact not Fiction
    Try to focus on the facts. If you have the facts about a situation you will be more confident talking about it. If you have the facts about yourself and your ability you won't be knocked back by a stupid remark. If you have the facts about your ability you will know whether or not you can achieve it or whether you will need to get help. Be realistic about your ability and be fair to yourself. If you say you can or can't do something, ask yourself if that is really true and how did you come to that conclusion.

    The more facts you have the better informed and prepared you will be. The better prepared you are, the more confident you will feel.
  5. To Err is Human
    Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them. Be your own best friend, support yourself when things go wrong. Listen to what you say to yourself. Watch out for the negatives, for when you knock yourself back.

    Give yourself a break. Accept when you have given something your best shot. If you didn't succeed this time, so what, have another go. Work out why you went wrong and what you need to do to succeed next time. Allow yourself time to build skills.

Confidence DVDs

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Five More Confidence Tips

  1. Listen
    If your concerns are around speaking to people, particularly in a social situation you will rarely go wrong by asking them about themselves. Everyone is an expert on the 'me' topic and usually likes to talk about themselves.

    The next safe bet is to try sport, films, TV or music. People are normally interested, even moderately in one of these topics. Make sure you know a little about what you are talking about and never pretend to be an expert when you are not. If you are an expert don't bore them with your knowledge either!

    Once you find some common ground when they are talking make sure you pay attention to what they say and don't interrupt. Human nature is such that we spend a lot of time when others are talking thinking about what we are going to say next and miss what the other person is saying.
  2. Practise Makes Perfect

    If your concerns are about doing something quite new and think you will make a mistake - practise, practise, practise! Great speakers were not born that way. Yes, some people do have more natural confidence because that is their attitude. However you can be sure their confidence is embedded in the fact that they know they can practise to improve their performance.

    If you need feedback on your efforts ask a kind but honest friend or someone you can trust. Ask them to be honest in their judgement and don't take it personally. They are evaluating your behaviour or performance, not you as a person.

    If you do not want to show others then try to evaluate yourself. For speaking you can practise in front of a mirror. If you've made something compare it to others, but be fair and kind on yourself.

    If you are still uncertain then take a recognised course and get qualified. To qualify something means to prove so this is a way of proving your ability. It is also a great way to show others that you have an ability without having to re-prove it to them.
  3. Planning and Preparation
    Another way to ensure confidence for a successful outcome of a situation is to follow the five P's:

    "Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance."

    There are many situations where planning will allow things to turn out better. Planning beforehand not only means you think through where things can go wrong, but you make sure you have everything in place for success. Even if the occasion is meeting a group of new friends, or going on a date, you can plan. What will you wear, what will the weather be like? What should I take with me? How much money will I need? Should I book a table in the restaurant?

    If you work through the situation in your head, or even writing it down on paper, you will be able to take away those things that may be worrying you and lowering your confidence. By removing risks or preparing for them you can focus on enjoying yourself or getting on wih the task in hand.

    Planning also means you will have all the things you need to do what needs to be done. If you are cooking a meal for someone, checking you have the ingredients and shopping beforehand will stop you spoiling your recipe or getting into a panic as you rush around trying to make do or do a last minute shop.
  4. Relax
    If you find yourself tense before facing something where your confidence is low take some deep breaths and focus on relaxing your body.
    A quick brisk walk is an ideal way to relax yourself or some gentle stretching with some deep breathing.

    Sometimes a little nerves area a good thing. If you have to speak in front of a group this nervous adrenalin will keep you on your toes and ensure you perform well.

    Consider using hypnosis, either by visiting a hypnotherapist or using self-hypnosis recordings. This is both a great way to relax and can be used to develop better confidence all round.
  5. Prevention
    If you are worried about the potential outcome of a situation consider all the possible areas where things could go wrong and think what you need to do to prevent the situation occurring.

    If you cannot prevent it, what can you do to minimise the impact? For example, if you worry about what people will think about you or how they will respond when you are speaking to them try to think before you speak. To minimise the impact of what they say you can consider how you choose to react. Remember your response is always within your control.

Books on Self Confidence

The more you surround yourself with, and use, confidence boosting tools the easier it will become!
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Jacky Tustain
Founder and Owner BeCanDo Life Coaching
BeCanDo Life Coaching

Your thoughts on this lens...

  • Alice(korean) Apr 2, 2011 @ 12:41 am | delete
    Can I take picture on the site?
  • BeCanDo Apr 2, 2011 @ 10:55 am | delete
    The pictures are not mine to distribute but are sourced from a royalty free picture site. I cannot remember if it is istockphoto.com or 123rf.com, both that I've used.
  • AmateurAtHTML Dec 28, 2010 @ 1:25 am | delete
    Good page. Lots of good self talk, surrounding myself with positive people, and realizing that I can handle even the worst case scenario helps me a lot. Then I step out and move with purpose. Acting confident actually builds confidence. Of course, being prepared for the situation helps a lot too!!!
  • Phillyfreeze69 Oct 9, 2010 @ 1:58 pm | delete
    This is an excellent lens on developing and maintaining self-confidence. I had the opportunity to meet the legendary boxer Muhammad Ali as a 8th grader a few weeks after he had won the Heavyweight title from Sonny Liston. What I remember most was his statue and confident demeanor. He signed autographs for several minutes and then left to visit the three other Junior High schools Jackson, Duvalle, and Manly.

    As I got older I realized that hard work, preparation, and staying focus on ones goals are paramount in having confidence to do job at hand. In the case of "The Greatest" he had proclaimed to hall of fame boxing trainer Angelo Dundee that the was going to be the World Boxing champ(he said this in 1958, 6 years before winning the title).
  • BeCanDo Oct 10, 2010 @ 4:38 am | delete
    Thanks for your lovely comment.
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BeCanDo

Hi, My name is Jacky Tustain and my prime focus is on helping small business owners, in the UK, overcome the frustrations they come up against when ru... more »

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