How to Gain Confidence

Confidence is the feeling that you are sure you can complete a difficult or even dangerous task. You ask yourself, "Can I do it?" and then answer, "I sure can."

Feeling confident means you are sure of your skills and ability to succeed in a task. It is an internal determination or judgment of how sure you are of your skills. Lack of confidence means you aren't sure that you can complete an activity successfully.

Your confidence in being able to do something is based on your track record of succeeding in various similar tasks. The feeling of self-confidence is learned and can be passed from one task to another.

Questions about confidence that you may have are:

• Why aren't people more confident?
• How do you get self-confidence?
• What are some examples?

This lesson will answer those questions. There is a mini-quiz near the end of the lesson.

Why people aren't confident

A person gets confidence by successfully doing something or completing a task and acknowledging that achievement. The internal acknowledgment is recorded in the mind as, "I can do this again."

Don't acknowledge success

One reason people aren't confident after successfully completing a task or achieving difficult goal is because they often don't acknowledge their achievement and may even demean what they have done. They put their achievement down by saying something like, "Oh, I was just lucky" or "It wasn't all that good."

Too large a task

Another reason some people aren't confident is because they look at a task or a goal as a large entity. Success or failure is determined by the outcome, which may come after days or months of toiling.

Too difficult a task

Some people purposely take on tasks that are way over their head, such that they are assured of failure. They do this to re-enforce their perceived lack of self-confidence. There is some strange psychology involved in this situation.

How to gain confidence

The way to gain confidence is to:

1. Break tasks into smaller units,
2. Acknowledge your success for each step, and
3. Learn from your mistakes to re-enforce your confidence.

1. Break task into smaller steps

Before you set out to perform a task or try to achieve a goal, you must realize that the activity is really a series of smaller steps. This is a basic concept in any type of project planning. Thus, instead of waiting until the end to determine if you are successful, you have a series of successes, leading up to the finish.

2. Acknowledge success for each step

For each one of these steps or mini-tasks, you must acknowledge your success. Congratulate yourself each time you succeed. If you don't do well, correct your error. Take care about admonishing yourself, except in extreme cases.

3. Re-enforce overall confidence

This self-talk will re-enforce your acknowledgment of your abilities and increase your confidence as you go along on achieving the greater goal.

Examples of gaining confidence

The better illustrate how to apply the 3 steps in gaining confidence, consider the examples of playing a game of tennis, managing a program at work, and experiments with a mouse.

Playing tennis

For example, your goal may be to win a tennis match. Each time you hit the ball, you are performing a mini-task or small step necessary to complete your final goal of winning the game.

Each time you hit the ball solidly, say to yourself, "Good shot." Each time you miss, note what to correct. Perhaps say, "Follow through next time."

Throughout the game, your confidence will build, such that even if you lose the match to a better player, you will feel sure of your overall ability to play well.

Managing a program

In another example, a project manager can celebrate small milestones in a major program with his workers in order to build their confidence to effectively achieve this greater goal.

The mouse that couldn't lose

In an experiment on animal behavior at the University of Wisconsin about 20 years ago, the scientist would put a mouse with its front feet tied together into the cage of another mouse. The mouse whose area was being trespassed would then easily beat up the poor mouse with the feet tied together.

After a number of victories, the scientist started to put mice in the cage without their feet tied. But our mouse was so confident that he would take on and defeat mice even larger than himself. Normally he would have run away from these larger mice, but he felt he just couldn't lose. And he didn't.

Summary

You can build your confidence by acknowledging your successes for each step along the way to trying to achieve a goal. The self-congratulations will build and re-enforce your confidence along the way to feeling like a champion.

“ Can You Really Train Your Mind to Succeed ”

and go beyond the power of positive thinking?

Have you tried to use the power of positive thinking, auto suggestion, positive affirmations, read about the how to influence the subconscious mind, the law of attraction or "the secret" and are still waiting for results? If so, you will be positively surprised by what you're about to learn.

Research by leading universities in the field of cognitive and behavioral science proves the existence of so called “automatic thoughts”, i.e. thoughts that come to mind involuntarily and effortlessly as an automatic response to certain stimuli. These are the thoughts that ultimately determine whether you'll fail or succeed in reaching your personal goals.

What are Automatic Thoughts?

The average person processes over 60'000 separate thoughts per day, of which 90% occur subconsciously. Automatic thoughts are produced by our subconscious mind and continue to execute without the involvement of our conscious mind. Think about how many things you just do, day in day out, without even consciously thinking about it. These automatic thoughts are like mini computer programs in our subconscious minds. They automatically come into action as a response to stimuli in our environment.

While many automatic thoughts are positive, some of them can create undesirable limitations in terms of your ability to evolve, progress and reach significant personal goals in your life – you could call them “success blockers”. They simply prevent you from progressing in areas where you'd like to succeed.

Automatic thoughts determine your thought patterns, attitudes and behaviors. The reactions you then observe from your environment validate your thoughts. A key observation is that certain “automatic thoughts” are triggered by  common belief patterns (schema) with groups of people who experience the same or similar challenges and limitations.

The first step in eliminating automatic thoughts that prevent you from being successful is to determine negative  thought patterns that trigger success limiting thoughts, attitudes and behaviors.

The second step is to actively change these thought patterns (cognitive modification) and introduce cognitive patterns that have been observed to trigger positive results.

But how do you do that? Ask yourself, how many people you know, maybe including yourself,  who despite honest attempts to change their destiny

- lead unfulfilled or unsatisfying lives

- feel like they're not where would like to be at this point in their lives

- continue to struggle with money problems

- suffer from low self confidence

- are not satisfied with their work

- have not found the right partner

etc.

Techniques to Improve Self Confidence

 NLP uses self-visualization to boost confidence.

At times, people can be their own worst enemy. Low energy, negative thoughts and hesitation where decisiveness is called for can all be signs that you've fallen out of step with your full potential. NLP, or neuro-linguistic programming, uses simple thought and imagination exercises to retool self-image and self-confidence, with results equally powerful to the effort that you put into them.

Kill Those Nagging Voices

NLP trainer Chris Harrison suggests this technique for anyone struggling with negative thoughts that get in the way of doing what you need to. Any time you find yourself subject to a track of these voices, or when you simply recall them, try transforming the sound. What would these voices sound like if they were on helium, or if they were coming from very far away, or if they were actually the voice of Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse? Play with the sound until the power is drained from it.

The Swish Technique

Imagine any scenario where you have feelings of inadequacy or dread, such as an upcoming job interview. Next, imagine the same scenario as you would like it to be: You may see yourself as more confident, capable or charismatic, for example. Returning to the first image, place a dot in the center of it and expand it quickly until it envelops the first. This dot is your second, improved image. Practice this "swishing" technique until you are comfortable with it, and you'll find that your feelings of inadequacy are swished away in kind.

Self-Visualization

Imagine yourself standing in front of you, then begin to transform that image into the person you'd like to be. You can borrow enviable attributes from celebrities and people you admire. Appreciate the physical quality of confidence they have and try to feel it yourself. Finally, in your mind, walk around behind this other you and step into that person. At this point you can visualize yourself on a stage with loud applause surrounding you, and savor the public adoration for your new self.

Magic Mirror Technique

Hypnotist Pradeep Aggarwal offers another technique of self-visualization, with a twist. Imagine a mirror in front of yourself, and picture an improved, more confident you in that mirror. With this image in mind, begin to experience your perceptions as this more confident you would; you may notice changes in posture, for example. Increase the vividness of the image and experience as much as possible, then join the thumb and index finger together and think the words "supreme confidence." After practicing this exercise several times, try joining your thumb and index finger together any time you need an instant boost of confidence.

**CONFIDENCE**

                          Confidence never comes

                         from having all the answers;

                         It comes from being open to all the questions.

                          ~ Unknown ~

                        We needn’t be expert at a task

                       to be confident in our ability.

                       We are competent, capable,

                       intelligent, flexible individuals...

                       and we ought show this in all we do!

                       We oughtn’t feel exasperated

                       by difficult questions...

                      we ought be exhilarated by the challenge...

                      and grateful for the opportunity it affords us

                      to grow, to gain new knowledge,

                      to work towards our own success.

Today, let us approach difficult situations

with confidence that we have within us

the ability to succeed.