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Self-confidence is an attitude, which allows individuals to have positive, yet realistic views of the themselves and their state of affairs. Self-confident people trust their own abilities, have a general sense of control over their lives, and have belief that, within reason, they will be able to do what they want to do.

Self-confidence is a posture that is conditioned 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 man wants to be an extreme fighter, so he gets a manager and takes lessons. His manager will not setup a fight for him until he has developed proficient fighting skills. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a competitor that he knows his fighter can crush. When his fighter beats the challenger, he is successful, and starts to gain belief in his capablilty.

With each match, the manager puts his warrior up against a competitor who is only a slightly better challenger then the last, but not good enough to beat his man. By the end of the third fight, the young contender begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to improve. This series of events continues to repeat itself. And as long as the contender wins, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to improve.

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 self-confidence doesn't mean that individuals will be successful at 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 lean disproportionately on the approval of others in order to feel good about themselves. They avoid risks because of the fear of failure. They belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

On the other side of the coin, confident people will risk the disapproval of other people because they generally believe in their own aptness. Just because a person does not have confidence, it does not mean that he/she doesn't have abilities. A lack of self-esteem is often the result of concentrating totally on the unreal expectancies of other people, especially those of friends and parents. The domination of peers 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 develop beliefs; some of these are good and some are not. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and alternative ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: I always have to be successful at everything. This assumption is unrealistic. In real life, each person has his strengths and his 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 you don't know everything and you are not an expert at everything.

ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this assumption is unrealistic. All human beings are less than perfect. 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 vulnerable to external influences when you were a young child, as you grow to adulthood, you can gain appreciation and point of view 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 your past. HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize your strengths. Think about and give yourself credit for everything you can do. And bestow upon yourself credit for every new adventure that you are willing to test.

Take risks. Adopt the perspective of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I find out what does not work, and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can try something else.

Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as an opportunity to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting perfection, remind yourself that it's impossible to be an expert at every activity, and that it's only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself as you are working towards improvement.

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 NLP and Hypnosis approaches that are effective and will instill a tremendous amount of self-confidence from within your unconscious 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 evaluate yourself as an individual. Circumvent the continual sense of chaos that comes from relying on the opinions of others.

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Alan B. Densky, CH. is certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner. He opened his practice in 1978. He is the inventor of Neuro-VISION, an NLP / Video hypnosis technology that received a US Patent because of its effectiveness. Neuro-VISION has been perfected for appetite control hypnosis and video smoke cessation hypnosis. Visit the Neuro-VISION NLP & Hypnosis site and download FREE MP3's hypnosis newsletters, and original articles on hypnosis & NLP.