Monday, July 15, 2013

Improve Self-Confidence

By Antje Govers


There is no doubt that one sure way to improve self-confidence is to model highly self-confident people. Self-confidence is all about believing in yourself, your own worth, your power and abilities, regardless of the situation you are in.A lot of people believe that self-confidence comes from the possession of high skill sets or knowledge. While being excellent in a particular area of expertise can give you a sense of high self-worth, it is not a necessarily a prerequisite for self-confidence.People who have high self-confidence have a strong sense of assurance and belief in themselves. They exude calmness, composure and self-awareness, and that is because, they have formed a set of habits that have become part of who they are and how they live their life.

It is important to understand that players, parents, coaches and therapists spend a lot of time building youngsters' confidence.I have dozens of them.Bedtime is a great time of the day to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. When you get ready to go to sleep, you can use this quiet time to build yourself up instead of dwelling on all that went wrong earlier in the day or worrying about what could go wrong tomorrow.

This is incredibly destructive to your self-confidence, because you don't get to trust and know who you say you are and do. You say one thing, but don't deliver, and this costs you your trust in yourself and your self-confidence.High self-confident people understand the importance of keeping their word. They understand that coming from this space of integrity, where their word is law, IS the key to accessing their own power and self-confidence, and in my opinion, is also the most important habit that leads to success in life.The trick is to start making smaller promises that you know you won't let yourself or others down. Be honest with yourself. Don't say yes to something when you know you can't fit it in.

Tactic Five: Give and receive compliments. Do you feel special when someone gives you a beautiful compliment about yourself? Do you think you make others feel good about themselves when you give them wonderful compliments about themselves? Hopefully your answer to both questions would be yes. People want and need to feel special. Practice giving compliments on a daily basis and soon the favor will be returned upon yourself.We must not allow bad circumstances whether they be past or present to effect our daily lives. Improve your self-esteem to make a better you. We all tarry along in this life with many challenges and gaining a conscious grasp on who you are and learning to love yourself will assist you in building self-esteem. Better self-esteem equals better results in your life.

Highly self-confident people have learned the habit of catching negative thoughts before they can have an effect on their moods, feelings and performance. They consciously choose to cancel these thoughts and replace them with positive empowering thoughts instead.They have formed the habit of saying: stop, cancel or pass, whenever they catch a negative thought... not giving any power to that thought... not reacting to it.Affirmations are a very powerful way of re-educating our minds to think empowering thoughts rather than the counterproductive negative thoughts.So CHOOSE to improve self-confidence by choosing positive thoughts and practice these using affirmations.

Ask yourself, "What would be the worst outcome?" We tend to place excess importance on potential problems-a.k.a.-Worrying ahead syndrome. We have an infinite amount of energy so let's apply it to creating extraordinary relationships, advancing our careers and meeting our goals INSTEAD of wasting that energy worrying. Take action on what you have control over and minimize risks for what you don't. Then invest your energy wisely.

Disengage the nagging, negative internal critical voice. That negative internal critical voice can keep anyone stuck. To disengage the internal voice, imagine a volume control and lower the volume. Or simply change the internal voice to the Disney Channel. Do you think you could take Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck seriously if they were criticizing you? The point is to disengage the critical voice by altering the way it nags at you. If you hear your own voice or a critical parent voice nagging you, it will paralyze you. If you hear a funny voice, you laugh and maybe hear the irony of your negative internal critic and continue onward.

You see COURAGE is not acting without fear; courage is acting in spite of fear.When you make it a habit of being courageous you will increase self-confidence, because you are more likely to give the things you want a go, and when you are more focused on the doing rather than the thinking and worrying, you've overcome half the battle.Act and Feel Important.High self-confidence people have a habit of thinking highly of themselves through the way they behave and the image they portray. They have high levels of energy.If we were to look at their behaviour, you will notice that self-confident people stand up for themselves and speak up when it is appropriate.The image of self-confidence is also portrayed by the physiology and body language, by way they look after their body and the way they dress.Do you see many self-confident people who walk around with slumped shoulders and are dressed badly?No one is more conscious of your physical appearance than you are, so make it a priority to look good and feel important.

Here are some basic things you can do at the physical level to improve self-confidence... by modeling the image that highly self-confident people portray:Good posture - walk confidently, stand up straight and tall with shoulders back and head up, and make eye contact.Dress sharp - look presentable and smart. When you are dressed well, doesn't that instantly make you feel great and important? Get your energy up - listen to upbeat music to instantly get energy up, and exercise regularly. Not only will exercise give you energy, but also the side effect is... great physical appearance... which will also help to improve self-confidence.Be Grateful.There is no doubt that High Self-Confident people have an attitude of gratitude. I'm talking about heartfelt gratitude and not so much about forced gratitude, because... there is a difference.How do you recognize the difference between forced gratitude and heartfelt gratitude? If you've ever expressed gratitude by starting a sentence with, "At least... " you understand the meaning of forced gratitude. For example... at least I have food on the table, or... at least I have a good job, etc. We force ourselves to feel grateful, but this is coming from emptiness and it isn't a long-lasting habit, because as soon as our circumstances change, we may not feel the same.

Act "As-if." Act as-if you already have the habit/behavior you desire. If you were confident, "How would you be feeling? What would you be doing? How would you be speaking? What would you be thinking? What would you tell yourself-self-talk?" By asking yourself these questions, you compel yourself to answer them by going into a confident state. You will then be acting "As-if" you are confident. As you continue to act "As-If" you will notice you are acting less and less as your behavior becomes a habit. Within 30 to 45 days you'll develop it into a natural habit/behavior.

You might get the odd one who tells you to piss off, but mostly they'll be flattered if you approach them. Of course a lot of that is down to you, but I can count on one hand the aggressive and humiliating rejections I've had, and I've been rejected a LOT.Sit down by yourself for 10 minutes and list the reasons why you lack self-confidence. This will work only if you are honest with yourself.Then write a list of what you think you can do to overcome these issues.




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