Building Self-Confidence

Everyone admires a self-confident person. We may even envy them a little! Self-confident people seem at ease with themselves and their work. They invite, trust and inspire confidence in others. These are attractive characteristics.It's not always easy to be confident in yourself, particularly if you're naturally self-critical, or if other people put you down. But there are steps that you can take to increase and maintain your self-confidence. What is Self-Confidence – and Why Is It Important? Self-confidence is understanding that you trust your own judgment and abilities, and that you value yourself and feel worthy, regardless of any imperfections or of what others may believe about you.Self-efficacy and self-esteem are sometimes used interchangeably with self-confidence, but they are subtly different. We gain a sense of self-efficacy when we see ourselves (and others like us) mastering skills and achieving goals. This encourages us to believe that, if we learn and work hard in a particular area, we'll succeed. It's this type of confidence that leads people to accept difficult challenges and to keep going in the face of setbacks.Self-confident people are generally more positive – they value themselves and trust their own judgment. But they also acknowledge their failures and mistakes and learn from them. Why Self-Confidence Matters Self-confidence is vital in almost every aspect of our lives, yet many people struggle to find it. Sadly, this can be a vicious cycle: people who lack self-confidence are less likely to achieve the success that could give them more confidence. For example, you might not want to back a project that's pitched by someone who's visibly nervous, fumbling, or constantly apologizing. On the other hand, you might be persuaded by someone who speaks clearly, who holds their head high, answers questions with assurance, and readily admits when they don't know something. Confident people inspire confidence in others: their audience, their co-workers, their bosses, their customers, and their friends. And gaining the confidence of others is one of the key ways to succeed. In the following sections we'll see how you can do this How Do You Gain Self-Confidence, and Keep It? Short-term action can fix immediate or acute issues with your self-confidence, but longer-term confidence-building needs more fundamental action. This can involve introducing changes to your lifestyle and making robust plans for the future. 1. Building Confident Habits To build a strong sense of self-esteem, and the confidence that develops from it, aim to develop good habits (and to break bad ones!). Look after your physical and mental health: regular exercise can improve both. Make sure that you're getting enough sleep and eating properly. Not doing so can lead to feeling bad in yourself, and likely about yourself. 2. Reviewing Past Achievements Your self-confidence can increase when you're able to say, "I can do this, and here's the evidence." As part of your Personal SWOT Analysis, you'll have identified things that you're good at, based on your past achievements. List the 10 things you're most proud of in an "achievement log." Perhaps you came top in an important test or exam, played a key role in an important team or project, or did something kind that made a positive difference in someone else's life. Review these achievements, and use them to make positive affirmations about what you can do. These affirmations can be particularly powerful if you tend to undermine your own confidence with negative self-talk. Setting Confidence-Boosting Goals Setting and achieving goals is an important part of developing self-confidence. Goal setting is the process you use to set yourself targets, and to measure how successfully you hit them. Set goals that make the most of your strengths, which minimize your weaknesses, that take advantage of your opportunities, and that mitigate the threats you face. When you've identified the major goals you want to achieve, identify the first step you need to take for each one. Make sure it's a very small step, perhaps taking no more than an hour to complete. By: Oladipo Ayoola Joel @ayoolajoel Source: mindtools.com