Self-confidence is extremely important in almost every aspect of our lives, yet so many people struggle to find it. Unfortunately, this can be a vicious circle. People who struggle with self-confidence can find it difficult to become successful, which makes finding that self-confidence even more difficult.
After all, most people are reluctant to stand behind a project that's being pitched by someone who is nervous, fumbling, and overly apologetic. On the other hand, you might be persuaded by someone who speaks clearly and looks you in the eye, who holds his or her head high, who answers questions assuredly, and who readily admits when he or she does not know something.
Confident people inspire confidence in others. Their audience, their peers, their bosses, their customers, and their friends all benefit from interacting with them. This happens even when we are unaware of it, because we instinctively model excellence - meaning that we imitate the behaviors that we like in other people. So, we see a confident person, and we automatically begin to model their behavior in an effort to get their confidence for ourselves.
This is good news! Our instinct to model the behaviors we see in others that we want for ourselves means that self-confidence really can be learned and built on! And, whether you’re working on your own confidence or building the confidence of people around you, it’s well-worth the effort!
Building Self-Confidence
So how do you build this sense of balanced self-confidence? The good news is that becoming more confident is easily achievable, just as long as you have the focus and determination to carry things through. And what’s even better is that the things that you will do to build your self-confidence will also build success - which builds your self-confidence even more! So here are three steps to building self-confidence.
In Part One of this article, we talked about how to set the stage for your Journey. Now let's talk about the next steps!
Step 2: Setting Out
Now that you are prepared for your journey, this is where you start moving towards your goal.
I tell my clients that “You are what you say you are,” so by simply making the decision that you are going to be successful you have already set yourself up for success. That doesn’t mean that you can sit back and wait for your success to fall into your lap. You will need to put in the work to keep yourself moving forward. By doing the right things, visualizing your success, and teaching yourself how to win, you will start building the self-confidence that are looking for.
This Journey is about learning how to experience self-confidence, and an excellent way to experience self confidence is to learn what it feels like to succeed. The steps in this section all relate to giving yourself the “little wins” and celebrating them. Each win - or success - feels great, and that great feeling builds on itself each time you experience it.
Build the Knowledge You Need to Succeed
Think of something that you would like to accomplish. Maybe it is a presentation you will be giving, or a conference you are attending, or maybe you want to communicate better with your team. The first step is to identify the skills you’ll need to succeed at this task. Will you need to research products, or improve your public speaking, or organize your time? Once you know what you need to learn, then look at how you can acquire those skills. Look for a solution, a program, or a course that fully equips you to achieve what you want to achieve.
Baby Steps! Set Small Goals, and Achieve Them
Starting with the small goal you just identified, get in the habit of setting a small goal, achieving it, and then celebrating that achievement. The goals you set for yourself during this time don’t need to be particularly challenging. Just get into the habit of setting them, achieving them, and celebrating them. Little by little you will start piling up the successes, becoming more and more confident!
Keep Managing Your Mind
With each new goal, continue to visualize your success. Make a mental image of yourself as if you have already succeeded. Keep celebrating and enjoying success, and keep those mental images strong.
As you build up the foundation of your self-confidence with these small successes, you will notice a change in how you handle failure. You will notice that you have started to accept that mistakes will happen when you are trying something new. In fact, once you get into the habit of treating your mistakes as part of the learning process, you will start to see them as positive experiences. After all, there is no learning without failure.
Step 3: Accelerating Towards Success
By now you’ll feel your self-confidence building. You’ll have gained some valuable new knowledge, and you’ll have plenty of success to celebrate! Now it is time to start stretching yourself. Make your goals a bit bigger and the challenges a bit tougher. Increase the depth of your commitment, and extend yourself into new, but closely related, arenas.
Keep yourself grounded. This is where people can become over-confident and can overextend themselves too quickly. No matter how large your challenge becomes, you can always chunk it down into its smaller parts, making a series of bite-sized goals that may be more manageable.
You are well into your Journey now, and with each new experience you are building your foundation of self-confidence. Keep practicing each level of expanded difficulty until it feels natural and easy to set and reach those more challenging goals, and then expand again! As long as you keep on stretching yourself, you'll find your self-confidence growing right along with you. ∎
Karen Gray is a Registered Nurse, a Certified Hypnotist, and the owner of Green Mountain Hypnosis in Lebanon, New Hampshire. For more information on how you can use hypnosis to change your life, you can visit www.greenmountainhypnosis.com, or contact Karen at karengray@greenmountainhypnosis.com, or call (802) 566-0464.
