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Self-confidence is a mentality, which allows people to have incontestable, yet realistic views of the themselves and their plight. Self-confident people have confidence in their own talent, have a general sense of control over their lives, and believe that, within reason, they will be able to do what they want to do.

Self-confidence is a disposition 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 young man wants to learn how to be a prizefighter, so he gets a trainer and a manager. His manager will not setup a fight for him until he has acquired enough stamina and skill. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a rival that he knows his fighter can surpass. When his fighter beats the adversary, he is successful, and starts to gain a feeling of faith in his abilities.

With each bout, the manager puts his warrior up against a rival who is a slightly better adversary then the last, but not good enough to beat his man. By the end of the third fight, the young man begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to improve. This scenario continues to repeat itself. And as long as the man 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.

Even if an individual has true self-confidence, it doesn't mean that they will be successful at everything. Usually people who have self-confidence have realistic 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 rely unreasonably on the agreement of others in order to feel self-esteem. They tend to avoid taking risks because they fear failure. They often belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

Conversely, self-assured people are willing to risk the disapproval of others because they generally have confidence in their own skill. A person can have lots of abilities, but still lack confidence. A lack of confidence is often the result of concentrating much too strongly on the unreal expectations of other people, especially parents and friends. The influence of friends 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 positive and some are negative. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and alternative ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: It's important that I'm successful at everything that I do. This is totally unrealistic. In life, each person has their strengths, and their 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 is totally unrealistic. All human beings are deficient. 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 influenced by external influences when you were a very young child, as you mature, you can gain knowledgeunderstanding and outlook 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 recognition for every new adventure that you are willing to undertake.

Take risks. Adopt the perspective of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I learn what doesn't work, and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can attempt some other action.

Use Self-Talk: Talk to yourself in positive terms to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting yourself to be perfect, remind yourself that it's impossible to do everything perfectly, and that it's only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself as you are improving.

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 effective self-hypnosis and NLP processes that you can use to 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 appraise yourself as an individual. Avoid the continual sense of chaos that comes from relying on what other people think.

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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 video hypnosis for weight loss and video quit smoking hypnosis. Visit the Neuro-VISION NLP & Hypnosis site and download FREE MP3's hypnosis newsletters, and original articles on hypnosis & NLP.