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Self Confidence
Once you've read the article below, check out our free 6-part self
confidence course.
It's a funny thing, confidence. Like money, we all feel at times
that we could do with more of it and those who have plenty never
give it a second thought. It's an elusive feeling, one that evaporates
under the spotlight of attention, but when you've got it, you feel
you can do anything. What does 'confidence' mean?
By 'self-confidence', people usually mean the feeling of knowing
that things will go well. This immediately gives us an idea of why
it can be such a problem - we cannot know the future!
Confidence in your own abilities
The essence of self confidence is having faith in your own abilities.
Being able to trust that, whatever happens, you'll be able to deal
with it. Why is it then, that we spend most of our time imagining
what things will be like when they go wrong, and seeing ourselves
being embarrassed, humiliated or failing in some crushing way?
Self Preservation
One reason why we do this is to avoid danger to ourselves. Contingency
planning is where you imagine what could happen, and make plans
to deal with it. This is fine in business, government or project
planning, but in many other situations, such as social occasions
or presentations, the possibilities of 'what might happen' are far
too numerous to deal with in this way.
Confidence, the myth
People often say things like "I can't do that, I just don't
feel confident". By this, they seem to mean one of the following.
Either "The fact I feel under-confident is some kind of message
that I shouldn't be doing it" or "Before attempting anything
new, I have to feel confident about it first." Both of these
leave us less likely to be able to tackle new situations in a comfortable
way. As stated previously, what we need more is a sense of 'whatever
happens, it will be OK'.
Next, Learning Self Confidence
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