Developing Self-Confidence

March 21, 2007 (Press Release) -- Developing self confidence is necessary if you want to easily achieve your goals. The less self confidence you have, the harder the journey to get from where you are to where you want to be. In fact, without it, you may lack the ability to dream of better things. Without a vision, a big dream, you will remain stuck.

If it’s so important to your personal success, how do you go about developing self confidence? Self confidence is an inside job and it cannot be built without dealing with your thoughts, emotions, beliefs and values. What’s holding you back in life? What are you thinking, and consequently doing, that is limiting your achievement? This is an important focus because lack of self confidence can become a vicious cycle that becomes entrenched in our lives. The less confident we are, the fewer risks we will take and the less effort we will put into those things that we do attempt. This approach is not conducive to success. When we fail to achieve, our self confidence takes another hit, and so the cycle continues.

There are three important keys to developing self confidence:

1.YOUR INNER WORLD. You are the captain of your ship. You are the only thinker in your mind; the only interpreter of the world around you. Your habitual thoughts, underlying beliefs, and overall values will either empower you or disempower you. They are, therefore, essential to the process of developing self confidence. You need to take some time to evaluate your beliefs about money, relationships and what you are entitled to in the world. You also need to pay attention to your self talk. If you don’t have self confidence, negative self talk is likely to be a problem. Don’t fight it, just become aware of it. You’ll probably be shocked at how you’re treating yourself. These thoughts will reveal your limiting beliefs. Once you’ve identified them, you can begin to change them. If you can change your beliefs, you can change your world.
2.TAKE ACTION. Self confidence arises directly out of your feelings of competence. The more our lives feel out of control, the lower our self confidence is likely to be. We grow in self confidence when we feel in control. We need to give ourselves many opportunities to feel confident and ‘in control’ of our lives. We do this by setting achievable goals and taking action to achieve them. We need the wins in life to feel self confident, so we have to give ourselves the opportunity to have them. Taking consistent, focused, right action to achieve a well thought out, truly desired goal is vital for developing self confidence.
3.CONGRATULATE YOURSELF. If you don’t acknowledge yourself and give yourself credit when you’ve achieved a goal, you are devaluing your achievement and denying yourself the victory. It’s like you haven’t had the success in the first place. Giving yourself credit for a job well done is necessary for developing self confidence.

There are many excellent books that teach time-honored success principles including methods of developing self confidence. “As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen is a classic that highlights the power of our thought to create our world. “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace Wattles is another self improvement classic that will help you become the best person you can be. There are many resources available on your pathway to developing self confidence; you don’t have to struggle on your own.