Confidence is a state of mind
Do you have enough confidence? To succeed in anything you do in life you are going to need confidence. Confidence in your abilities to do whatever it is you need to do to get where you want to go. Sometimes we could all do with being more confident in certain areas of our lives, I know I certainly could. But what exactly is confidence? Confidence is often thought of as something you have or don’t have, for example ‘I have confidence’, ’she doesn’t have much confidence’. But confidence is not something you have or don’t have, it is a state of mind.
When people say they aren’t very confident, what exactly do they mean Confident in what respect, I bet the same person who says they aren’t confident could go down to the local supermarket, buy groceries and fill up their car with petrol with confidence.
Confidence is a state, it is a feeling and thoughts which come from a particular combination of chemical reactions in your brain. It is a series of pathways which connect to give you a feeling of confidence. People can change their states very quickly, ie from non confident to confident, from happy to sad etc.
So is confidence all situational? In some situations we feel it and in others we don’t? In some situations we are in a state of confidence and in others we aren’t in a state of confidence.
Did you know that it is our right to feel confident in any situation we find ourselves in?
Yet there are many times when it seems to elude us, when we need it most. Everybody is confident about something at sometime in their lives. And because you are confident at some things in your life, you already know how to feel confident. It’s like anything in life, the more you do something the easier it gets. If you don’t feel confident doing something, just keep doing it and soon your mind will become accustomed to the act which will cause you to develop a certain level of confidence.
So how do we gain confidence? Isn’t confidence just self-belief in yourself and your abilities to do something? Well yes, self confidence is related to self-belief. But believing you can do something and actually doing it can be quite different.
Are some people born with more confidence than others? No, nobody is born with confidence. People can change from being unconfident to very confident. Normally as people get older they become more confident through the life experience they have gained. But people can also develop their confidence at any time in their life by working on themselves and making a commitment to make themselves more confident.
For example, if you feel nervous when speaking in groups you can go on a public speaking course. When the course finishes you will almost certainly feel more confident when speaking in front of others, likewise there are other things you can do to improve your confidence, for example:
Stepping outside of your comfort zone. (Feeling shy? Go on an acting course)
Real world experience of something new.
Hypnosis.
I’ve been listening to hypnosis CD’s lately to help with my confidence. I have been listening to them at night before I go to sleep. Hopefully they are having some influence over my unconscious. Why not give them a try if you feel you could with some more confidence?
I used to be envious of people who were confident, I used to look at them and say ‘they have confidence’. Why wasn’t I confident, well I guess it was because I chose not to be? Listen you are entitled to feel confident just as much as the next person, it’s your world as well.
Who decides how confident you feel? Are you going to let people take away your confidence? Only you can do that. Other people are moving through the world with confidence why aren’t you one of them?
Feeling confident is all about how you feel about yourself. It’s not about anyone else or the environment you are in. It’s all about how much you believe in yourself. The more you believe in yourself the more confident you will be. Remember confidence is a state you can decide to be confident whenever you want.
So when don’t you have confidence? Is it social confidence you need, I know I could do with more of this, so what’s the best way to do it, well no surprises here ‘ Get out more!’. Go out a lot, the more you go out and interact with people the more natural it will feel, you will stop feeling so nervous and realize there is nothing to be worried about, in fact you might even start to enjoy it.
What about confidence in your abilities to do something? There was once upon a time when we couldn’t do all that much. Now just look what you can do. With enough time and commitment you can accomplish whatever you want, there is literally nothing you won’t be able to do if you spend time working on yourself or whatever area it is you want to see improvement in.
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