Increase Your Self-Confidence

This is an abridged version of the article: Increase Self-Confidence at CelestineChua.com, personal development blog to live your best life. Click on the link to read the full article.

There are 3 main ways you can use to increase self-confidence. 

1. Conditioning Yourself

The first is via conditioning to impose the sense of self-belief. It's an outside->in method, where you adopt actions to make yourself feel confident. 

For example, working on

• Dressing: Improving your dressing, how you look
• Body language: Improve your posture
• Mental techniques: Using meditation paraliminal tapes, Anchoring (NLP method)
• Others

These actions are efficacious because they give you a self-confidence boost almost immediately after you do them. However, the effects are rarely long-lasting - you need to repeatedly remind yourself to do them, unless you have permanently conditioned yourself to do that

2. Obtain Symbols Of Worth

The second is working within yourself to address the inadequancies that are making you feel low self-confidence. This is the more practical method.

Self-confidence is often tied with having more capabilities or knowledge. Many people lack self-confidence because they feel they are not as competent. For example, if you have low self confidence in your job, it may be because you are lacking the information and know-how to perform well. People who possess a high level of competency in a certain area often develop a high self-confidence in that area.

The key to developing competency is to engage in knowledge acquisition and repeatedly do it till you perfect it. Eventually, you will find yourself so competent in the area that you become very self-confidence.

However, the increase in self-confidence only lasts as long as the symbols of worth are valid. If they were to be removed from you or lose their relevance as a symbol of worth, your self-confidence will decrease accordingly.

Imagine a tennis player who sees his worth based on his victories in his tennis games. He keeps practicing to increase his odds of victories. When he wins, his self-confidence increases; however when he loses a game, his self-confidence increases. This person's self-confidence changes based on the outcome of the games.

Thus, to work on your self-confidence via a permanent, we have a third method.

3. Working On Your Belief Of What Represents Worth

The third method addresses lack of self-confidence directly rather than working on the symptoms.

While the previous two methods definitely help to a certain extent and can be a quick way to boost your mental condition, they are usually short-term. Conditioning is sort of a quick fix method to induce a temporary self confidence, while acquiring symbols of worth only helps to the extent where the symbols are by your side and still relevant. Both of them address symptoms of the problem rather than its root.

The actual root of the problem is your belief that you need to be those things before you can experience self-worth.

The only prerequisite for self confidence is a sense of self belief. Start thinking about a symbol of worth to you. Is it competency? Is it how much money you earn? Is it how good you look? Then, ask yourself: WWhy must you have to have these before you can feel confident about yourself?

These presumptions of what represents worth are largely due to social perceptions. All the beliefs that we need to have certain things to be confident have all been conditioned in the society, rather than being real truths.