10 Effective Ways To Build Your Self Confidence

Self-confidence is being on top, being sure of yourself, it's sexy, and most importantly it's a positive attitude to have.  It’s poles apart from arrogance.  Arrogance can be off-putting, while self-confidence is a conviction about your abilities, your expertise, and also your ability to recognise your weakness quickly and transform it to strength.  It’s about recognising that knowledge is power, and doing all you can to build on it.   When you feel insecure, you lose self-confidence.  Also if you are naturally a timid person, it’s going to be hard to build that wall of conviction around you.

If you have self-confidence you will:

·         Be able to walk into a room full of strangers and blend without much effort.

·         Not sweat before a presentation or have butterflies in your stomach.  Even if you do, people will not notice.  It’s about control and calmness.

·         Not see problems, but only solutions.

·         Keep your enthusiasm about what you want to achieve at a high pace.

·         Know where you are going and how to get there.

·         Put forward your ideas without fear of intimidation.

·         Remain unruffled and composed even in the face of an impending catastrophe.

·         Keep your head when everybody is losing theirs.

·         Have drive and focus. 

·         Have the patience to convince the hardest critics and not be swayed by mass opposition.

·         Have recurring successes.

Now that you know, how have you scored?  How confident are you? If you feel your self-confidence needs a little pep, here is how to go about it. The first lesson is to keep at the back of your mind that people will always try to rattle that poise, but the way to maintain that self-assurance is to identify your biggest asset and use this as your springboard.  For instance it could be your brainpower, power of speech, beauty, charm, wealth, or congeniality.  It could also be that you are gifted in music, drama, sports, arts, have superb writing or oratorical skills, or simply good at your profession.  Once you have recognised this positive feature, strive to make it the best that it can possibly be. You continue to take it to the next level until you have reached your peak.

Why do people loose self-confidence?  People loose self-confidence temporarily or permanently due to failure or fear of failure; physical disability; lack of money; societal rejection; obesity; childhood insecurity; threatening environment; a sense of not belonging; and illiteracy.  If any of these situations sound familiar, how do you manage to move out of this hole as quickly as possible?

1. Failure or fear of failure - Failure or fear of failure can bring a sudden halt to self-confidence.  Remember failures are only temporary mishaps, which you must try to brush aside and move on.  Simply ensure you learnt from it and avoid a repetition of what caused that particular disappointment in the first place.

2. Physical disability: There are people who have excelled despite physical abilities.  The famous Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder are two people who excelled in music.  Their blindness didn’t deter them from taking their talents to greater heights.   The famous MKO Abiola stuttered, but by the time he died, this speech defect became a prime example of the ‘person’ Abiola.  Why? The man, widely known as MKO, identified his potentials and worked on them, rather than being concerned about what society may have branded a ‘weakness’.  Society soon overlooked this weakness, and concentrated on the immense positives that radiated from him. There are several examples of people who have done well in their professions by turning their physical disabilities into positive advantages.

3. No money to do things you want to do:  Again being broke can be temporary if you want it to.  Rather than dwell too much on self-pity, which in turn worsens your insecurity, why don’t you sit down and do a critical analysis of why you don’t have money.  Are you being overoptimistic? Are you living above your means? Have you exhausted the things you can do to fetch you extra money, within the law of course? Are you prioritising what you spend your money on?  Are you in the circle of friends who call attention to the power of money endlessly? Answer these questions candidly, then do something about the ones you can.  In any case not having money doesn’t mean you can’t hold your head high when it matters most.  As said earlier, look at other positive areas of strength in your life and prop up.

4. Societal rejection due to negative customs:  Some customs can be cruel.  Each society has a handful of traditions that are questionable.  The caste system for instance can be so entrenched and brutally enforced that it robs a person of any self-confidence for life. What do you do in such a situation? Escape Fast!

5. Obesity:  Being obese does affect self-confidence in some people.  The answer is to do something about your weight if you’re affected. Once you do, you’ll be amazed at your new look while your self-confidence will come surging back. However, if overweight doesn’t affect your self-confidence, you might still want to shed some pounds for health reasons.  

6. Insecurity from childhood: A few have grown up in a family where love is non-existent, or perhaps the parents split up, or have to live with foster parents or orphanage.  You may have then grown up with an inferiority complex, which is carried through to adulthood if not carefully managed.  What to do?  Drop the gab of inferiority complex right now.  Bear in mind that everybody has his or her weaknesses.  Simply put, looking for the perfect human being is like looking for a pin in the Sahara dessert.  You have some good qualities, so this is the time to start marketing this unique selling point about you. 

7. When in an unfriendly or threatening environment: Several times you find yourself in an unfriendly or threatening environment, and even if you’ve always been known as Mr or Mrs Confidence, tendency is that this is momentarily lost.  It’s simply a factor of uncertainty and the unknown.  What to do?  Don’t play Mr James Bond or Mrs Smith.  Tread softly and get out fast.

8. When there's no sense of belonging: There are times when you go somewhere with so much confidence, and half way through you lost that ‘magic’ simply because the flow is lost.  You can reassess the situation quickly and if the fault is yours, readjust yourself.  If the aura of such gathering doesn’t fall into place with your person, leave.

9. When you start to get cold feet. Tell yourself as often as possible that you’re good in what you do. Constant self-assurance helps reinstate your confidence. After all, you're the expert.  No one knows it better than you.

10. Illiteracy:  Education opens doors. Knowledge is power.  Soak in it!

Photo Credit: Creative Commons.