Self-confidence is an outlook that is garnered through experiences. When a person experiences success, that person will tend to expect to be successful. And that expectation will cause a feeling of confidence.

For example: A young man wants to learn how to be a prizefighter, so he gets a manager and a trainer. His manager will not setup a bout for him until he has generated proficient fighting skills. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a competitor that he knows his fighter can overcome. When his fighter beats the rival, he is successful, and starts to gain a feeling of faith in his abilities.

With each contest, the manager puts his warrior up against a competitor who is only a slightly better rival then the last, but not good enough to beat his man. By the end of the third fight, the young fighter begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to accrue. This scenario continues to repeat itself. And as long as the fighter wins, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to accrue.

If a person who has a long history of success and feelings of self-confidence does fail, they still tend to expect success the next time out. Conversely, when a person who is weak in the self-confidence department fails, they tend to lose confidence, and begin to expect failure, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Having self-confidence doesn't mean that individuals will be successful at everything. Most people who have true self-confidence have attainable expectations. Even when some of their expectations are not met, they continue to be positive and to accept themselves.

People, who are not self-confident, tend to rely unreasonably on the approval of others in order to feel good about themselves. They refrain from taking risks for fear of failure. They belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

Conversely, self-assured people will risk the disapproval of other people because they generally trust their own aptness. A person can have tremendous abilities, but still lack confidence. A lack of self-esteem is often the result of focusing too strongly on the unrealistic expectations of other people, especially parents and friends. The affect of friends can be more powerful than those of parents in shaping the feelings about one's self.

Beliefs That Continue to Influence Self-Confidence

In response to external influences, people develop assumptions; some of these are constructive and some are harmful. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and alternative ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: It's imperative that I am successful at everything that I do. This is unrealistic. In real life, each person has his strengths and his weaknesses. While it's important to do the best that one can, it's more important to learn to accept the self as being human, and fallible. Feel good about what you are good at, and accept the fact that you don't know everything and you are not an expert at everything.

ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this assumption is unrealistic. All human beings are flawed. It's better to develop personal standards and values that are not completely dependent on the approval of others.

ASSUMPTION: Everything that happened to me in the past remains in control of my feelings and behaviors in the present.

ALTERNATIVE: While it is true that your confidence was especially controlled by external influences when you were a very young child, as you gain maturity, you can gain knowledge and outlook on what those influences have been. In doing so, you can choose which influences you will continue to allow to have an effect on your life. You don't have to be helpless in the face of past events.

HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize Your Strengths. Think about and give yourself credit for everything you can do. And bestow upon yourself recognition for every new adventure that you are willing to try.

Take risks. Adopt the perspective of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I find out what doesn't work, and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can attempt some other action.

Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as a method to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting perfection, remind yourself that no one can do everything perfectly, and that it's only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself as you are striving to improve.

Make mental movies: Visualize yourself in the various scenarios that you currently lack confidence in. But see yourself behaving as like a person who has tremendous self-confidence would. There are many powerful NLP and Hypnosis techniques that are effective and will create a huge amount of confidence from within your subconscious mind. There are even NLP techniques that will let you take confidence that you do have in areas of your life, and then transplant that confidence to areas of your life that are lacking confidence!

Self-Evaluate: Learn to rank yourself as an individual. Circumvent the continuous sense of chaos that comes from relying too much on the opinions of others.