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Self-confidence is a must quality to become successful in life. As per the Cambridge dictionary, confidence is the quality of being certain of your abilities or of having trust in people, plans, or the future.
Confidence comes from the Latin word ‘fidere’ which means “to trust”; therefore, having self-confidence is having trust in one’s self.
Life with low self-confidence
Low self-confidence people do not take their decision. For them, other people are the main decision-maker in various aspects of life. Whatever is the form of that decision, as good or bad, they accept it as fate.
Low self-confidence leads to indecisiveness, lack of success, lack of clarity, moderate or no business growth, lack of social life, full of doubts & worries, lack of joy, poor career growth, lack of prosperity, etc.
To Think Confidently, Act Confidently
Act the way you want to feel. David J. Schwartz has shared below five confidence-building exercises in his outstanding book titled ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’. Read them and make a conscious effort to practice them to build your confidence.
Be a Front Seater
Ever notice in meetings—in the conference rooms, classrooms, and other kinds of assemblies—how the back seats fill up first? Most folks scramble to sit in the back rows so they won’t be “too conspicuous.” And the reason they are afraid to be conspicuous is that they lack confidence.
Sitting up front builds confidence. Practice it. From now on make it a rule to sit as close to the front as you can.
Practice Making Eye Contact
How a person uses his eyes tells us a lot about him. Usually, failure to make eye contact says one of two things. It may say, “I feel weak beside you. I feel inferior to you. I’m afraid of you.” Or avoiding another person’s eyes may say, “I feel guilty. I’ve done something or I’ve thought something that I don’t want you to know.
I’m afraid if I let my eyes connect with yours, you’ll see through me.” You say nothing good about yourself when you avoid making eye contact. You say, “I’m afraid. I lack confidence.” Conquer this fear by making yourself look the other person in the eyes. Looking the other person in the eye tells him, “I’m honest and above board. I believe in what I’m telling you. I’m not afraid. I’m confident.”
Make your eyes work for you. Aim them right at the other person’s eyes. It not only gives you confidence, it wins you confidence, too.
Walk 25 Percent Faster
Watching people walk and move is real fun. It was a lot cheaper than the movies. I still am a walk watcher. In corridors, lobbies, on sidewalks I still occasionally find myself studying human behavior simply by watching people move about.
Psychologists link slovenly posture and sluggish walking to unpleasant attitudes towards oneself, work, and the people around us. But psychologists also tell us you can actually change your attitudes by changing your posture and speed of movement.
Watch, and you discover that body action is the result of mind action. The extremely beaten people, the real down-and-outers, just shuffle and stumble along. They have zero self-confidence.
Average people have the “average” walk. Their pace is “average.” They have the look of “I really don’t have very much pride in myself.”
Then there’s a third group. Persons in this group show super confidence. They walk faster than the average. There seems to be a slight sprint in the way they walk. Their walk tells the world, “I’ve got someplace important to go, something important to do. What’s more, I will succeed at what I will do fifteen minutes from now.”
Use the walk-25-percent-faster technique to help build self-confidence. Throw your shoulders back, lift up your head, move ahead just a little faster, and feel your self-confidence grow. Just try and see.
Practice Speaking Up
In working with many kinds of groups of all sizes, I’ve watched many persons with keen perception and much native ability freeze and fail to participate in discussions.
It isn’t that these folks don’t want to get in and wade with the rest. Rather, it’s a simple lack of confidence. The conference clam thinks to himself, “My opinion is probably worthless. If I say something, I’ll probably look foolish. I’ll just say nothing. Besides, the others in the group probably know more than I. I don’t want the others to know how ignorant I am.”
Each time the conference clam fails to speak, he feels even more inadequate, more inferior. Often he makes a faint promise to himself (that down deep he knows he won’t keep) to speak “next time.” This is very important: each time our clam fails to speak, he takes one more dose of confidence poison. He becomes less and less confident in himself.
But on the positive side, the more you speak up, the more you add to your confidence, and the easier it is to speak up the next time. Speak up. It’s a confidence-building vitamin. Put this confidence builder to use. Make it a rule to speak up at every open meeting you attend.
Speak up, and say something voluntarily at every business conference, committee meeting, or community forum you attend. Make no exception. Comment, make a suggestion, or ask a question. And don’t be the last to speak. Try to be the icebreaker, the first one in with a comment.
Smile Big
Most folks have heard at one time or another that a smile will give them a real boost. They’ve been told that a smile is an excellent medicine for confidence deficiency.
But lots of people still don’t really believe this because they’ve never tried smiling when they feel fear. Make this little test. Try to feel defeated and smile big at the same time. You can’t. A big smile gives you confidence. A big smile beats fear, rolls away worry, and defeats despondency. And a real smile does more than cure just your ill feeling.
A real smile melts away the opposition of others—and instantly, too. Another person simply can’t be angry with you if you give him a big, sincere smile. (image credit-pixabay)
Just the other day, a little incident happened to me that illustrates this. I was parked at an intersection waiting for the light to change when BAM! The driver behind me had let his foot slip the brake and put my rear bumper to a test. I looked back through my mirror and saw him getting out.
I got out, too, and, forgetting the rule book, started preparing myself for verbal combat. But fortunately, before I got the chance, he walked up to me, smiled, and said in the most earnest voice, “Friend, I really didn’t mean to do that.” That smile, matched with his sincere comment, melted me. I mumbled something like “That’s O.K. Happens all the time.” Almost in less time than it takes to wink an eye, my opposition turned into friendship. Smile big and you feel like “happy days are here again.” But smile big. A half-developed smile is not fully guaranteed. Smile until your teeth show. That large-size smile is fully guaranteed.
“You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving yourself and see what happens.”— Louise Hay
