Self-confidence is a mentality, which allows people to have emphatic, yet realistic views of the themselves and their position. Self-confident people have faith in their own capability, have a general sense of control over their lives, and believe that, within reason, they will be able to do what they want to do.

Confidence is a position that is conditioned 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 be a boxer, so he takes lessons, and gets a manager. His manager will not setup a fight 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 batter. When his fighter beats the contender, he is successful, and starts to gain confidence in his proficiency.

With each challenge, the manager puts his fighter up against a competitor who is only a slightly better contender 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 bloom. This series of events continues to repeat itself. And as long as the fighter is victorious, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to bloom.

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 true self-confidence doesn't mean that individuals will be able to do everything. Usually people who have self-confidence have common-sense 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 depend disproportionately on the confirmation of others in order to feel self-esteem. They avoid risks because of the fear of failure. They put themselves down and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

Conversely, self-assured people are willing take a chance on disappointing others because they generally trust their own potential. A person can have plenty of abilities, but still lack confidence. A lack of confidence is often the result of focusing completely on the unreal expectancy of others, especially friends and parents. The influence of friends can be more powerful than those of parents in shaping the feelings about one's self.

Assumptions That Continue to Influence Self-Confidence

In response to external influences, people create assumptions; some of these are good, and some are bad. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and better ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: I must always be successful at every challenge that I undertake. This is unrealistic. In life, each person has her strengths and her weaknesses. While it's important to do the best that you 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 no one knows everything nor are they 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 vulnerable to external influences when you were a young child, as you grow older, you can gain consciousness 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 because of past events. HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize your strengths. Give yourself credit for everything you can do. And give yourself credit for every new adventure that you are willing to undertake.

Take risks. Adopt the frame of mind 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: Talk to yourself in positive terms 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 powerful NLP and self-hypnosis techniques that are effective and will instill a monumental amount of self-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 judgerank yourself independently. refrain from the constant sense of chaos that comes from relying on what other people think.

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Alan B. Densky, CH. is certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner. He opened his practice in 1978. He is the inventor of Neuro-VISION, an NLP / Video hypnosis technology that received a US Patent because of its effectiveness. Neuro-VISION has been perfected for appetite control hypnosis and video stop smoking hypnosis. Visit the Neuro-VISION NLP & Hypnosis site and download FREE MP3's hypnosis newsletters, and original articles on hypnosis & NLP.