How To Develop an Unshakable, Lasting Self Confidence

By: Eduardas Kubilinskas

Everyone has some degree of self confidence. Otherwise a person would be afraid to get out of bed or to go out into street, if he seriously had doubt in everything does.

Confidence comes in several forms.

-motivational ( the ones you hear on inspirational cds)

- self induced ( the one when you clap your hands or whistle, when you're walking through a cemetery in the middle of the night (I know that happens very often))

- situational( when a person is confident in a familiar group of friends, but get all stiff and rigid when couple of strangers are involved) or when person plays golf better than tiger when practicing, but folds under pressure when it counts.

This article is about developing real, unshakable, lasting self confidence, independent of situations, day or night, home or work environment.

The Number one obstacle between you and your goal- being self confident is your inner voice or a self critic inside your mind, who everyone has and who always, depending on how he dealt with, will either support or reject the ideas you get. It is funny to note how fast your inner voice comes up with a million reasons if you get a new idea that interferes with status quo and how smart he can be in coming up with ways to diminish your motivation.

It’s not my objective to analyze the inner voice (if you want that a nice book to read is Self-Discipline in 10 Days: How to Go From Thinking to Doing – by Theodore Bryant). My goal is to show you how to deal with inner voice and how that directly relates to building an unshakable self confidence.

Given an example of a situation where you get a kind of “it would be nice to start going back to gym” idea. But after several days however find yourself successfully sitting on the couch or going about your normal days without even bothering to pack your tennis shoes and head for the gym. And if asked, the usual answer that comes out is usually in a form of excuse or some valid reason why it would almost be detrimental to do such a thing.

All those excuses are a form of the art work of inner voice and if not given any attention, it can prevent you from reaching your goals, small or large forever.

Best way to deal with critic within is to:

Listen carefully the objections and excuses it gives you, when you decide you want to do something. If you decide you want to go to gym, the objections may sound like this:

• It’s too far to drive,

• I don’t want to sit in the traffic,

• I don’t like that gym,

• I’d rather to do some other exercise,

• I haven’t paid for gym this month and

• I’m short on cash so I’ll just wait until I get paid next week.

• I have important things to do at home now. I don’t want to miss this show on tv, etc.

The way you deal with it is simple: first you look at all excuses you heard and then you talk back to yourself explaining each of the points in the way that’s convincing, makes sense and probably best if its logical.

It would sound something like this: Well I understand there is always a possibility to get in traffic, you can always take other roads or if you get in traffic turn on a motivational cd or listen to relaxing music which will help you pass the time.

Yeah gym is kind of far, but not further than work and its not like the car is not going to make it. In fact the longer the drive the longer you can listen to the same educational cd and learn a thing or two. Short on cash? It’s not like they cancel your membership the first week you miss a payment and your favorite tv show you can watch later online or record it on tivo for later review, etc…

When you have a conversation like this with your critic it will be just enough to get the ball rolling. And if you reinforce that with perhaps calling a friend to join you at gym or pack your gym bag, i.e. bring more skin in the game. You will be convinced and will execute on the task.

2. Beside critic we all have inside, there are also critics on the outside. Who happen to be other people we work, live, communicate with. Notion has been around, that for whatever reason even the closest people to you, may undermine or unwillingly automatically criticize or discourage you from doing something new, all that grounded that they really care about you and all they do by being negative is try and protect you. A famous quote got stuck with me for years now which sounds – “culture is a group effort to keep the unexpected from happening” fits here well.

All joke on the side though, keep one thing in mind. Criticism, in any form it would approach you is a inevitable and necessary part of the game. I deeply believe that many people also succeed because of criticism brought against them. They set out to prove other people wrong and desire being so strong they succeed greatly… I‘m not saying that’s the perfect way to go, it is however happening and that is the fact.

Critics also come in different categories and there are lots of ways to deal with them. Best way however is to understand that it’s a part of the game and just keep on doing what you doing, without paying attention to the big mouths. And if you’re in business, it is really only your customers words that counts, not your relatives or neighbors, who criticize cause you bringing clients into your house. Its not your cousins or loser friends who have nothing better to do. They don’t pay you. So don’t take it to heart! And as a saying goes: “kite rises against the wind”. You must also be bigger than critics.

Goal driven self confidence is has a strong foundation of four pillars:

These are:

1. Your built in success mechanism. All beings on this planet have a purpose. Have a goal and work to accomplish it. Example a squirrel, knows from day one after its born, to gather nuts and grain for winter. It doesn’t have to go to school to learn how to do that. Or a baby buffalo, the moment it has been born it runs for his life in order to escape the ever hungry lions.

We as humans are also programmed to automatically succeed in whatever we do. It is your responsibility to learn and unleash that power and let yourself succeed to the fullest.

2. Superior Knowledge – is a very important factor in the equation. Superior knowledge will give you comfort and stable ground to stand on, when your work or ideas are being challenged. When you know more than others, there is nothing that will pull ground from under your feet and make your stumble.

3. Skill set – skills or competence is also a vital factor in building unshakable self confidence. Skills can be gained by experience and doing things, but also can be generated synthetically. Which means you can mentally rehearse situations and skills you want to acquire, which will be yours, because mind rarely differentiates imaginary experience with real one.

An example of research done with a basketball team. When one group of players were told to practice shooting free throws and other group was told to sit back and imagine shooting and making free-throws in their minds. After practice they both went on to do it in competition and second group won hands down. Your subconscious mind. Does not know difference of what is real or imagined.

4. Relaxation. It is important corner stone of self confidence. Being able to relax under pressure is a vital part of being confident. Because it doesn’t matter that you do great when you practice your speech in your bathroom in front of mirror. What counts is when you speak and deliver your message clearly in front of class, co-workers, boss, audience or whatever it may be. Ability to relax can be practiced and also imagined before hand in a relaxed setting.

There are 5 ways to maximize your self confidence or 5 practical things you can do to be gain self confidence:

1. Revisit your daily plan every day. So something every single day that will bring you toward your goal(s). i.e. read daily, make extra appointment, exercise x amount of minutes, etc.

2. Establish monitoring system. Follow your progress daily. It is possible to set up a chart and monitor your little successes every day. That will reinforce success and give you more confidence in yourself.

Reprinted from: Communication Skills Articles.

Ed Kubi Club-Entrepreneur.org

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated

Additional Articles From - Home | Self Development | Confidence