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Self-confidence is a perspective, which allows people to have emphatic, yet realistic views of the themselves and their circumstances. Self-confident people have confidence 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.

Self-confidence is a point of view 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 learn how to be a prizefighter, so he gets a trainer and a manager. His manager will not put him into the ring until he has generated enough stamina and skill. And even then, the manager will only put him up against an adversary that he knows his fighter can surpass. When his fighter beats the contender, he is successful, and starts to gain a feeling of faith in his capablilty.

With each combat, the manager puts his champion up against an adversary who is only a little bit better of a 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 escalate. This scenario continues to repeat itself. And as long as the fighter continues to win, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to escalate.

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. People, who have true self-confidence, usually have expectations that are common-sense. 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 good about themselves. They tend to avoid taking risks because they fear failure. They often belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

Conversely, secure people are willing take a chance on disappointing others because they generally trust their own talents. They tend to accept. A lack of confidence is often the result of concentrating much too strongly on the ridiculous expectancies of other people, especially those of parents and friends. The domination 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 develop assumptions; some of these are positive and some are negative. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and better ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: It's imperative that I am successful at everything. This assumption is totally unrealistic. In real life, each person has their strengths, and their weaknesses. While it's important to learn 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 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 is totally unrealistic. All human beings are fallible. 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 young child, as you grow older, you can gain awareness and a new point of view 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 based on what happened in the past. HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize your strengths. Grant yourself credit for everything you can do. And grant yourself acknowledgment for every new thing that you are willing to experience.

Take risks. Adopt the point of view of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I learn what does not work, and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can try 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 it's impossible to 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 working towards improvement.

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 effective Hypnosis and NLP techniques that you can use to build a tremendous amount of confidence from within your unconscious 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 appraise yourself as an individual. Circumvent the continuous sense of chaos that comes from relying on the opinions of others.

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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 video hypnosis for weight loss 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.