Self-confidence is an outlook, which allows individuals to have positive, yet realistic views of the themselves and their situations. Self-confident people have faith in their own know-how, 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 an attitude 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 manager and a trainer. His manager will not setup a fight for him until he has developed enough skill and stamina. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a rival that he knows his fighter can hammer. When his fighter beats the rival, he is successful, and starts to gain belief in his abilities.

With each contest, the manager puts his fighter up against a rival 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 man begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to expand. This scenario continues to repeat itself. And as long as the man continues to win, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to expand.

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.

Even if an individual has true self-confidence, it doesn't mean that they will be successful at everything. Usually people who have self-confidence have practical 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 lean excessively on the recognition of others in order to feel self-esteem. They avoid risks because of the fear of failure. They belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

On the other side of the coin, secure people will risk the disapproval of other people because they generally believe in their own aptness. They tend to acknowledge themselves; and they do not believe that they have to conform in order to be accepted.

Just because a person feels self-confidence in one or more aspects of their life, doesn't mean that they will feel confident in every part of their life. For example, a person might feel confident about their athletic ability, but not feel confident where members of the opposite sex are involved, such as in a dating situation, or social relationships.

HOW IS SELF-CONFIDENCE INITIALLY DEVELOPED?

Many truths affect the course of self-confidence. Parents' attitudes are all-important to the way children think about themselves, particularly when they are very young. When parents provide acceptance, children receive a good foundation for feelings of self-worth. If one or both parents are overwhelmingly demanding or cirtical, or if they are overprotective and discourage moves toward independence, children may come to believe they are incapable, inadequate, or inferior.

However, if parents encourage a child's moves toward self-reliance, and they are not overly critical when the child makes mistakes, the child will learn to accept herself, and will be on the way to developing self-confidence.

isn't necessarily related to a lack of ability. A lack of self-esteem is often the result of concentrating much too strongly on the unrealistic expectancies of others, especially parents and friends. The influence of peers 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 beliefs; 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 important that I'm successful at every challenge I undertake. This is totally unrealistic. In real life, each person has his strengths and his 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 less than perfect. 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 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 because of your past. HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

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

Take risks. Adopt the attitude 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 something else.

Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as an opportunity 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 be an expert at every activity, and that it's only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself while still 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 powerful NLP and self-hypnosis techniques that you can use to build a huge 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 judgerank yourself as an individual. refrain from the perpetual 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 quit smoking hypnosis. Visit the Neuro-VISION NLP & Hypnosis site and download FREE MP3's hypnosis newsletters, and original articles on hypnosis & NLP.