What does self-confidence mean?
Self-confidence is a combination of a state of mind and a gut feeling telling you that you are safe and comfortable where you are and doing what you are doing or saying. It comes from knowing that you can trust in your own abilities to handle a situation. You feel comfortable in your own skin. You can feel self-confident in some areas of your life and insecure in other areas.
Studies have shown that those who are confident in various aspects of their lives are better equipped to deal with the negatives. For example, people who have confidence in their social lives are better able to accept rejection. And people who are confident in their careers are OK with a certain amount of failure or mistakes.
So, how do you go from being self-conscious to being self-confident? Here are some steps that you can try.
1. Focus on your strengths and potentials as opposed to your weaknesses and limitations. Identify and visualize an image of yourself in a situation that you are feeling confident and proud. For example, doing an activity that you are really good at. It can be interacting with others, helping others, doing something with your hands, a physical activity, organizing or connecting with others. Imagine yourself acting confidently and having others see you as a confident person, respecting and liking you. Then, pick a situation in which is you feel inadequate and visualize yourself acting as if you were acting with confidence. This will prepare you mentally for the task. This is what olympic athletes do to overcome the anxiety of performing the big day and it works wonders. When the day of the Olympic games comes, they have imagined themselves, the crowd, the equipment, every single aspect so many times, that there is no anxiety and they just perform in their best possible manner.
2. Set up goals for yourself to get out of your comfort zone and overcome your fears. Develop a series of steps from easier to more challenging and take one step at a time towards your desire. This is called “exposure” and it is a technique that helps people overcome their fears.
3. Remember that no one is perfect. Each person has their own weaknesses, flaws and failures. It’s Ok to not be perfect! Accepting that making mistakes is part of life and the only way to grow removes the fear of going out, trying new things and feeling more confident.
Confidence isn’t achieved overnight, but by taking one small step at a time you can achieve goals that you never thought you could. You can use this method in a variety of aspects of your life such as career, friends, studies, attitude towards life, organization, doing presentations, etc.
If you need help in moving forward to achieve your goals and become that person that you would like, you can seek help from a psychologist or psychotherapist trained in exposure therapy.
Therapists trained in CBT or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can help clients achieve their goals by providing tools and support to develop a hierarchy scale starting from the easiest situations to the more challenging ones, teaching relaxation techniques, visualization and strategies to challenge the negative thoughts, fears and expectations that come with the anxiety and low self-confidence.
As people change their negative beliefs and bias, they become better equipped and ready to take the steps for the exposure. It is a fabulous feeling to get to the last step and know that you did it!
Written by Dr Silvina Galperin
