It is useful to understand what self-confidence is when trying to develop it. According to the Counseling Center at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, self-confidence is a positive attitude about oneself and about the surrounding situations. Self-confident attitudes are also realistic. A person who has self-confidence is generally upbeat about getting what they want, within reason. People with self-confidence also generally feel in control of their lives, and when their situations fall short of expectations, they continue to accept themselves and to have a positive outlook.
Step 1
Emphasize your strengths. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. By emphasizing your strengths, you focus on the things you do best. Congratulate yourself on the things you accomplish and do well.
Step 2
Explore new challenges by taking risks. If you safely do only the things that you know you can accomplish, you may fail to develop the confidence to meet new challenges in life. After successfully completing new endeavors that involve risk, you begin to feel confidence about the future.
Step 3
Employ an internal feedback system whereby you catch yourself with negative or unrealistic thoughts, and point out to yourself the fallacies of those thoughts. For example, if you find yourself expecting perfection in an upcoming endeavor, remind yourself that some endeavors require practice and that you can continue to improve.
Step 4
Practice self-evaluations of your performances. These self-evaluations should include the aspects of your performance that you did well and other aspects that could be improved upon. This helps you to rely less on the opinions of others, which may dwell on the negative. It empowers you while taking power away from others.
Step 5
Continue to recognize self-defeating thought patterns as they reappear and dismiss them. These include "all or nothing" expectations whereby if an outcome isn't perfect, it is seen as a failure. This can be seen as an unrealistic expectation. Thoughts that magnify negative aspects of yourself or your performance should also be discarded.
Tips and Warnings
- Joining groups, clubs or organizations that provide positive support among their members can help you to find social networks that help instill self-confidence.
- The basis for self-confidence begins with parents who project accepting attitudes toward their children, which means that adults may have to work harder to develop self-confidence if they are starting out with negative parental influences.
Member Comments