Self Confidence And Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is all about believing in yourself, your own worth, your power and abilities, regardless of the situation you are in.

A lot of people believe that self-confidence comes from the possession of high skill sets or knowledge. While being excellent in a particular area of expertise can give you a sense of high self-worth, it is not a necessarily a prerequisite for self-confidence.

People who have high self-confidence have a strong sense of assurance and belief in themselves. They exude calmness, composure and self-awareness, and that is because, they have formed a set of habits that have become part of who they are and how they live their life.

So, let's look at these habits in more detail:

HABIT 1: Keep Your Word - To Yourself

not giving any power to that thought... not reacting to it.

Affirmations are a very powerful way of re-educating our minds to think empowering thoughts rather than the counterproductive negative thoughts.

So CHOOSE to improve self-confidence by choosing positive thoughts and practice these using affirmations.

HABIT 3: Focus On Your Strengths

Lack of self-confidence is a result of losing sight of our great qualities, and exaggerating our flaws instead.

High self-confident people know their strength and focus on what they can do, rather than what they can't.

When you think you are not good at something, try to consciously focus on the qualities that you have that are important to carry out that task.

For example, if you are doing public speaking and are not confident at delivering a speech, but you are a great researcher, writer and organiser... focus on these attributes instead, and know that you can be confident and proud of the content of that speech. Focusing on the great content will make the delivery of the speech less significant.

HABIT 4: Be Courageous

Get out of your head and just do

So, to improve self-confidence start the habit of being grateful.

An exercise you can do everyday is to spend 5 minutes acknowledging the small things you like about yourself, things that make you feel self-confident and successful right now.

You can write these down in a gratitude journal and review them weekly.

Another powerful thing to do is find an unsuspecting or unlikely target to unleash your gratitude upon.

Gratitude often works best where you would least expect it to. Perhaps you can show appreciation or be grateful to a friend or family member, or you have seen a beautiful tree or flower that brightens your day, perhaps appreciate your favourite song, or a really good hug... you will be surprised how many things you will find that you can appreciate and be grateful for everyday!

HABIT 7: Focus On Contributing To Others

People with low self-confidence tend to focus too much time on their own problems and flaws, they undervalue what they are capable of, and spend too much time being critical of themselves.

They get caught up in this kind of thinking and as a result feel low in