3 Steps For Building Self Confidence: It’s Not What You Think

Written by Farouk Radwan - 27 Comments
Categories: self confidence, self improvement

Why it is so hard to become confident?
Millions of people have spent years trying to become confident without succeeding.
When those people begin the quest they usually start by looking for online tips that can help them become confident quickly and this is usually what they come across:

• Say “I like myself” everyday out loud: Not knowing the fact that the subconscious mind refuses to accept beliefs before solid proof is provided. Your subconscious will respond to this message saying, “Really, why do you feel worthless then if you like yourself?”
• Accept yourself: Not knowing the fact that the subconscious mind can’t accept something it doesn’t like unless it can’t be changed. You can accept the death of a close relative but even if you used all the known techniques in the world you won’t convince your subconscious mind to accept something you don’t like about yourself that can be changed.
• Repeat affirmations: Not knowing that saying “I am confident” while you are not makes the subconscious mind believe that you are fooling it and thus results in bad emotions such as shame. A recent study has proven that people who repeat affirmations that are against their true beliefs about themselves tend to feel down, guilty and less confident.

How to really become self confident?
Self confidence is built, it can’t be created by affirmations nor it can be acquired over night.

Self confidence is all about trusting your skills and convincing your subconscious mind that you are really worthy.

If you lack certain skills then you are likely to feel shaky and anxious during the situations that require these skills. If you developed the specific skills that you lack and started using them successfully, your subconscious mind will start to trust you and you will start to feel confident.

Think of the subconscious mind as someone standing aside and evaluating your actions: if he saw you performing well he won’t make you feel anxious the next time he sees you going through the same situation.

Now what if that person standing beside you, saw you in the morning saying ‘I like myself’ and in the evening shaking in front of a crowd? Won’t he feel frustrated? Tricked even?

A Step-by-step guide to becoming truly confident

Like everything worth doing in life, there is one thing that separates those that will succeed from those that fail: Doing The Work.

As mentioned earlier, self confidence – one of life’s most treasure traits – won’t be achieved by repeating how great you are in the mirror every morning. The only only way to build self confidence it to become truly great – task by task. Here’s how:

Step one: determine the problematic area: Contrary to common beliefs self confidence is not a general trait but each one of us has different levels of confidence in different areas of his life. While you might be very confident in browsing the internet you might fear public speaking

Step two: Find the missing skills: The second step you should do is figuring out the missing skills that are preventing you from feeling confident in a certain area. Once you find these skills you must develop them.

Step three: wait until the subconscious mind notices: When you develop these missing skills you won’t feel confident right away but instead your subconscious mind has to watch you performing well many times before it can trust you.

In short, don’t rush to become confident overnight with tricks because they never work. Instead focus on developing your missing skills, building trust in yourself and you will become really confident.

Farouk Radwan is the founder of 2KnowMyself – The Ultimate source for understanding yourself and others.


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  • http://www.richardshelmerdine.com/blog/ Richard | RichardShelmerdine.com

    Self confidence really is built. It’s just like a muscle. We all start out weak and those who appear strong are either faking it or have built it over time, the only natural way.

  • http://enlightr.com Craig Thomas

    Nice, easy step by step way of building confidence. Not so sure on the shadow effect on the image though.. slightly bad looking. :p

  • http://budurl.com/ynfr Megan Zuniga

    The point of talking to yourself in the mirror is inspire confidence in yourself and believe yourself. It’s like this…If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. So encouraging yourself, in theory, should be uplifting one’s self-confidence. Do not say stuff that you don’t believe is true. It’s not about fooling yourself. Say simple stuff that you know you’re good at. Like say, you like your hair. You tell yourself, “Your hair looks great today!” Accept that as a compliment to start your day. I mean if we like hearing it from others, we should like to hear it from ourselves. If you feel uncomfortable doing this in front of the mirror, then don’t. It’s probably better to whisper encouraging positive thoughts to yourself throughout the day anyway.
    But you’re right. These things do not happen overnight. Times like this, it helps to have friends who inspire confidence in us. Surround ourselves with positivity. Do not take yourself seriously. If you made a mistake, so did 100% of the human population. Follow the tips, Farouk gave. If it’s not enough, here let me give more tips http://sn.im/uxpk2

  • http://www.officearrow.com Lauren – OfficeArrow

    My favorite self-confidence tips are to look your best (dress the part) and surround yourself with positive people who truly love you. They will have no problem telling you how great you are because they see all of the good things that you may not.

  • http://www.mindwolvesleader.com/2010/04/how-to-improve-your-self-confidence Yuval

    Hey Farouk, nice article.
    “focus on developing your missing skills, building trust in yourself and you will become really confident.”

    Confidence is definitely not a one strike act, and it definitely needs to incorporate the subconscious. But the subconscious is taking part as we speak and some say that faster then we think :-) .

    So, I’ll try to combine several actions like releasing dysfunctional believes along the skill development and stacking new good experiences.

    Thanks
    Yuval

  • http://www.daveursillo.com DaveUrsillo

    Good post. I think that a solid way of becoming more confident is getting to really know yourself, as in understanding the motives behind your behaviors. When you get to better understand who you are on the inside and why you behave as you do, you naturally become more secure with yourself and thus, more self confident.

    Glad to have found your blog,

    Best,
    Dave

  • http://www.mastery-journey.com outstanding

    Self-confidence is extremely important in almost every aspect of our lives, yet so many people struggle to find it. Sadly, this can be a vicious circle: People who lack self-confidence can find it difficult to become successful. interesting cool tips i really enjoyed it keep it up

  • http://www.article-elf.com/ forex robot

    nice post. thanks.

  • http://www.counselingchicago.org Anda

    This is a great article. I’ve been reading your posts for a couple months now, and am impressed by how consistently you come up with unique and relevant ideas. Thanks for your tips and insights!

  • http://www.balticbeast.com/ Tony

    Self-confidence is extremely important in almost every aspect of our lives, yet so many people struggle to find it. Sadly, this can be a vicious circle: People who lack self-confidence can find it difficult to become successful. interesting cool tips i really enjoyed it keep it up

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com Farouk

    that’s what i was trying to say Richard, thanks for putting it in simple words :)

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com Farouk

    hahaha, the important thing is that you liked the post :)

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com Farouk

    you just got what i meant exactly Megan
    the problem is that people don’t stand in front of the mirror and say i like my hair but instead they say

    i am very confident
    i am the best

    such suggestions makes no sense because they go against their own beliefs, i strongly recommend affirmations that resonates with one’s beliefs
    thank you for your comment :)

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com Farouk

    of courses the clothes we wear have a great impact on our self image and in turn our self confidence

    that’s why people feel more confident when they buy new clothes
    thank you for your comment: ))

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com Farouk

    exactly Yuval :)
    thanks for your feedback :)

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com Farouk

    that’s another Good tip too Dave, of course i can’t claim that what i mentioned was everything about self confidence but its part of the puzzle
    thanks for sharing :)

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com Farouk

    Hey Anda
    really happy with your comment and nice words
    would be glad if we can keep in touch:)
    wish you all the best

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com Farouk

    yes you are right Tony, its one of the most important topics, lets all as bloggers write our thoughts about it
    thanks for your comment :)

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com Farouk

    welcomee:)

  • http://getconfidence.org Get Confidence

    Great post,

    With these 3 steps and a can do attitude step by step you get confidence.

    Thank’s

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  • http://unreadyandwilling.com Kenji Crosland

    Good advice Farouk. I like how you point out that positive affirmations actually make you feel worse because you’re affirming something that runs contrary to your actual beliefs. One counter-intuitive method that I’ve found useful is to do a NEGATIVE affirmation, to say something like “I’m not important,” and see how much that bothers you. If saying “I’m not important” makes you feel uneasy, you have to admit to yourself that you do indeed have feelings of inadequacy instead of sweeping them under the rug. After making the admission to yourself, you can then go about making things better.

  • Saf

    Its easy to say and to give tips to build up confident but actually its really hard to implement everyone knows that …

  • http://flawlessconfidence.com Martin

    I would like to point out that the most important thing is not necessarily to develop missing skills – the most important thing is to start doing things that you’re afraid of.

    If you’re afraid of public speaking, then it would be better to just start speaking in front of crowds as often as possible instead of reading books about it (which will help you develop your skills, but won’t make you confident). You’ll get used to things that make you feel insecure by doing them, not necessarily learning to become an expert in them.

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