Oct 25, 2022 2:08:42 PM

The Power to Find Your Confidence

Finding Your Confidence

Creating Yourself ~ George Benard Shaw2022-10-25_13-02-23

As you go through life's inevitable trials, you'll benefit from knowing that you can reach within yourself and find confidence. Accessing your confidence helps you avoid feeling down or disheartened, no matter what happens. This will help you live the most contented life you can! To understand the pursuit of confidence, you must first gain a lucid perspicacity of the origin of personal confidence—the self-image.

The self-image is the mental image or personal view of ourselves and how we fit into the world around us. Your self-image is an internal directory that describes your characteristics, including your intelligence, physical appeal, giftedness, whether you are selfish or kind, and more.

Your self-image is a reflection of experiential development and early childhood influences. People with direct access and a certain level of authority or influence will help shape how you see yourself. I call these influential people label givers. Parents are the primary label givers. Teachers and peers are also highly influential in determining how a person will see themselves in the world.

Label givers can create positive labels, such as beautiful, intelligent, capable, etc. They can also create negative labels like dumb, stupid, or ugly. Once a person accepts a label or notion based on external influences, it becomes a part of their identity, and their behavior will reflect this belief they hold about themselves.

The good news is that the self-image can be reconstructed to embrace new ideas and beliefs about oneself.

Are you unsure about how to tap into your confidence?

Try these strategies:

Think about the three most challenging things you've ever done in your life. You were successful in coming through those crises. By mentally exploring these events, you'll learn how you found your confidence in those instances. Successful experiences create expectations of success, much like experiencing failure can create the expectation of failing. When you recall successful experiences, you remind your brain and subconscious mind that winning is possible.

Whenever you lack confidence, reflect on those tough times and the strategies you utilized to get through them. You will also experience an emotional shift as you recall the events. Use this positive emotion to lift your mood and state of mind.
Feeling self-assured comes with knowing that you can make it through difficult times and emerge triumphant.

What are your most significant achievements? Take some moments to survey your life. Whether teaching yourself how to take proper care of your lawn or reading the entire collection of Shakespeare, recognize that you've achieved all kinds of milestones. When you survey your accomplishments, you will be surprised at just how much you have accomplished over your life. Look for the positive things and amplify them in your thought processes. Write them down if you have to, or put them on a vision board as a constant reminder.

Then, reflect on your achievements and let yourself feel proud. Re-connect with the feelings of self-assurance you experienced at those times. Feel your confidence grow.
Finally, allow yourself to look forward to a future filled with still more achievement.

Understand your mistakes. An important aspect of finding your confidence is examining what you've done in the past you now view as a mistake. Thoroughly understanding your prior errors is integral to developing your sense of self-assuredness. Do not become emersed in your mistakes, but be aware of them so you know how to maneuver in similar situations.

Reviewing your mistakes lets you tell yourself that you understand what happened and know how to approach those situations differently. Knowing what you did wrong and recognizing that you wouldn't do it the same way again builds confidence.
When you realize that you've gained some relevant knowledge, you also strengthen your confidence that you can meet any challenge in the future.

Find a role model. You probably know someone who you believe exhibits great confidence. Using them as a role model can be instrumental in finding your own confidence.

What does your role model's self-assurance look like? Does the person make eye contact when speaking to others? Can you see a comfortable ease with which he/she relates to others? Think about how the person you have in mind looks, acts, and talks. Practice their posture when engaging in challenging moments.
Perhaps your role model has a great sense of humor. The self-assured person isn't afraid to admit he's made a mistake. He may even gently laugh at himself for his errors. Be careful with laughing at yourself too much; it can be a sign of insecurity.
Now, try behaving like your role model. You truly can live your way into a new way of thinking. If you emulate the person whom you view as confident, you'll be more likely to exude self-assurance.

Even when you're experiencing a challenge and aren't feeling too sure about yourself, try to emulate the behavior until it becomes a natural and habitual part of who you are. Use your knowledge about how confidence appears and behaves, then behave that way. Soon after, you'll begin to recognize and connect with your own true confidence.

Although you might not always feel self-assured, try some strategies to find your confidence when needed. Before you know it, you'll have tapped into your self-confidence, and others will be emulating you!