This is in response to a readers question about how to deal with lack of confidence.
List Some Positive Qualities
Here, you have to be honest with yourself. Yes, you will have some weaknesses, but, also you have some strengths and good qualities. If you lack self confidence maybe you are sensitive person, who is keenly aware of other people’s feelings. Turn this sensitivity into a strength; feel that your empathy with other people makes you a better person. Try to list several good qualities and / or several positive contributions that you have made and avoid feelings of false modesty.
Spend Time With Positive People.
Unfortunately, sometimes when we lack self confidence we can gravitate towards people who instinctively like to put others down. (This behaviour is rooted in their own insecurities – they knock other people to make themselves feel better). However, spending time with negative people is inevitably very bad for our self confidence. It is a real shame when this happens repeatedly for some people. Look closely at the people you spend your time with, if they are always criticising you (either directly or indirectly) try spend more time with people who don’t.
Be Yourself – Don’t Imitate
You can only gain self-confidence when you are trying to be yourself. In some social situations we feel awkward so the temptation is to do what you think other people expect; we try to be somebody we are not. But, when we are trying to be someone that we are not, inevitably we lack self-confidence because the element of falseness in being something we are not.
Don’t think of failure
If we constantly worry about things going wrong then a lack of self confidence is almost inevitable. Don’t feel you are a victim to your thoughts, learn to control them. There is an article here about – how to control your thoughts.
Give Yourself a chance to succeed.
If you lack self confidence, it is a bigger mistake to always hold yourself back. Try inspiring yourself to give some activities a chance. If you never attempt anything and avoid engaging in social activities, it is likely that your self-confidence will never get chance to be rebuilt.
Be Kind To Yourself.
Life is not about being hard on yourself, if you can’t be kind to yourself – who is going to be? Being kind to yourself involves several different aspects. I have written about this before. One particular example is – Dress smart – give yourself confidence by wearing clothes you are comfortable with. Wearing the right clothes for the situation makes a big difference to your self-confidence. see: Be Kind to Yourself
See Also:
Great and interesting post on confidence building. Agree with you fully. However we have our own view on confidence building too. You can find out more at http://www.confidencebuildingcourses.com
Tejvan, is there a way to make my name and e-mail address disappear in the comment box?
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Looks like there was a misunderstanding. A non-techie.
Fantastic tips on how to deal with self confidence.
fantastic tips i liked it
wow… this totally speaks directly to me. i have the lowest self esteem of anyone i’ve ever met in my entire life and everything you said is spot-on. i definitely intend to follow these tips. thank you.
Love, Love , Love this!! It’s soO inspirational, good food for thought. =) All of the things you said are sOo true…Can’t argue with that…I’m definitely bookmarking this for myself and I’m going to forwarding it to my friends to uplift them…
@Whoever reading this
Everyone have their days…But we’re only human and we must overcome, keep going, stay strong,positive, and surround ourselves with positive people…Lack of self-confidence can set you back a whole lot, miss out ,and cause you not live your life the way you should and want to. Lack of self-security means no motivation. It’s all in the mind, it’s like self-imprisonment, We have to break free. People can tell when a person has no confidence and that’s bad, makes it seem as though your weak and some people like to take advantage of that. So just remember that. When you push yourself and not let your insecurities devour you/care about what other people think, you can overcome obstacles. That is, the start of building self security. Praying definitely helps =)
GOD BLESS =)
Line 3 mistake: and cause you not to live your life* Oops!! =)
can cause you to* oops mistake in line 3 =)
Thnx for the great advice
Great article and I liked what you wrote about failure. Worries are even unhealthy for our body and can even create medical problems as well. So that’s another reason to get those worries out of your mind.
Be grateful for who you are and you will become in you future. When being grateful you’re also confident.
Thank’s for a great post
I would agree that these are good ideas however in practice they dont really work , not for me anyway, listing positive qualities only makes me focus not only on the negative ones more so, since im trying to search for the good ones, but also makes me feel worse because if the only positive things i can think of are things like empathy. and other basic common human feelings then how special am i? Spending time with positive people is great as well but im 24 and most of the positive people that i know dont participially want to surround themselves with people who bring them down, and i mean bringing them down by just being themselves which they do if their the type of people like me who would be visiting a website like this. Be Yourself – Don’t Imitate- if your a person void of confidence and act in this way, then you are being yourself, and hence how is acting in this way going to make you feel better, for me it makes me feel worse and worse everyday i wake up. Faking confidence in this situation is always better than being your self without it because even though you would feel the same way at least you will see some results in work, relationships etc. Don’t think of failure…. when the average person does anything in a repeated way throughout their life, look for jobs, relationships, anything like that, failure is normally the repeated end result, not to succeed, positive enforcement is only enforcement, not a miracle idea that gets rid of insecurities, doubts, panic and everything else that contributes to low self esteem. im sorry if anyone takes offence to this.
Plz…Plzz….help me. I always feel nervous in the class when I have to say something. How can I get rid of my fear??????
Hermione
i also have suffored form lack of self confidence i allways wounder what people have actualy siad to me when bosses especialy ask me to do stuff it puts me out of my comfort zone
It is very good and informative, deals with the key points of the problem. I am very low on confidence level. I was not like this before but when i lived with other more confident people than me, I started feeling low and speaking less. Though its my nature that I speak very little. Is there any way I can improve on this? I am an engineer but I have never become a good team player and leader because of it. Please help me
Really awesome ..! I could’nt take my eyes off the passage and the things mentioned above are absolutely right . My confidence level has gone up reading it on .
Keep posting .
Great article. I have had confidence issues my whole life. I have done well for myself but I have taken slot of things on the chin from lack of confidence.
Smiling is catching. If you don’t believe me, smile at a few individuals over the next few time. Don’t grin like a fanatic (that just places other individuals off), just allow yourself to smile normally. You’ll be pleased how many individuals will smile returning. Which, in convert, creates them seem user friendly and more friendly, which will help with your self esteem stages.