What is self-confidence and how to become more confident?

Ways to improve your relationship with yourself

Difficult times are easier to overcome if you are confident.

This quality helps you not to panic, make decisions calmly, rely on your own strengths and more actively look for a way out of the current situation. It also evokes sympathy in other people, allow you to build harmonious relationships and a successful career.

What is self-confidence?

Self-confidence is a realistic attitude towards your skills and abilities. A person with this quality accepts himself as he is and trusts himself. He knows his strengths and weaknesses, sets achievable goals, knows how to defend personal boundaries and calmly accepts criticism.

A lack of self-confidence leads to constant doubt, a feeling of insignificance, and an inability to trust. This problem sometimes does not extend to all areas of life: a person may be confident in himself as a professional, but experience difficulties in relationships.

According to research, self-confidence begins to develop at the age of five. The parenting style chosen by parents plays a decisive role in this process. In 2013, Croatian scientists surveyed several hundred schoolchildren and found that self-esteem is usually lower in children whose parents adhere to an authoritarian parenting style: they set strict rules and demand that they be strictly followed, without listening to the opinions of others. Also, according to American scientists, self-esteem is negatively affected by:

• Frequent and severe criticism from parents.
• The inability and unwillingness of parents to support the child in his endeavors.
• Making fun of his mistakes and shortcomings.
• Parents demand that they always be perfect in everything.
• Physical and emotional abuse.

Excessive self-confidence is also harmful: it prevents you from moving forward and can lead to severe disappointments. For example, due to the fact that it was not possible to achieve an overly ambitious goal. But both lack and excess of self-confidence are usually not associated with real skills and abilities - they depend on personal perception. This perception can be changed. Here are some ways.

 

Neutralize cognitive biases

Emotions influence how satisfied a person is with their life. But often our automatic reactions to events do not reflect the real state of affairs. In many cases they are overly negative - but this is not as harmless as it seems. American psychiatrist David Burns described in his book Anxiety Therapy how automatic thoughts and cognitive distortions affect the human psyche.

They can multiply anxiety, sap hope, and undermine self-esteem. A striking example is when, after being rejected at an interview, a person thinks: “I will never achieve anything.” This refusal could be caused by a hundred different reasons, and it does not in any way indicate future career prospects, but nevertheless, far-reaching conclusions do not motivate bold actions. Here are a few more cognitive distortions that affect self-perception.

But such negative thoughts can be brought under control by keeping an emotional journal. To do this, you need to draw three columns on a piece of paper: “automatic thoughts,” “cognitive distortions,” and “rational response.”

Every time you feel unsure, record your anxious thoughts in the first column. Then think about what cognitive distortion is causing them and write it down in the second column.

After this, you need to try to replace the negative thought with a more realistic and rational one. Instead of overgeneralizing, “I will definitely fail at an interview, I never succeed,” you can write, “If I don’t worry, I can make a good impression, I have something to tell.” This thought needs to be entered into the third column, and then assess how much your mood and anxiety level have changed.

 

Use comedic visualization

Another way that Burns recommends is to exaggerate your fears to incredible proportions so that it even becomes funny.

For example, you are afraid that your report will be too boring and that they will not listen to you. Imagine that as soon as you start speaking, your listeners will quickly begin to fall asleep, some will snore deeply, others will drop their heads on their neighbor’s shoulder.

After the performance, everyone will wake up from sleep and come to the conclusion that they haven’t slept so well in a long time. As a result, you will become famous as a lecturer, at whose speeches you can overcome insomnia and restore strength. People will flock to your lectures to sleep.

This method can be used in any areas in which you feel insecure. Even in my personal life. Burns talks about a patient of his named Nadine: she really liked a lonely, handsome lawyer whom she regularly met in the elevator. But she didn't feel confident enough to talk to him.

Burns advised her that the next time she met with a lawyer, imagine him appearing seriously in court in his underwear. Nadine did just that. This instantly relieved her inner tension. They managed to set up a meeting.

Burns' colleague, psychotherapist Michael Yapko, recommends using comedic visualization differently. He advises patients to imagine how their negative thoughts that undermine self-esteem are uttered in their funny voices by cartoon characters, such as Winnie the Pooh , Donald Duck or Masyanya.

As Burns explains, these techniques help change your response to your internal self-critical monologue and help you recognize the absurdity of some fears. After all, absolute failure or success is rare, so it's most realistic to expect something in between. True, this method may not work if the person is very upset or angry - then it can only increase apathy.

 

Use a strategy of small victories

When a person achieves his goals, his self-confidence grows. Goals don't have to be ambitious. Those that are quite realistic to achieve in a short period of time are also suitable, and thanks to this you will feel a little more confident.

Things to do:

Find a sport you like and go to training regularly. According to the American Psychological Association, exercise improves mood and helps fight anxiety and depression. And getting fitter gives you a sense of accomplishment and boosts your self-esteem—so it's also important to find a way to track your progress.

Track all your progress at work. We often forget what we did well and experience failure for a long time. If this happens to you, keep a list of all your work victories, even the small ones - you will be surprised how many small victories you have every day.

Start learning new things. A new language, online course, or lecture adds to your knowledge base and boosts your confidence by pushing the boundaries of your capabilities. You don’t have to learn what will be useful right now - choose what you like. In any case, learning develops the brain, and solving new problems helps you look at routine work from a new angle.

 

Change your impression of yourself

We read the body language of the interlocutor without realizing it. A person who looks tense, has his arms crossed over his chest and is looking somewhere at the floor seems closed off and unsure of himself.

Consciously controlling your movements during an important meeting can be difficult. But it’s still worth trying to take a more relaxed position, lower your shoulders, smile slightly, and periodically look your interlocutor in the eyes. This will take effort at first, but over time it will become a habit, allowing you to look more confident in the eyes of others and achieve better results at work.

Clothing is also important. It doesn't have to be expensive, but it should be comfortable and fit the image you would like to be associated with. This will make you feel more relaxed and calm.

 

Protect yourself from toxic influences

Friends, family and colleagues can have a significant impact on self-esteem. In a supportive environment, any person will feel more confident, while constant reproaches can cause even the most confident of us to lose heart.

 

How to improve communication:

Analyze your relationships with friends and loved ones: how do these people treat you, how do they evaluate, support or criticize you, how correctly do they express their judgments? Sometimes those closest to you throw you off balance and hit your self-esteem. 

It may be impossible to break off relations with them, but you can minimize contacts and set personal boundaries. It won't be easy at first, but if you insist on repeating that you are not open to criticism, the relationship may change over time.

Learn to say no: agreeing to any event, even one that is inconvenient for you, can make you feel a loss of control over your life. Before agreeing, give yourself time, evaluate your capabilities - sometimes a polite refusal helps save time, energy and feel more confident.

Limit social networks: the more often we scroll through the feed with posts of successful people, trying to compare ourselves with a retouched picture, the more likely we are to lose faith in ourselves. It is worth setting a limit on the time you use social networks and periodically reminding yourself that the picture on the Internet can be very far from real life.