How can I learn self confidence?

Every person can do at least one thing well. It might be tie your shoes. It might be eat breakfast. Take a moment to appreciate what you can do and, as a result, you will have self confidence about that. “I’m pretty good at tying my shoes.” Next, feel ok about not knowing how to do “everything.” Every person has lots of things they can’t do and that’s ok.

Lack of self confidence comes when we want to be good at doing something, but we are not. There is an imbalance between our expectations (I should be good at doing this) and our experience (I couldn’t get that done). So our confidence is broken on that very specific issue. The answer is to accept you can’t be good at everything, and that is ok. Accept you can change over time, and perhaps become gradually better at that task–but it will take time and energy and there are no guarantees your efforts will work–because you can’t control outside events. You can only control your thoughts and actions.

Confidence grows as you accept what things you are good at, and feel ok about those other things you are not good at doing. Also, confidence expands as you see yourself learning new skills and putting them into action. If you give yourself credit for your accomplishments, that will help. If others give you credit too, that also helps, but you can’t count on that. If you work with a support network, that too boosts self confidence. For example, a young person gets a low grade on a test. She uses her support network. She talks to her teacher and asks for help. The teacher gives her more time to finish homework and gives her a tutor to speed her learning. She asks parents for help and they sit down with her at night and help her understand how to do homework assignments. Her parents praise her efforts. Her teacher praises her efforts. And she, the student, praises her efforts! Now self confidence grows. She appreciates she is doing the right things in the right way, and gradually getting the results other students get who are doing these things.

It is also important to have private contempt for what can ruin your self confidence. Like believing critics. Some people just like to criticize everyone around them, so they feel miserable like the critic does. These people are to be doubted. They don’t have your best interests in mind–they only care about themselves and continuing their own misery. Also, it’s important to doubt your own “inner critics.” These are the negative, self doubting thoughts that doubt you can do things, doubt you can learn, doubt you should appreciate your accomplishments. Again, these pessimistic thoughts should not be believed–for the same reason you doubt outside critics. They don’t have your best interests in mind. I review these insights and more ways to apply them in my book, “Prescription For Positivity.” It has over 100 stories of people learning an insight and putting it into action, overcoming a problem.