Wayne

A social phobia is an irrational fear of interacting with other people on a social level. Examples would be imagining others are looking at you while waiting in line at a checkout, talking in front of other people, or even a fear of talking on the phone.

Self-confidence is a mental attitude, which allows people to have emphatic, yet realistic views of the themselves and their status. Self-confident people have faith in their own talent, have a general sense of control over their lives, and have belief that, within reason, they will be able to do what they want to do.

Self-confidence is a point of view that is garnered through experiences. When a person experiences success, that person will tend to expect to be successful. And that expectation will cause a feeling of confidence.

For example: A man wants to be an extreme fighter, so he takes lessons, and gets a manager. His manager will not put him into a competition until he has built up proficient fighting skills. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a competitor that he knows his fighter can crush. When his fighter beats the opponent, he is successful, and starts to gain confidence in his proficiency.

With each contest, the manager puts his fighter up against a challenger who is only a slightly better competitor then the last, but not good enough to beat his man. By the end of the third fight, the young competitor begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to accrue. This scenario continues to repeat itself. And as long as the fighter continues to win, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to accrue.

Similarly, a young lady who is afraid of heights wants to learn to dive into a swimming pool from a high diving board. So she finds a diving coach who asks her to jump into the pool from the first step of the ladder up to the high board. The first step of the ladder isn’t very high, so the young lady feels no fear, and she jumps from that step, and lands in the water unharmed.

Next, the coach has her jump from the second step of the ladder, and so forth. I think that you are beginning to get the picture. With each additional step up the ladder, since the girl was successful on the previous step, and this next step is only slightly higher then the last, the fear factor is negligible, and the girl expects to be successful. When she jumps in and lands unharmed, the girl’s confidence grows, and her expectation of success on the next step up the ladder increases.

If a person who has a long history of success and feelings of self-confidence does fail, they still tend to expect success the next time out. Conversely, when a person who is weak in the self-confidence department fails, they tend to lose confidence, and begin to expect failure, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Even if an individual has true self-confidence, it doesn’t mean that they will be successful at everything. Most people who have true self-confidence have practical expectations. Even when some of their expectations are not met, they continue to be positive and to accept themselves.

People, who are not self-confident, tend to lean excessively on the acceptance of others in order to feel self-esteem. They refrain from taking risks for fear of failure. They put themselves down and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

On the other side of the coin, confident people are willing to risk the disapproval of others because they generally depend on their own potential. They tend to believe in themselves; and they do not believe that they have to conform in order to be accepted.

Just because a person feels self-confidence in one or more aspects of their life, doesn’t mean that they will feel confident in every part of their life. For example, a person might feel confident about their musical ability, but not feel confident where members of the opposite sex are involved, such as in a dating situation, or social relationships.

HOW IS SELF-CONFIDENCE INITIALLY DEVELOPED?

Numerous factors impact the course of self-confidence. Parents’ attitudes are crucial to the way children think about themselves, particularly in their early years. When parents provide acceptance, children receive a good foundation for self-esteem. If one or both parents are excessively demanding or cirtical, or if they are overprotective and discourage moves toward independence, children may come to believe they are incapable, inadequate, or inferior.

However, if parents encourage a child’s moves toward self-reliance, and they are not overly critical when the child makes mistakes, the child will learn to accept herself, and will be on the way to developing self-confidence.

Just because a person does not have confidence, it does not mean that he/she doesn’t have abilities. A lack of self-esteem is often the result of focusing too strongly on the unrealistic expectancies of other people, especially parents and friends. The domination of friends can be more powerful than those of parents in shaping the feelings about one’s self.

Beliefs That Continue to Influence Self-Confidence

In response to external influences, people create beliefs; some of these are good and some are not. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and alternative ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: It’s imperative that I am successful at every challenge I undertake. This assumption is a totally unrealistic assumption. In life, each person has his strengths and his weaknesses. While it’s important to do the best that one can, it’s more important to learn to accept the self as being human, and fallible. Feel good about what you are good at, and accept the fact that no one knows everything nor are they an expert at everything.

ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this is unrealistic. All human beings are less than perfect. It’s better to develop personal standards and values that are not completely dependent on the approval of others.

ASSUMPTION: Everything that happened to me in the past remains in control of my feelings and behaviors in the present.

ALTERNATIVE: While it is true that your confidence was especially controlled by external influences during your childhood, as you grow to adulthood, you can gain knowledgeunderstanding and perspective on what those influences have been. In doing so, you can choose which influences you will continue to allow to have an effect on your life. You don’t have to be helpless because of your past.

HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize Your Strengths: Think about and give yourself credit for everything you can do. And give yourself recognition for every new experience that you are willing to undertake. Take risks. Adopt the frame of mind of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I learn what doesn’t work, and once I’ve learned what doesn’t work in a given situation, I can attempt some other action.

Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as a method to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting yourself to be perfect, remind yourself that it’s impossible to be an expert at all things, and that it’s only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself while still striving to improve.

Make Mental Movies: Visualize yourself in the various scenarios that you currently lack confidence in. But see yourself behaving as like a person who has tremendous self-confidence would. There are many powerful Hypnosis and NLP procedures that are effective and will instill a tremendous amount of confidence from within your subconscious mind. There are even NLP techniques that will let you take confidence that you do have in areas of your life, and then transplant that confidence to areas of your life that are lacking confidence!

Self-Evaluate: Learn to evaluate yourself independently. Refrain from the endless sense of chaos that comes from relying on what others think.