What is self-confidence

Easy to identify, yet probably difficult to define, conceptualize, and measure what does self-confidence mean?

One of the main requirements to success, happiness and reaching your goals is confidence. Having enormous self-confidence will also be useful in just about every part of your life.

Lets get straight to the point you were not born with self-confidence, that is, self-confidence is not something innate this can be taught, nurtured and built over the years, at any stage in life.

Confidence is the personal ownership of no one; the person who has it learns it and goes on learning.

Your degree of confidence is truly the outcome of how you perceive yourself - which is eventually how people will perceive you. How people interrelate and respond to you is a reflection of how you perceive yourself.

Therefore if you dont have a high degree of self-confidence or a huge deal of self-esteem then its mostly because you are concentrating on your negative traits and on what you are doing wrong.

In other words, you are being your own worst enemy! The good thing is that you can alter this and improve your self-confidence.

The most talented person on earth has to build confidence in his talents from the foundation of faith and knowledge, like anybody else. The device will be different from one person to the other, but the necessary job is similar. Confidence and attitude are accessible to all of us according to our skills and requirements not somebody elses as long as we make use of our talents and develop them.

Self-confidence is an approach which lets individuals have positive yet reasonable viewpoints of themselves and their conditions.

Self-confident people trust their own skills and abilities, have a general sense of influence in their lives, and believe that, within reason, they will be able to do what they desire, plan, and anticipate.

Having self-confidence does not necessarily mean that people will be able to do everything.

Self-confident people do have expectations and standards that are realistic and reasonable. Even if some of their standards are not met, they remain to be positive and to accept themselves.

People who are not self-confident rely extremely on the consent of other people in order to feel good about themselves. They have a tendency to prevent taking risks because they are afraid to fail. They usually do not expect themselves to succeed.

They often place themselves down and tend to disregard or overlook remarks and praises paid to them.

On the other hand, self-confident people are willing to risk the disapproval of others because they normally believe in their own skills and abilities. They tend to accept themselves; they don't feel they have to conform in order for them to be accepted.

Self-confidence is not essentially a general trait or characteristic which permeates all aspects of a persons life. Usually, people will have some aspects of their lives where they think they are quite confident, for instance, academics and sports, while at the same time they do not feel confident at all in other fields, for example, personal appearance, social relationships, among others.

What causes people to develop a speech impediment

I am one of many people who are unfortunate enough to develop a speech impediment in childhood. This article describes why these impediments may occur and how I went about achieving fluency. For the purpose of this article, I concentrate on the speech impediment known as stuttering.

There are many reasons why people may develop a stutter, it can be as a result of bullying from school, an over aggressive member of the family, a shock reaction to an event such as a car crash, or it could be passed down from another member of the family who has a stutter.

I have met many people who stutter as I now help people to achieve fluency as a career. I always ask them to talk about how and why their stutter started. The reasons above are the type of answers I receive.

Stuttering normally originates in childhood and nine out of ten people who stutter are men. Around 1% of the population has a stutter according to recent reports.

I have now managed to beat my stutter which had basically ruined my life for eighteen years. When I had a stutter, I found it difficult to say certain words beginning with certain letters. I would always avoid these words or I would think of an alternative word to say.

Aged twenty-two I decided it was time to try to overcome my communication problems. I started to observe what I called very good fluent talkers, I was watching and trying to work out how they were talking and breathing. I also tried to find differences between their speech and my own. I also started to read books about things like, positive thinking and mind over matter as I also realised I needed to change the way I was thinking.

After nearly a year of working and practicing very hard, I managed to overcome my stutter, much to my relief. As a career I now help other people to achieve fluency by running one to one speech courses from my home in Birmingham. A also offer a self help ebook and seventy minute dvd for people who are unable to attend the courses.

Developing an optimistic attitude

How's your attitude lately? I caught myself doing something surprising a few days ago: being a pessimist!

I was working on a big project and making great progress, when suddenly I encountered a big obstacle that would take more time and energy to get through than I had anticipated. The first words out of my mouth were, "Of course, everything always goes wrong for me." Gasp! Who said that?

I tend to think of myself as a positive person most of the time. I almost always have a smile or laugh available, and I try to look on the bright side of things. But I wasn't always like that. I spent most of my early life stuck in negative thinking. For the past few years I've worked very hard on changing my mindset to a positive one, and helping others to do the same. The other day I realized just how easy it is to slip back into negative thinking again.

To be fair to myself, I was frustrated when I uttered that negative phrase. It's understandable that we get upset when things go wrong. However, what I said simply isn't true. Everything always goes wrong for me. At that moment, all of the hard work I've done on myself over the past few years vanished. I was right back where I used to spend most of my time: being a "victim."

I like to joke that I own lakefront property in "Victimville." ;-) But I don't have to stay there. None of us do.

Expecting the Best

You've probably heard the phrase, "Expect the Best, but Prepare for the Worst." Do you really expect the best? Or are you just waiting for something negative to happen so you can say, "Everything always goes wrong for me." Isn't preparing for the worst the same as expecting the worst?

We can't expect the best AND the worst. We have to choose. In my moment of frustration, I was expecting the worst. Once I realized what I was doing, I decided to change it around. One obstacle does not mean my whole project is ruined. It just means I might have to work a little harder, or a little longer to reach my goal. What's the big deal? At that moment, the big deal was that I wouldn't achieve the outcome I was expecting, in the timeframe I expected to do it. Ah, notice the word "expect" sprinkled throughout that statement. How often do our expectations get us into trouble? For most of us, quite often!

So I uttered a phrase that would cancel out my previous negative one: It's all good. Whether I meet my goals or not, it's all good. Even if more obstacles come up, it's still all good. Everything happens exactly when it's meant to. That phrase has the power to relieve all pressure and stress, if we allow it to.

Reinforcing Postive Thoughts

The truth is, positive thinking takes consistent effort. It would be great if we could "fix" our negative thinking once and for all, and never have to worry about it again. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. We have the tendency to form habits around our most common routines, whether physical or mental. In order to change negative thinking into positive thinking, we need to work at it constantly.

There are two ways to do this:

Replace the negative thoughts with positive ones - It takes practice, but you can actually catch yourself thinking negative thoughts. Begin to form an awareness of when this happens. Because I've been working at this for so long, I immediately noticed when I uttered that negative phrase. If you are new to positive thinking, it might take some time for you to notice when negative thoughts come barging in. When you do notice them, immediately question the thought. Is it really true? Does it accurately reflect your reality? Even if it does, you can still choose something else. What reality would you like to create? Then form a positive statement that will cancel out the negative one. Every time you come across a negative thought, go through this same inner process. Question the negative thought and then replace it with a positive one.

Preventative maintenance - You don't have to wait for negative thoughts to come up in order to start thinking more positively. Make it a habit to purposely feed your mind positive thoughts each day -- several times a day. Keep it simple. Say things like, "I am a good person." -- "I love my life." -- "I'm good at what I do." -- "I make my own good luck." -- "I choose to be happy." -- and my personal favorite, "It's all good."

At first you might not really believe these positive thoughts, and that's okay. Keep at it. Say them as if you really did mean them, and eventually you will begin to believe it. Remember that our negative thinking patterns are a result of YEARS of reinforcement. Changing negative thinking patterns to positive ones takes time.

I'm in this journey with you, you are not alone. Remember that it IS a journey. We don't have to rush to the finish line, we just need to enjoy the scenery. It's all good -- really! :-)

Taking charge of your life

How do you live your life? At cause or at effect? It is important to be aware of this distinction. It is the rare individual who always lives his or her life at cause; however, far too many of us live a large portion of our lives at effect - responding to the whims, desires or emotional states of others.

Being at cause means that you are decisive in creating what you want in life and take responsibility for whatever you achieve. You see the world as a place of opportunity and you move toward achieving what you desire. If things are not unfolding as you would like, you take action and explore other possibilities. Above all, you know you have choice in what you do and how you react to people and events.

If you are at effect, you may blame others or circumstances for your bad moods, for what you have not achieved or for the disarray of your life in general. You may feel powerless or depend on others in order for you to feel good about yourself or about life. You may think, "If only my spouse, my boss, my co-workers, my parents, my children understood me and helped me achieve my dreams or did what I wanted or what is best for me, then life would be great." If you wait and hope for things to be different or for others to provide you with results or happiness, you are at effect, or a victim of circumstances. And really, how satisfying is that? How satisfying do you think it is for others to be around you? Believing that someone else is responsible for your happiness or your different moods is very limiting and gives this person mystical powers over you, which can cause both you and the other person a great deal of anguish.

Being at cause means you have choices in your life - you can choose what is best for you while ensuring the choice is ecological for those around you, in your community and your society. That is, you consider the consequences of your actions on others, while not taking responsibility for their emotional well-being. Believing you are responsible for the emotional well-being of someone else places a heavy burden upon you and can cause a great deal of stress.

Those who live their lives at effect often see themselves as victims with no choices whatsoever. The truth is that they do have choices but have chosen not to take action. They are simply reactive to whatever is thrust upon them.

Emotions such as guilt, fear, anxiety and resentment are the result of being at effect. People at effect tend to blame others and do not take responsibility for their actions. Emotions such as these can wear heavily on a person's body and life, and can be the root cause of many physical and personal issues.

Do I always live my life at cause? No, not a chance; the great majority of the time I do live at cause. When I don't, one of the following usually comes to mind: ‘There is no failure only feedback' or ‘There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states'. Then using various personal growth techniques, such as those from NLP (neurolinguistic programming), I am able to explore other ways to achieve my outcomes or ask others for help, without being a victim to their answers.

Each morning when you get up, you can either ask yourself, "I wonder what my day will bring," or "What do I choose to bring to my day?" The choice is yours.

Changing the dreaded commute

How do you change something that you have become so accustom to dreading and turn it into a positive experience and force in your life? Many of you would look at this ad think that it isn’t possible. But, in a few simple steps there is a way to turn your commute into a healthy and fulfilling experience.

So you ask, “What will I do about it?” The answer is complicated by what is realistic to do and what you are willing to do. Let's take distance. It's not realistic to think of how to shorten the distance if you continue to work for the same company and you are not willing or can't change companies. So, what to do? Actually, there are a number of things that can be done to make the travel more comfortable, less taxing and even beneficial! And this is true for anything that is making the commute difficult.

Attitude, or perception, is everything. Without a good attitude, everything is harder - paying the bills, cleaning the bathroom, even traveling to work. When we look for problems, we find them. I am suggesting that the first and primary change that will help bring a good commute is working on changing your attitude toward it. Remembering that you did choose to take this job that is X miles from home actually puts you back in control of the situation and takes you out of the victim role. If you're like most of us, you will feel empowered by using your right to choose.

A change in attitude might have you view your commute as something that you chose to undertake in order to allow you a pleasant home environment while still making an acceptable or good salary and advancing your career. Just so we are clear, the bad attitude might go something like this, "I hate driving all this way to work. I wish I could retire. What's the use of having a nice house when I don't have any time to spend in it?" Can you feel your shoulder muscles tighten just reading this? Alternatively, a good attitude might say, “Because I live this distance from work, I can live in this community, in a beautiful house of my choosing.” Just watch those muscles relax.