How to Develop Confidence

Confidence enables a person to pursue dreams, excel, and live a happy, contented life. A person without confidence is like a car without gasoline -- an empty shell! Shyness, loneliness, depression, and anxiety -- these are just a few of the nasty problems that a lack of confidence can create. To maximize happiness and self-satisfaction, read on for tips on how to develop confidence.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A Plan
• Effort
• Desire
• Open Mind

1. Give Yourself Permission
   
   To develop confidence and build your self-esteem, you must give yourself permission to do the things that self-confident, self-assured people do. In other words, allow yourself to behave, act, and operate like a confident person. Give yourself the green light to do whatever you have to do to develop your confidence!

2. Learn How to Act
   
   You must learn how to be a good actor in order to develop confidence. The old saying "fake it till you make it" is sound advice for building self-confidence and overcoming fear, shyness, and timidity. No matter how you feel on the inside, assume the role of a self-confident, self-assured person. Act the way you want to be.

3. Model Confident People
   
   Modeling the behaviors of self-confident, strong people is a great way to develop confidence. Basically, learn to do what confident people do. You assume their self-confident behaviors. This is a great way to duplicate success. You pick successful (confident) people (people that you want to be like) and do what they do.

4. Take Small Steps
   
   To develop confidence, take small steps towards the ultimate goal: to be a self-confident, self-assured person. Smile more often; pay a compliment to someone; ask somebody a question. Strike up a conversation with a friendly looking person. The idea is to take small steps that will help you blossom into a confident, self-assured person with rock solid self-esteem.

5. Forget Perfection
   
   Trying to be perfect will sabotage a plan to develop confidence and improve self-esteem. Perfection does not exist. Forget perfection. Confidence and perfection have no correlation. Some of the most self-confident and self-assured people are some of the most flawed and scarred.

6. Relive Past Confident Moments
   
   Constantly relive (visualize, meditate on) past moments when confidence was high and fear and anxiety low. No matter how small or seemingly trivial, relive those moments. Remember how it felt to feel confident. Take that feeling and amplify it; ramp it up and become saturated with that very confident feeling. Imagine that confident feeling growing from the size of a small seed to a giant boulder!

Resources

• How to feel comfortable in social situations