by Dina D Edwards

Created on: April 06, 2010

Confidence

I think confidence comes from having strong values and staying true to them. If you value the importance of being tolerant, kind, open-minded then you can feel good about yourself regardless of your external circumstances. So even if you aren't the most attractive, or the most intelligent, or the richest this doesn't affect your self-esteem.

An important part of being confident is knowing how and when to be self-critical. People do things wrong the whole time and being able to acknowledge that you messed up is crucial in order to learn from your mistakes. However, people tend to be overly hard on themselves when they do get it wrong. When you are annoyed at yourself it is useful to think what you would say to a friend if they were in your situation. You would probably try to reassure and encourage them; not tell them they how badly they'd messed things up. So there is no reason people should punish themselves for their flaws when they wouldn't ever consider treating someone else that way

People with low self-esteem tend to take criticism from others to heart. Insults shouldn't be taken as the truth. Someone might say you are 'fat' or you're 'stupid' but this doesn't mean you are. You should consider whether the insult is fair, and if it isn't you should be prepare to fight your corner and stand up for yourself.

The way in which people talk about themselves can be revealing of how confident they are. It is easy for individuals to put themselves down. Some people think that if they mock themselves this will help them to come across as modest and approachable. However, if you're always putting yourself down this will make it hard for other people to believe in you. Openly criticising yourself will lower your self-esteem as it makes you concentrate of the negative and forget the positive.

A person's self-esteem isn't set at a fixed level. There are simple things that can be done to boost a person's confidence. For example, writing down three positive things you like about yourself each day is good for growing self belief.

The foundation of confidence is believing in your ability to succeed. Therefore setting yourself small aims and fulfilling them is great for proving to yourself that you are capable of achieving what you want to achieve. Your aims don't have to be very ambitious or difficult, they can be simple things like challenging yourself to take up a new sport.

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