Your self confidence affects just about everything in your life. How well you get along with people, your relationships with friends and family, as well as your job opportunities are all directly affected by how confident you feel about yourself. In fact, how confident you feel affects how well you enjoy your life!

People that don’t feel good about themselves, people that lack self confidence, can find the prospect of a job interview terrifying. They experience poor relationships, if they have any real relationships at all. They find themselves in constant fear of losing their jobs because they aren’t able to express themselves in front of their boss of in group situations.

Socially these people also struggle. How can they find someone to go out with when the mere idea of meeting new people petrifies them? Social events and encounters are painful illustrations of their lack of confidence.

Life doesn’t have to be like this. With a change in perspective, a little help and some work, you can have the self confidence you desire. Here are seven simple steps to help you develop more self confidence.

1. Decide to make a Change

Once they’ve decided, nearly everyone finds making a change easier. Every change I’ve ever made, from getting in shape to learning how to be more personable, has been a result of deciding to make that change. All changes are relatively easy once you’ve decided to make them. So if you think you’d like to be more confident, make the decision to be more confident today. That leads us to step number two.

2. Why is it Important to You?

Once you’ve made a decision to change, in this case deciding to become more confident, its time to figure out why it’s important to you. Why specifically do you want more confidence? Is it so that you can speak up in meetings at work? Is it so that you’ll be able to meet someone to go out with? Is it so you’ll be able to learn better at school or play a sport better? Whatever it is you need to understand and define it so that you can motivate yourself with it. This leads to step three.

3. Make it a Goal

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Many people know they need to change and decide to change. They know what result they want out of the change but they don’t make it a goal. They wish their life would change, they think their life should change but they don’t take the steps needed to make the change. When you make a goal you not only decide what you want your outcome to be but you also figure out the steps you will need to do to achieve it.

Now this can’t be merely a mental exercise. In order to make your goal achievable you need to write down your outcome. Once you’ve written down your outcome you need to write down the steps you need to do to achieve it. Writing down your goal and the steps you need to achieve it does two things for you. First it makes your goal a real tangible thing instead of merely a dream. Second, writing down the steps gives you the ability to make corrections as necessary to help you stay on track.

For example your outcome is to be able to speak up more in business meetings. Your outcome might be “I will express my opinion in every business meeting.” The steps you might outline to achieving this goal might be:

1. Prepare for meetings and know what topics are going to be discussed.
2. Talk to someone or find someone to model who speaks well at meetings you attend. (see step 4)
3. Prepare a one-line comment on one of the topics.
4. Practice what you will say in the theater of your mind (see step 5)
5. Express your comment at the meeting.

Now you have a goal that is achievable you might need some help. So that leads us to step 4.

4. Find Someone to Model

From the time we are babies we model other people’s actions and behaviors. Have you ever done something and after noticing what you’ve done said to yourself, “That is exactly what my mother/father would have done?” That is a form of modeling, just at an unconscious level.

A more empowering form of modeling is when you find someone that has the characteristic(s) you want to have and purposefully model it. If you want to be able to speak well in front of groups, find someone who is good at speaking in front of groups and model her behavior. See how she stands, how she holds her head, how she speaks and uses her hands. If you are a man looking for a way to meet women, find a man who is already good at meeting women and model his behavior. What does he say? How does he dress? What are his mannerisms?

Whatever it is, there are lots of models to choose from. They include friends, acquaintances, family members, professional coaches, training videos and just about anyone else on the planet. An important point to remember is that the best model is one you like and you are able to adapt your own personality to.

Once you have someone to model its time for step five.

5. Visualize Your Success

From master pianists to NASCAR drivers, all people who are good at something have one thing in common, they practice. If you want to be good at talking in front of people you have to practice. If you want to be good at conversing in social situations you have to practice. Of course if you go about whatever you want to do without rehearsing it can be quite nerve wracking. In fact if you try something that you are not good at yet and fail completely it is possible your progress might be set back indefinitely.

So how can you prepare for a successful outcome? You can visualize your success in the theater of your mind. Let’s say you want to be able to speak up at business meetings. Find a place where you can sit or lie down comfortably without being disturbed. Now relax. Use some progressive muscle relation or just tell yourself I am relaxed and calm, relaxed and calm, over and over again until you are relaxed and calm.

Now play a movie in your mind of how you would like for the events to transpire. Make the movie as vivid and clear as possible. Use your imagination to see the details, hear the voices and other sounds in the room. Feel how you would sit. Then in your mind address the group as if you already had the confidence you are striving to develop. Notice how you appear, how your heart beats, how you breathe. Make the adjustments necessary to achieve the outcome you desire. If you are having problems seeing yourself accomplishing the task(s) well, focus on the why, the potential benefits you’ll get from achieving your goal. Practice over and over again until you have that image etched firmly in your mind.

Once you’ve practiced with visualization it’s time for step six.

6. Go Do It

You’ve decided to change. You know the reason(s) you want to change. You know your motivation. You have a model and you’ve prepared in the theater of your mind. Now its time to give it a try. If what you want to do is speak in your business meetings at work, give it a try. Even if it’s only a few words or to comment on someone else’s comments, as long as you are doing something that is moving you toward your goal, just do it. If you are looking to meet more people you might start by smiling at people you meet and saying “hi”. You will become more confident through the process of stretching yourself. This will move you toward your goals.

Now that you’ve actually done what you set out to accomplish its time for the final seventh step.

7. Decide that Everything is Feedback

When we start new things, from playing a new sport to meeting new people, we are not going to be excellent at it from the very start. Everything takes practice. When you do something you are not good at (yet) you are stretching yourself, you feel uncomfortable and you will make some mistakes.

Developing confidence in whatever it is you want to develop it in will also take practice. And just like learning anything, you will sometimes do things that you may not have preferred to do if you were “perfect” at it. You will make some mistakes.

When that happens remind yourself that mistakes are the way we all learn. A mistake is not failure, it is merely feedback. By calling it feedback you have re-framed or redefined your results.

So from now on instead of thinking of having “failed” when things don’t work out “right” merely observe what happens and call them “results”. Understand the feedback you have been given by your results and apply it to approaching your task differently the next time. The key is to remember that no matter what results you achieve, when you define them as feedback, they become either actions you want to do again or actions you don’t want to do again. You now are experiencing feedback instead of failure.

Once you start seeing your results as feedback you’ll begin adjusting your actions to match what you want to achieve. This will help you persist until you achieve your desired outcome. If you are committed to this process you will be able to build life long confidence in any area of your life.

So let’s review the seven steps.

1. Decide to change.
2. Decide why it’s Important
3. Understand Your Motivation
4. Find Someone to Model
5. Visualize Success
6. Go Do It
7. Decide that Everything is Feedback

That’s it, seven simple steps that can move you toward confidence in any area of you life. Seven easy steps toward achieving more out of life. So what are you waiting for? Why not start on your life long confidence journey today?

Wil DieckLevel: PlatinumWil Dieck has spent over 30 years studying how to increase human potential. He began his studies of hypnotism in the late 1970′s while attending … …

Bio
Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy, a combination of hypnosis, NLP, breathing techniques from the martial arts and visualization used for goal setting. His practice is located in San Diego, California. For more information about Wil and his practice please go to http://www.TotalMindTherapy.net

Feeling uncomfortable in the presence of members of the opposite sex? Are you too shy to make new friends or to pursue new activities? Do you stutter at times, mostly while talking to people you’re not familiar with? Do you easily get jealous if your loved one’s attention is diverted to someone else? Do you easily get envious when you see other people enjoying what you don’t have? You may be suffering from low self confidence and need some help to cope better with the challenges that life throws your way.

Below is a list of the 5 most effective self esteem builders used in many social therapy groups:

1. Keep a notebook where you can list down your achievements, even the smallest ones. Make it a point to regularly update and read the contents of this notebook. Of all the self esteem builders we will be tackling, this is the easiest and probably the most effective, since it will reinforce your sense of self respect with truths you have listed down yourself.

2. Constantly challenge yourself to face your social fears. Many of the fears you may have are probably unfounded. People won’t think you’re weird. People won’t laugh at you. People don’t think you’re unattractive. Discover these truths by challenging yourself everyday. Approach a total stranger today and just say hi. If they greet you and smile back, it can only mean that you are not as unlikable as you think you are. Tomorrow, approach someone else, but he/she should belong to the opposite sex. Keep
challenging yourself and before you know it, you’ll be enjoying a new level of self confidence.

3. Share your feelings with your family members. Most self esteem issues stem from problems regarding familial ties. By strengthening these relationships, you’ll be able to eliminate a major cause of your self esteem problems.

4. Get someone who can be your partner for this particular activity. Ask them to list down 10 things they like about you. This is a great way of garnering someone else’s thoughts about you. Not knowing what another may think of you makes you assume the worst, hence, this activity aims to prove that your fears are indeed unfounded.

5. Open up to the possibility of dating. Date as many people as you can. Sometimes, they’ll reject your show of affection, but that’s okay. That’s normal. Nothing’s wrong with that. Eventually, you’ll find someone who’ll appreciate – and love – who you are. People say that of all the self esteem builders out there, this is by far the best.

The 5 self esteem builders above are some of the most effective steps to help increase your confidence. There are more, of course, but starting with these will increase your sense of self-esteem and encourage you to continue improving your image of yourself.

Maureen OliverLevel: PlatinumMaureen Oliver is a Reiki Master/Teacher, student of success principles, infopreneur, mother, daughter, friend and much more ;o) …

To learn more about increasing your sense of self-worth, take this free 7 part self-esteem e-course. Discover more great tips on building your self-confidence at Affirmations For Success.

Self esteem, self love or even self worth, they are all common names for how we feel about ourselves. If you did not know this already it is the backbone the real essence of each person and how they live their lives. The impact of the level of self esteem you have as an individual is phenomenal.

I’m going to share with you in this article why you need high self esteem, but most importantly how you can build your self esteem easily and quickly. Most of us are in the region of low self esteem. One thing I have discovered and learned in the past few years from meeting and hanging around high powered businessmen in the region of hundreds of millions of dollars to world and Olympic champions in track and field is they all have big time self esteem.

Self esteem can also be seen as big egos. People don’t like talking about big egos except those with big egos! call it what you like, but is case in point in that people with high self esteem and therefore big or shall I say enormous ego’s like Donald Trump really don’t care what you think of them. Because nothing can rock their world, because they absolutely adore themselves each and every day. When they make a mistake or get publicly humiliated, it’s like water of a ducks back.

Think about it, what kind of a person can become a state leader? a big comedy act? a world class athlete? Someone who knows who is so resilient and has so much self worth that even if they made huge laughable mistakes they would just bounce right back again.
If your reading this article and your being honest with yourself you should agree its how good you feel inside that counts. If you don’t have high self worth there are 3 major ways that can bring you up and into the top tier where all the super successful live

Activity no1
Positive affirmations. Affirmations are so powerful, they are what are known as auto suggestion; you are telling your subconscious that you are what you want to be. They need to be in the present tense as if you are that person already and they need to be written down and spoken out load twice a day morning and night. Example ‘ I am very good at making decisions’, or ‘I can handle anything that comes my way’.

Activity no 2
Stop hanging around with people that bring you down. This is going to be very hard to do, it’s your immediate group of friends and family, you may have hung round these people all your life. yet they may be adding negative conditioning and also all have low self esteem that simply puts you into a bad habit pattern that will not help you achieve higher goals.

Activity no 3
This goes hand in hand with no 2. If you hang around with people that are full of life, brimming with confidence and looking to take the ass out of the world, it’s going to rub off on you. I had an amazing experience I trained with a group of world and Olympic athletes in track and field. My expectations and performances in training grew to the same level as the group I was in. Everyone back each one up, its collective self esteem much like kids have when their young. Go find people you look up to, as the world’s richest man back in 1900 Andrew Carnegie once said, ‘surround yourself with people better than you.’

If you do these simple 3 things above and stick at, you will have drastic effect on your life, you will create a future that will empower you to make tough decisions, to be able to handle pressure and to feel great about anything that comes your way. these are the secrets of the most successful leaders and personalities in the world. If you can take even a small step to that end of the continuum you will be infinitely better off.

Damien Winters is dedicated to helping people with self help and personal development. He has over 18 years experience as a high level athlete having trained with world class athletes and coaches. He has also become an inspiring entrepreneur and business man. He writes for several sources on motivation and physical fitness. He is co founder of http://www.moneyhealthhappinesswealth.com a leading site for self help and personal development.

Your level of self-confidence plays a role in every aspect of your life. It determines whether you succeed or fail. It determines whether relationships succeed or fail – or even ever get started. It determines the work that you will do throughout your life, the social relationships that you will build, the hobbies that you will pursue, and so much more. Here are ten ways to help you build your self confidence, starting today.

1. Start by realizing that you do have an issue with your self-confidence. Fully explore it. Try to figure out what triggered it. This is easier for some than for others, and it can be painful – but it is the necessary first step. Often, self confidence can reappear when we understand what caused the issue, and we have the benefit of time or distance to put things in better perspective.

2. Accept yourself for who you are. This is also easier for some than for others. For reasons beyond us, we learn – somewhere in life – that we are supposed to constantly try to be better than we actually are, and to feel bad about it if we are not. Realize that while everyone has room for improvement, if we were all perfect, the world would be an absolutely boring place.

3. Examine the people in your life. Are there those that tear you down – even if they do it nicely? If so, they’ve got to go! Simply limit their access to you – and to your self confidence, if you cannot remove these negative people from your life altogether.

4. Make a list of all of your positives. This can be achievements, a winning personality, a special skill or ability – anything that is positive. Write it down and feel great about it.

5. Really take a look at your physical self. Many self confidence issues stem from feeling like you don’t look as good as you could, or as good as you should, or as good as the other people around you. Hopefully, as you’ve aged, you’ve learned that what’s on the outside isn’t nearly as important as what is on the inside. If not, it’s time that you learned that. If you have already figured this little tidbit out, realize that other people have also figured it out for the most part, and that few people will judge you on your physical appearance – as long as you are clean and tidy. Besides that, you probably look better than you think you do – most people do.

6. Realize that life’s not all about you. Everybody isn’t staring at you. Everybody isn’t talking about you. Everyone is busy with their own lives, trying to make it through this world. If you doubt that, try volunteering. Not only is this a great way to improve your community and your world, while making life better or easier for others, it’s also a great way to start being thankful for what you have in life – and for building self confidence.

7. Identify activities, skills, or talents that will make you feel better about yourself. Maybe you don’t feel that you are completely qualified for your job – or for a job that you want. You should be learning throughout your lifetime – and taking classes to build skills and talents is a great way to build self confidence. You could even learn a new hobby.

8. Keep a positive attitude. Many people don’t realize that a positive attitude plays a role in building ones self-confidence, but it does. When you keep a positive frame of mind, positive things happen in your life – and when this happens, it boosts your self confidence without you even realizing it happened.

9. Use affirmations. Affirmations are good for lots of things. They can help you to reach a goal, but they can also help you to see what a special person you really are. Each person on this planet has something special about them – and that includes you.

10. Learn self-hypnosis. The absolute best and fastest way to build self-confidence is through hypnosis. Somewhere, something in life zapped your level of self-confidence, without you even realizing that it happened. Hypnosis works in the opposite manner, so to speak. It subconsciously gives you your self confidence back.

Remember that self confidence affects all areas of your life. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it doesn’t matter, or that you don’t have time to think about it. The quality of your life depends on it.

K LoweLevel: Basic PLUSKelly Lowe is an established, successful freelance writer and Internet Marketer, with more than ten years in the industry. She is married and has two … …

Kelly Lowe is dedicated to helping others find peace, happiness, health, and well-being in their lives. Find more information on improving your life and building your self confidence at her site, “Let Me Tell You What”