Winning at Life Requires Self Confidence

When things are going well for you, you probably feel more confident in all aspects of your life. Sometimes you string a couple of good days together and it makes all the difference. It can be little things that inspire extra confidence - like getting a cutie to smile back, acing a test, or getting a compliment from the boss. Confidence builds quickly after back-to-back victories. When you're feeling confident, you have the energy to try new things. You cope more easily with minor set-backs. You are quick to see the funny side of things, and you don't dwell on difficulties that you face. For many of us, it can be easy come - easy go when it come to confidence. It doesn't take much to shake your confidence. Maybe you've not been sleeping well or you're your catching a cold, then you have a bad day and screw up a few thing. Or, possibly something that you were working on didn't get you noticed the way you hoped it would. We all get those days when the tide turns and we suddenly don't feel very good about things. The future doesn't look so great and you start to worry about the things that never bothered you before. What Exactly is Self Confidence? Self-confidence is a small part of our complex personality. Analyzing personality traits can be a bit complicated since there is no way to measure and compare. Let face it, personality is a vague and abstract concept. It has no physical location. There is no wide agreement on what is normal. We all have one and we are all different. One thing we all notice is when our personality is far enough out of whack to start causing problems. Too much aggression, joy, sadness, or fear and we get noticed. Self-confidence is a part of out personality that helps us socially to balance our aggressiveness. If we are doing well at everything, we tend to get a little more confident and more aggressive. The more aggressive we are the more we charge right into things without thinking.... Right. Our level of our self-confidence seems to be based on how well we have done recently, and how people have been reacting to us. We all continuously judge ourselves on how we are doing. The problem is that we use our own set of values and are really arbitrary how we factor in the feedback that we are getting from those around us. We arrive at some of our values over time, but we change them frequently. We give weight to the opinions of those around us without ever really comparing value scorecards. Let's face it, we all make judgments that are often unreasonable and often demand near perfect performances from ourselves in all we do. For many of us life is a struggle to live up to an idea of perfection. We find lots of reason to be tough on ourselves. How do you get your MoJo back? Like Austin Powers, you need to hang on until you can score some successes. If you use the two secrets to success that I reveal below, success will return, and your confidence with it. There are many reasons why a select few become successful, but there are two traits that all successful people share. If you get these two right, I guarantee you that you will have the major ingredients to the secret sauce of success Introspection: Develop the ability to look fairly at your self and inside yourself. Sharing: Develop a quality community that shares your goals and interest, Dealing with Adversity If you follow my advice you will be much more resilient and able to deal with setbacks. When things go wrong, spend some time looking at "what actually happened" and your role in it. I like to walk in the woods or drop by the beach to think things through. If I spend some time I can sort things out a bit, then I can take action or move on. Sharing your thoughts with your friends can really help your confidence. I have several friends and associates that I can go to and say, boy I really screwed this thing up. Invariably they will say "so what", or "no big deal", or "no you didn't... because". I value their independent, outside viewpoint to put things into perspective and brainstorm solutions. They often have an idea about how to solve a problem that I am frankly amazed at. Go ahead be tough on yourself. I have heard counselors say don't blame yourself, or don't be so tough on yourself. Ya right, like we can help it. I say - go ahead be tough on yourself, figure out exactly where you went wrong - but fix it, fix it as soon as you can, then move on. If you can't fix it, that should be a clue that it wasn't up to you in the first place, so move on - anyway. Don't always try to figure everything out by yourself. Let your posse, family, and friends, who share your values, help you out.