Self-Confidence as the First Step to Happiness

Self-confidence is the most engaging quality that a person can have. How can anyone see how great you are if you can’t see it for yourself? But how do we overcome anxiety and fear? It’s just easy to tell ourselves that we just have to be confident all the time; but the question is: how can we possess confidence? I am also struggling to attain self-confidence. This is a hindrance for me in my everyday life; so I chose this topic because I can relate with those who struggle and I want to overcome this problem. We all have fears, insecurities, weaknesses and imperfections in ourselves; but we shouldn’t let these things affect our lives. We should not let our fears dominate us. Let us break the negative feelings into pieces and let us be the master of our fears.

Self-confidence, something that we all face throughout our entire life, is the belief in one’s abilities and describes what we think and feel about ourselves. As a matter of fact, there are a number reasons why people lack self-confidence.

The first one is excessive expectations. It is the high expectation you put on yourself that can eventually develop unrealistic expectations of the world and other people. These unrealistic expectations can have a big impact on your self- esteem. Expecting too much can lead to the negative feeling of how things don’t turn out the way we hope them to be. Secondly, harsh self-judgement or criticizing and dwelling on some harsh comments that we get for ourselves. It has a huge impact on us because it affects how we see and think about ourselves. Third, preoccupation with fear. All of us have fears, it all just depends on how we deal and overcome our fears. Fourth, lack of experience. Having little or no experience in doing some activity can lessen our confidence. It can affect our confidence level because we don’t know how to handle and manage the activities in certain areas. Lastly, lack of skills. We often feel uncomfortable doing something that we are not quite good at. It can have an impact on our confidence and it can lead to insecurity about our own abilities. People with low self-confidence see themselves as a worthless person who often make denial about making any progress towards any changes that they can actually make.

However, we can really build up self-confidence. The following suggestions can help us develop our self-esteem.

First, we need to visualize ourselves. We need to visualize ourselves as to who we want to be and be a better version of ourselves. People who imagine themselves that they can perform well in a task can really improve their performance and can achieve goals at a time. Second, give affirmation to ourselves. We need to tell positive statements about ourselves in order to become more effective especially when we say them aloud. Third, do one thing that scares you every day. We need to be out of our comfort zone and face our fears every day. Fourth, question our inner self. We have been criticizing and telling harsh comments about ourselves; but we need to question ourselves first if these comments are really true and if we have evidence to support what inner self is saying to us. Fifth, set ourselves up to win. We need to encourage ourselves that someday we will achieve success through our abilities. But first we need to start setting small goals that can be easily done and then move to harder goals. The beauty of life lies in the achievements that we achieved, either small or large that can be aggregated into small frames that if combined together form a big picture. Sixth, help someone else. Volunteering to help someone feels great. It feels so good to help others and at the same time make a difference in someone’s life. Seventh, take care of ourselves. The first thing we need to do in gaining confidence is to love ourselves. We need to appreciate and say positive things to ourselves in order to build our courage and self-confidence. Finally, shift to an equal mentality. We should see ourselves as being equal to everyone. There is no superior or inferior labeling in the society. We are all equal in the eyes of God so we should remind ourselves that there are no better and more worthy than we are.

Conclusion

Self-confidence is important to us. It’s a strong feeling of believing in ourselves that we can overcome no matter how difficult the challenges we experience. People with self-confidence express their thoughts and feelings in front of others. They are not afraid to do what is right and they are willing to take a risk to achieve better things. These are the qualities that make them likeable to other people. So, if we lack confidence in ourselves, we need to work hard to build our own self-image. We need to get out of our comfort zone in order to make changes in ourselves. Let’s all take an action now and be the better version of ourselves.