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You are at a party, looking glamorous and ready to mingle. However, something inside of you is pulling you back. This “something” is telling you that you are not pretty enough, and that people in the party are not interested in getting to know boring you. The truth is, most probably nothing is ugly or boring about you but this “something” in your head just keeps saying that you are not good enough.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to this “something”: Low Self Confidence. Like the 61% of you out there, I am quite acquainted with Low Self Confidence and with the help of articles published by the Free Self Confidence Course, I intend to help you get rid of it because trust me, life would be better without it.

To begin with, self confidence can be described as an attitude that allows you to believe in your strengths and love yourself as the wonderful person that you are. It is important for everyone to develop a sense of self confidence because if you want people to like you, you first have to feel good about yourself. So how do we learn how to have faith in ourselves?

• Do not make a mountain out of a molehill

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First of all, learn to realize that one bad apple does NOT spoil the barrel. For instance, a zit that just popped up on your face does not make you ugly. Do not hide yourself and let one miserable pimple spoil your day! You can still go on your date and have yourself an awesome time. Instead of dwelling on that zit, make a list of the good qualities that you have and focus on them. Besides, it takes more than physical appearance to make a date a good one. Allow your inner beauty to shine through and your partner is not going to mind or even notice the zit! When you stop worrying about your negative qualities, you will gain self confidence and eventually become happier. Also, do you know that people who smile a lot are considered more attractive than those who do not?

• Stop being your own worst critic

Imagine yourself presenting a speech in front of the class only to forget your lines in the middle of it. Do you quietly tell yourself, “How can you forget your lines, stupid? Now the whole class is going to think that you are an idiot!”? If you do so, stop. Giving yourself unnecessary criticisms is useless and will only lower your confidence level. One way to counter these criticisms is to challenge the assumptions about yourself and others: when you assume that you are worse than others, rationalize the assumption by reminding yourself that ‘confident’ people have their bad moments too. Plus, tell yourself that those destructive criticisms are not true and think of evidences to prove them wrong. For example, if you find yourself saying that you are a failure, remind yourself of the time when you passed your driving test or the day when you aced your Accounting test. This method may sound useless but really, it will work wonders on your self confidence.

• Realize that sometimes it is just in your head

In addition, when it comes to performing in public, if you feel that your nervousness or lack in self confidence is beginning to show, fret not. Chances are, nobody will notice it! I say this from experience because many-a-time when I was on stage, I felt that my hands were trembling and was afraid that the audience will see them and laugh at me. However, I later learned that they could not see it and on the contrary, complimented me on my confidence when in reality, I was everything but confident! So at times when you think that you are not good enough, you might be the only one who is thinking so.

• Sometimes, not all eyes are on you

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Another way to gain self confidence is to eliminate its number one enemy: self consciousness. Yes, we all love to be in the spotlight once in a while but too much of it will not be good for us either. When you always feel that the attention is on you, you will tend to over-analyze all aspect of yourself and because nobody is perfect, you will frown upon your own imperfections and then lose confidence because of it. The key here is to learn how to keep the attention off of yourself. If you begin to feel self conscious (one of the sign is feeling anxious), focus on something besides yourself instead. For example, look at a picture on the wall and examine its shades of colors, what the painting is trying to portray, who is the artist and so forth. Basically, concentrate on anything except yourself. When your mind is occupied with something else, you will experience less chances of being self conscious.

• Reminisce the happy days

Learn how to control your own thoughts and emotions because it will have a huge impact on your self confidence. Self confidence can be acquired by feeling good and feeling good can be acquired by thinking happy thoughts. If you put two and two together, you get one simple formula to live by: happy thoughts = feeling good = self confidence. One quick way to boost your self confidence is to ponder on the good times you have experienced. By doing so, you will automatically feel happy because of the ‘happy signal’ sent to your brain and a happy you is a confident you.

All in all, it is time to say goodbye to Low Self Confidence and show the world the wonders inside of you. Go and be a part of the party! Remember, we need a fair bit of self confidence to succeed in this world. You can have all the money or knowledge in the world but if you do not have the confidence, then you are as good as nothing. If you do not believe in yourself, no one will.

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