How to Gain Confidence – You're In Control

If you don’t have confidence in yourself and in your abilities, you will struggle to achieve anything near your full potential. The fact that you are reading this, means you probably understand how important confidence is. You could have all the skills, abilities and talent in the world, but if you don’t believe in yourself then it is all for nothing.

But what do you do if you don’t have confidence? What if you’re not “one of those people” who is confident? There are of course many people who think that their confidence is something they were born with (“I’m just not a confident person”) and something they will have to live with.

The truth is quite different. Confidence is something that you develop from a number of different sources. You aren’t just born with it. And you can definitely do something about it, no matter how old you are, or how difficult your circumstances.

The myth that confidence is something you are born with is quite commonly held. It is true that to some degree we inherit characteristics from our parents. Some traits like anxiety are present even in newborns, and generally anxious people are less confident than non-anxious people. But confidence is also affected by your childhood. If you had supportive parents and teachers you are more likely to be confident than if you didn’t.

But again this doesn’t explain everything, since there are plenty of people who had wonderful teachers and parents but aren’t confident.

 The other determining factor is the experiences you have in your life. Setbacks such as relationship break-ups, job loss, failure to achieve certain goals can all affect a person’s confidence.

OK, so we’ve talked about genetics, childhood and life experiences. These are all the things that affect your confidence that you don’t have any control over. But there is also a way you can affect your confidence, that you can start doing right now.

Your thoughts affect your confidence. If you have un-confident thoughts you will feel low in confidence. If you have confident thoughts you will feel great.

You can train yourself to think more confident thoughts and therefore affect your confidence. By changing your thinking you can overcome any negatives that may be affecting your confidence up till now.

Confidence can be learned. Building confidence and self-esteem is as easy as changing your thoughts. And unlike genes, childhood and life experiences, this is definitely in your hands.

ArticleSource: ArticlesAlley.com