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Difficult times are easier to endure when you’re self-assured.
This quality helps you not to panic, make decisions calmly, rely on your own strengths, and actively seek a way out of a difficult situation. It also elicits sympathy from others, allows you to build harmonious relationships and a successful career.
What is self-confidence? Self-confidence is a realistic attitude towards one’s abilities and skills. A person with this quality accepts themselves as they are and trusts themselves. They know their strengths and weaknesses, set achievable goals, know how to assert personal boundaries and calmly accept criticism.
A lack of self-confidence leads to constant self-doubt, feelings of insignificance and inability to trust others. This problem sometimes extends to different aspects of life: a person may be confident in their professional life, but struggle in relationships.
According to research, self-confidence starts to form at the age of five. The decisive role in this process is played by the upbringing style chosen by parents. In 2013, Croatian scientists surveyed several hundred schoolchildren and found that self-assessment is usually lower in children whose parents adhere to an authoritarian upbringing style: they establish strict rules and demand their strict execution, without listening to the opinions of others. American scientists also found that self-assessment is negatively affected by:
- Frequent and severe criticism from parents.
- Inability and unwillingness of parents to support the child in his beginnings.
- Mocking his mistakes and shortcomings.
- Parents’ demand to always be perfect in everything.
- Physical and emotional violence.
Excessive confidence is also harmful: it hinders progress and can lead to harsh disappointments, for example, because of failing to reach an overly ambitious goal. However, both lack and excess of confidence are usually not related to real abilities and skills, but depend on personal perception. This perception can be changed. Here are some ways.
Advice 1: Neutralize Cognitive Distortions
Emotions affect how satisfied a person is with their life. However, our automatic reactions to events do not always reflect reality. In many cases, they are overly negative, but this is not as harmless as it seems. American psychiatrist David Burns described in his book “The Anxiety Therapy” how automatic thoughts and cognitive distortions affect a person’s psyche.
They can repeatedly increase anxiety, deprive of hope, and undermine self-esteem. A bright example is when after a rejection at a job interview, a person thinks, ‘I will never achieve anything.’ This rejection could have been caused by a hundred different reasons and does not say anything about future career prospects, but nonetheless, far-reaching conclusions do not motivate bold actions. Here are a few more cognitive distortions that impact self-perception.
Examples of cognitive distortions
| Cognitive Distortion | Example of Automatic Thought | Why it’s Not True |
|---|---|---|
| All or Nothing | “I can’t write a good report – I’m a pathetic nothing” | Even if you failed at something, it doesn’t diminish your previous achievements and potential |
| Overgeneralization | “I never succeed at anything” | You’re saying a string of failures never ends, while referring to only a couple of events |
| Discounting the Positive | “Yes, I was praised for the work, but it’s still terrible” | You’re clearly ignoring the strong sides of your work |
| Jumping to Conclusions | “The boss wants to talk to me – I’ll be fired” | You don’t know the future and there’s no point in worrying about something that may never happen |
| Magnification | “My friend got promoted, and I’ve been on the same job for three years – I’m a worthless person” | Another person’s career success doesn’t mean your life has failed and there’s no chance to improve it |
But negative thoughts like these can be controlled by keeping an emotions journal. To do this, on a piece of paper, three columns need to be drawn: “automatic thoughts,” “cognitive distortions,” and “rational response.”
Each time you feel uncertain, record your anxious thoughts in the first column. Then think about what cognitive distortion they trigger and write it down in the second column.
Then, try to replace the negative thought with a more realistic and rational one. Instead of overgeneralizing “I’ll definitely fail the interview, I never succeed at anything,” you can write “If I don’t worry, I’ll make a good impression, I have something to talk about.” Write this thought in the third column and then evaluate how your mood and level of anxiety have changed.
Advice 2: Use Comedic Visualization
Another technique recommended by Burns is to exaggerate your fears to absurd proportions so that it becomes even funny.
For example, you’re afraid that your presentation will be too boring and no one will listen. Imagine that as soon as you start speaking, the listeners start falling asleep rapidly, with some snoring bass, others dropping their head on their neighbor’s shoulder. After the performance, everyone will wake up from their sleep and conclude that they haven’t slept so well in a long time. In the end, you will be famous as a lecturer who can cure insomnia and restore strength. People will flock to your lectures to sleep.
This method can be used in any areas where you feel uncertain. Even in personal life. Burns tells about his patient named Nadine: she really liked a lonely attractive lawyer whom she regularly met in the elevator. But she didn’t feel confident enough to talk to him. Burns advised her to imagine the next time she met the lawyer in the elevator, to picture him seriously appearing in court in his underwear. Nadine did just that and it instantly relieved her inner tension. They were able to make plans for a date.
Burns’ colleague, psychotherapist Michael Yapko, recommends using the comedic visualization method differently. He advises patients to imagine their negative thoughts that undermine self-esteem being spoken in funny voices by animated characters, such as Winnie-the-Pooh, Donald Duck, or Masha.
As Burns explains, these techniques help change the reaction to internal self-critical monologues and realize the absurdity of certain fears. Ultimately, absolute failure or success rarely occur, so it is most realistic to expect something average. However, this method may not work if a person is extremely upset or angry, as it may only amplify apathy.
Advice 3: Use the strategy of small victories
When a person achieves goals, they grow and their confidence in themselves increases. Goals do not have to be massive. Those that can be realistically achieved within a short period of time are also suitable, and thanks to this, they will feel a little more confident.
What can be done:
- Find a sport you enjoy and go to training regularly. According to the American Psychological Association, sports improve mood, help combat anxiety and depression. Improving physical fitness gives a sense of accomplishment and increases self-esteem – so it is important to also find a way to track progress.
- Track all your work successes. Often we forget about what we did well and dwell on failures. If this happens to you, keep a list of all your work victories, no matter how small – you’ll be surprised at how many small victories you have every day.
- Start learning something new. A new language, online course or lecture expands your knowledge base and increases confidence by expanding the boundaries of your abilities. You don’t have to learn something that will be useful right now – choose what you enjoy. Learning in any case develops the brain, and solving new problems helps to look at routine work from a new angle.
Advice 4: Change the impression of yourself
We unconsciously read the body language of our interlocutor. A person who looks tense, crosses their arms over their chest and looks down seems closed and insecure.
It is not always easy to consciously control your movements during an important meeting. But it is still worth trying to take a more relaxed posture, lower your shoulders, smile slightly, and periodically look your interlocutor in the eyes. At first, this will require effort, but over time it will become a habit, allow you to look more confident in the eyes of others, and achieve better results in your work.
Clothing is also important. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it should be comfortable and match the image you want to be associated with. This will allow you to feel more relaxed and calm.
Advice 5: Protect yourself from toxic influence
Friends, family, and colleagues can greatly impact self-esteem. In a supportive environment, anyone will feel more confident, while constant criticism can bring even the most confident person down.
How to Improve Communication:
- Analyze relationships with friends and loved ones: how do these people relate to you, how do they evaluate, support or criticize you, how correctly do they express their opinions? Sometimes the closest people throw you off balance and beat down your self-esteem. Breaking relationships with them can be impossible, but you can minimize contact and establish personal boundaries. At first it will be difficult, but if you persistently repeat that you are not ready to listen to criticism, over time the relationships may change.
- Learn to say no: by agreeing to any event, even an uncomfortable one, you can feel like you are losing control of your life. Before you agree, take time to assess your capabilities, sometimes a polite refusal helps you save time, energy and feel more confident.
- Limit social media: the more we scroll through the feeds of successful people and try to compare ourselves to the retouched picture, the more chances we have of losing faith in ourselves. It’s important to set a time limit for using social media and periodically remind yourself that the internet picture may be very different from real life.
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