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The ingredients of confidence (2/3)
In my previous post we looked at how prevalent confidence problems are, yet how little people know about how to address such problems. In this post I will describe the ingredients of confidence and improved self-esteem. So here goes.
Confidence is a feeling - but it is more than that - it is to do with beliefs as well. One of the problems people encounter is that they describe it as a 'thing' that they haven't got. So a question to ask is "if you haven't got confidence, what do you have?" They will then come up with something such as anxiety or fear. The next thing to consider is "anxiety about what specifically?" So now we are starting to home in on the problem a bit more clearly. There can be a range of anxieties and also other emotions all bundled up together, such as guilt, anger or despair.
These feelings to not appear out of nowhere. They are produced as a result of interpretation of circumstances. However most people assume that the circumstances produce the feelings directly. "Losing my job has caused me to feel anxious" "Speaking in public stresses me" "Spiders make me panic". If it were as simple as cause and effect then we would all feel the same thing in the same situation. But we don't. That's because interpretation varies from person to person and a huge part of our interpretation are our beliefs and expectations.
These beliefs can include:
Beliefs about what will happen...
The further consequences of those (more negative beliefs)...
Negatives beliefs about oneself.
So you can see that to improve self confidence and self esteem you have to identify the negative beliefs that are causing the problem. This can be more easily done with the help of a skilled practitioner, as seeing your own beliefs can be a problem, and typically we mistake beliefs for reality. "My beliefs are TRUE!"
In the next post I will explain methods for improving confidence which I use with clients, and will l include how to change negative beliefs.
Last updated: 13 July 2009