It’s all in the Mind:
Identifying and Knowing How to Overcome a Lack of Self-Confidence

For most people, in spite of the many successes they have achieved – it remains a struggle, and can be an ongoing issue to build self-esteem. Many are lacking self-confidence in their everyday interactions with others at work or in their social-circle. Self confidence tends to be an attribute that requires ongoing nurturing for continued growth, and for those in the dating world, it is beneficial to build their confidence in order to best-face the highly personal experience of relationship-building.

If successful overachievers have self-confidence issues, what more can you expect from us average folks and the underachievers? Many times, the self-confidence factor can be more-or-less tested by a person’s fear of public speaking. Although this human fear seems to be universal, no matter what a person’s position, status or accomplishments in life if you really want to find the degree of your insecurities come to the surface, stand in front of an audience and give a short presentation.

So what exactly can you do to overcome a lack of self-confidence? When you go online, you will find hundreds of sites offering advice and quick “how to” articles in regards to building self-confidence. Although many-times these tips are ‘recycled’ – and sometimes ineffectual without an ongoing ands concerted effort to confront ones underlying issues openly and honestly.

When you buy one of those self-help books, you may have a better chance of addressing some of your underlying-issues and become a more secure person. In these books, you normally find detailed explanations of the areas where your lack of self-confidence may have taken root along with exercises to help you grow. Some authors offer a step-by-step guide, or detailed questionnaires that should help you build that ever-elusive self-confidence. Yet, once again, if you are not brutally honest with yourself and are not willing to have a few open-heart sessions with a close friend or expose your issues in a small-group environment, your results may be limited.

Find books by great personal growth authors such as John Bradshaw, Phil McGraw, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and others. It’s your trek towards building crucial self-confidence and critical life skills, so go out there and really engage the world of growth found in good self-help books. The best ones will be written by authors who have been through some rather extreme personal life-experiences themselves. Look for ones where the author, in their past, has had in some addiction or other life-struggle but they have recovered and become better, stronger and more self-confident individuals as a result of the knowledge and wisdom they have gained from the trek of dependency, despondency to renewal and self-confidence. If you take these authors seriously and do your homework, you stand a good chance of obtaining great strides in dealing with your own self-confidence. Then, find a local church group or secular personal-growth group where you can interact and share with others who have similar issues. This binds you together with others who can empathize with you and causes a feeling of community, pulling you out of a feeling of isolation.

If we are all honest with ourselves, the truth of the matter is that we all struggle with recurring self-confidence issues throughout our life. Even if we have made some huge strides and life accomplishments, or perhaps even hosted public presentations, become actors or run for political office, we are all still subject to our insecurities popping-up from time to time, thereby diminishing our self-confidence at various instances as we move through life.

Many times we feel insecure in new ways, perhaps when presented with unfamiliar social situations or when we have not been in public for a while, grew a new pimple or, sometimes, as we grow older, we may feel less-secure and intimidated, not fitting-in when interacting with younger individuals. So, it’s important to realize that we never simply arrive at a point where we are completely secure and have tons of self-confidence the rest of our lives; rather we are on a path, caught-up in an ongoing cycle of ups and downs requiring us to continually renew the concepts we have learned, confront the issues, once-again become aware of the red flags and remind ourselves to do the work of renewed-understanding and personal growth. The onus is on each one of us to be the best we can be in the face of new and ever-changing life-challenges, diminishing-physical appearance and renewed challenges.

Since we do not have the luxury of discussing every aspect of building your self-confidence in detail, here is a quick overview of the essentials that you need to know about.

Identifying Your Lack of Self-Confidence

Besides realizing you have a fear of public speaking, you could more acutely know you are lacking in self-confidence and could use some personal growth if:

• You base your actions on what other people think.
• After finishing a task, you desperately seek the approval of another person before recognizing for yourself the good work that you have done.
• You seldom take risks for fear of failure.
• In a discussion, you often play it safe or wait for others to express their opinions before expressing your own.
• When committing a mistake, you do not own up to it in the hope the issue just fades-away on its own.
• You fail to accept well-deserved compliments at their face value and rather choose to take them personally rather than constructively.
• You feel intimidated or inadequate when facing a room full of people.

The Next Step: Determining How to Overcome Your Lack of Self-Confidence

You may have heard this cliché a hundred times, but it is true that the first step is always to recognize that there is a problem. How can you fix something that has not first been identified? When you have identified that you are lacking in self-confidence, what can you do about it?

Take a look at some beginning useful tips that you can follow to help build on your self-confidence:

1. Identify your achievements and strengths.

No matter how insignificant you think they may be, making a list of the things that you have achieved in the past is a good first step to assist in boosting your self-image. Reflect on the challenges that you have overcome to reach those achievements. By doing this, you will realize your personal-attributes and the quality-person you have become through your accomplishments. This will reinforce in your mind that everything is possible as long as you work hard and set realistic goals for yourself. This is an important part of realizing your true self-worth, unique attributes and accomplishments as a valuable person worthy of praise.

2. Recognize your weaknesses.

In the same vein, realizing what your weaknesses are is also an important part of building self-confidence and growth. Have you exerted any effort in doing something about your weaknesses – or do you simply accept them as part of who you are? If you think that a particular weakness will hinder you from achieving your goals in life, then now is as good a time as any to come out of denial and then address those issues the best you can.

3. Analyze the things that you like and dislike about yourself and your life and do something to improve the things you need to improve.

Start with your physical appearance. Do you feel that you are unattractive? Is that why you are not that confident when facing or dealing with other people? Try to integrate the following fact into your thinking and remember that just about everybody has some aspect of his or her physical appearance they don’t like or are insecure about. One may think their nose is too big while another may think they are too short, yet another can’t come to terms with the fact that he has lost his hair. After all, we are all imperfect human creatures and not everyone can be a Madison Avenue model or a Hollywood starlet. Although you’d be surprised at the issues of degraded physical appearance even these supposed perfect human beings hold onto in their minds.

It’s always a good idea to do the best you can with the attributes you have. Make yourself look as good as you can with what God has given you. Under the supervision of your doctor, start a new exercise program, loose some weight, and get a new hair cut, a manicure, new shirt or a flattering pair of jeans. These can boost your confidence and make you feel great on the inside as well as look better on the outside.

The old adage “you are what you eat” is very true when it come to your appearance. You want to look a little more youthful and just feel more confident? Eating lots of vegetables, fruits and healthier food-choices will improve and give a glow to your skin, fade blemishes, help reduce wrinkles, add bounce to your step and empower you with more clear thought-processes that lead to improved self-confidence. As they say, self-confidence starts with that inner wellness. Once you are comfortable with your own body, this will translate on the outside and extend to the way that you deal with other people and social settings.

The same thing applies to particular aspects in your life that you are not so happy with. If there are demons in your past, consider them as something that you have successfully gotten over. You need to forgive yourself at some point and realize that you are a human being who makes mistakes, and that you are much-more than your mistakes. In fact, your mistakes can now be a catalyst for great growth in using them as a learning experience.

Pick up the lessons that you have learned from the experience, apply them in the future if necessary, and move on. Always look for that negative-pattern or trigger in your daily living. Self awareness and honest confrontation of your own character flaws will cause growth, improvement and wholeness as a human being. Be ready to confront your stuff; It may be easier said than done, but it is a necessary evil that you need to deal with sooner or later if you are going to be a more whole-person.

4. Set realistic goals for yourself, and take it from there.

Lastly, set realistic goals for yourself. With each achievement, you will slowly but surely feel your self-confidence grow. Take things one small step at a time. Later on, you will have the confidence to take on bigger challenges, and the belief that you have built for yourself will surely take you where you want to go in life.

At the end of the day, it is only you who can build your self-esteem or restore your tattered self-image. Remember that the more self-confidence you have, the more able you will feel at overcoming the challenges that life bestows upon you.

Life is and has always been a challenge, but when you are confident enough, you can live through the rough spots, have fun on the smooth ones – and experience one wonderful ride! Identify, confront, work-out, change and grow and you will have a much more fulfilling personal and romantic relationships and life as a whole.

The opinions expressed in the above article are solely those of the author. Dating Directory Review, its parent company and owners are not responsible for the use or application of these suggestions in any manner.