Confidence and Self Belief

I find this area of leadership particularly important to almost anything and everything if you want to be successful. Having the self belief and confidence for 'anything' helps in doing whatever that you need to do. Beliefing in your own ability and your place in the universe gives you confidence and helps you eliminate doubt.

However, as a result of this, so many people including some trainers give people what they think are short cuts to having it. Some talk at length about body language, helping people imitate the body language of confidence people and so forth. This has the usual problems that come with cultural diversity especially as the world of business gets smaller and smaller. What is seen as confidence in one country may be considered aggressive in another.

I say that confidence is as a result of a person's state of mind when she/he truly belief that all will be well. By my definition, confidence is the outward demonstration of a person with absolute surety that the future will be well because, she/he knows their place in the universe, absolutely beliefs in their ability to negotiate this universe and expect a positive outcome. This is not a mere positive thinking. A confident person may know that he may be about to loose their job in employee cut and the economy is slow so he may take relatively longer period to find another employment. However, he will still belief in his ability to navigate the period even though he may not yet know how.

You may fool people for a while with your acting skills, but eventually when you are surprised, the true you will come through. Besides, what may be deemed as a sign of confidence today may be viewed differently tomorrow? It is worth spending the time to develop true confidence and self belief as this is worthy of any energy spent.

To start, (A) spend time with yourself: do some introspection finding out your values, beliefs and who you see yourself as. This may be hard especially for those people who avoid looking in themselves for fear of what they may find. Extroverts do this exercise poorly and may be helped by timing themselves. Find your universe! I cannot do this part enough justice in this forum as it is much wider subject, but in essence, I am asking you to find out how you see this world. Do you see it as a nurturing place where people support each other for self development/improvement or as a doggy-doggy world where everyone seek their own gratification?

(B)Identify your sources of self belief and confidence. Usually, experiences are the strongest of sources. When you have done something before, you do not need to convince yourself that you can do it. However, the mere experience does not change much. We have all seen people who have given presentation in past only to fluff and blame it on poor preparation. You need to see your positive experience in your minds eye and let go of your negative ones (after you have learnt from them).

(C) Work on the sources identified and seek the experiences that give you self belief

Activities 1 – Your Universe

Please answer the questions

Areas	Questions	Y/N	Comments
Expectation	Is there a supreme being?
	Is he/she interested in us, our actions and attitude?
	What happens if you do not make him/her happy
How you see others	Who do you choose to associate with
	Do you compare yourself to others regularly
	Do you expect people to treat you favourable
	Feedback affects your performance more than what you feel about your abilities
How you see yourself	Do you know your strengths
	Do you know your areas for improvements

In the comments section, explain what you feel about the questions and your answers. Now ask yourself; how sure are you of you answers. If you can be any more sure then you can be more confident!