4 Ways To Generate Self-Confidence

4 Ways To Generate Self-Confidence

To be able to take action to improve our self-confidence, we need to understand first what it is and what its purpose is. Self-Confidence is not just about feeling great, it is so much more than that. It defines how well we have adjusted to life and life circumstances. People who struggle to adjust to the demands of life, have a very variable self-confidence with many low points. Without having a place in life, a person can basically not define himself and his status with pride. It makes life much easier in terms of defining one's own self-worth, if a person can say: "I am a business executive", "I am a dad" or "I am a teacher". Successful adjustment to life is basically a positive illusion. It aids our mental health.

Self-confidence is also a feedback mechanism. It lets you know, how well you have integrated yourself with your own being and others. If your self-confidence increases, it means that you are well-adjusted socially. A decrease shows social withdrawal a sense of not belonging.

People guard their self-confidence like a treasure. It is an infinite ressource, but it is also drained quickly. Unfortunate events in life require a large amount of stored self-worth. To generate such a ressource reliably, there are four ways to improve your self-confidence:

1. Self-Serving Attributions:

When you are successful at something, give credit to yourself. Enjoy that moment and remember it to be always able to recall it. If things do not go your way, dont blame failures on yourself. Blaming failures on the circumstances or on plain life, is a way to shield your self-confidence. A major predictor of depressive illness is doing the opposite of this: taking next to no credit for your achievements and blaming all failures on yourself alone. The burden of this is too much for any self-confidence to carry. The very least you should do, is to acknowledge and remind yourself of your successes.

2. Downward Social Comparisons:

If you compare yourself to someone who is way more successful, you are setting yourself up to fail You can strive for similar success, but the direct comparison is damaging to your health. Self-confidence requires you to judge yourself based on people with a similar quality and quantity of successes. Most people do downward social comparisons to protect their self-esteem. They compare themselves with people of less success or inferior in some dimension, to show to themselves that they are better at something. As crude as it sounds, downward comparison works.

3. Self-Aid

There is something called self-handicapping. Basically, it means that you are standing in your own way when it comes to striving for success. You set yourself up for failure, for a situation that will bring you guaranteed failure. In this way, failing does not come as a suprise any more. This is actually a strategy that protects self-esteem. However, it is more advantageous to provide aid to yourself, by appraising situations properly before they start and setting up your expectations accordingly. Having too high expecations and then experiencing a failure is a steep fall, experiencing success is not much of a high any more. Therefore, manage your expectations to fit the situation according to your experiences and realiable information.

4. Self-Affirmation

When you experience a threat to your self-esteem in one department, strengthen another. You surely have more talents, characteristics and expertise than just the one. An example would be: "I may not make a lot of money, but I am a loving parent". By doing this, you discharge negativity from something in your life that is not going very well, while emphasizing the things you do well. Self-affirmation is highly protective.

We are not required to do all of the above to have a healthy self-esteem. Usually, everyone has her own pick of how to manage self-confidence levels. If you are experiencing some difficulties, try practicing a way of the ones mentioned. The key component to mental health is social support. If your glass keeps shattering, surround yourself more often with people that care for you.

Posted in: Psychology