Confidence is defined as the feeling of self-assuredness or conviction about one’s abilities, skills or aptitude to deal with situations that may be encountered. It’s how we perceive ourselves. When it comes down to it, confidence is often represented as a feeling that can be invoked in multiple situations. It is a hard-earned quality that can be strengthened through practice and experience. However, like most intangible aspects of ourselves, we don’t often spend enough time developing our confidence.

Confidence is going after the life you want despite your fears. It’s not a feeling of self-importance; it’s not a feeling of superiority or arrogance, but rather the courage to stand in your own light. Imagine all the things you could achieve if you weren’t afraid of failing?
If you feel as though you don’t have much confidence in yourself, it’s never too late to learn more about yourself and to start building your confidence from there.

Developing confidence in oneself has its own rewards, for instance in social situations, being open to expressing your views and opinions and making yourself known in a diverse environment. The important point is to stand on the sidelines, take part in the discussion, express your ideas, and listen to others before making any decisions, just like in the first step on the zodiac wheel: the aim is to develop one’s self-confidence, not to have it fixed.

Developing confidence in oneself can be a difficult thing to do especially when it involves thinking up many different things in your head. The question now is what is the best approach when you find yourself in this situation. Firstly you can always take a look at your surroundings and see if you feel confidence. If you don’t, you could always use some advice that you can get from your parents, friends or anybody in your life. When you begin to change your life the feeling of confidence starts to arise. You begin to think that what you are doing now is going to work in the end. With a lot of things in your life you never know exactly what is going to happen and whether it will work out. But its not about what will happen to you. We have no control of events outside ourselves but we can control how we respond to events. That is a choice and it is our greatest power.

When we look at pictures of ourselves today we often don’t see our true nature as what’s on the outside usually hides the real person underneath the surface. Confidence lies on the inside and is free to talk and act as the real you. And those who live life in the moment with no boundaries and confidence are the ones who will have great things ahead of them in life. As much as they may seem like they are struggling or have some problem, they have such a better side which is much more than what they give out in life.

There are ways to become confident. The ones I know are as follows…

• Visualisation: Our minds are very powerful and they respond better to images and pictures that we create. Many people have developed confidence this way. I would think of moments in your life when you were successful or excelled at something. Doing this will eventually reinforce the belief that you can do anything in life you put your mind to. Visualisation or becomes powerful if you back the images up with feeling. It’s like giving fuel to a car.

• Small Steps Outside Your Comfort Zone: I use to know someone who became confident because every day he would do something that would put him a little bit out of his comfort zone. Our comfort zones are our bubbles, and the more we challenge and put ourselves out of it, the bigger the bubble grows to encompass the outer world. Comfort zones might be safe places to hide in, but nothing grows in a bubble.

• Subliminal Affirmations: I’m not sure whether Subliminal Affirmations work but my husband has tried them. It’s about repeating statements to yourself that are positive or listening to someone saying these positive statements to you. The idea is these statements bypass our conscious minds and penetrate our subconscious thus creating new neural pathways in our brain. It takes discipline though to listen to mantras or repeat them to yourself and you have to keep at it until you believe what you are hearing.

• Meditation: Meditation has its benefits. It’s powerful when one is disciplined to it. It involves emptying your mind and breathing slowly. This can be used for Visualisation.

Everyone needs confidence. Being confident is not only great to have but is the foundation upon which you can grow and become the person that you want to be. Why? There are a few reasons why you need to be confident. Without confidence you will face many of the struggles you should avoid by holding yourself to higher standards. All your personal relationships will be lacking because confidence creates a confidence level. On the other hand, lacking confidence will limit your success because of the obstacles it will put in the way. If you choose to be happy you can create a more fulfilled life. Being happy is one of the most fulfilling experiences you can live.

No one is going to make you feel confident unless you believe it in yourself! Being confident means taking a shot at life and learning to take a shot at your dreams. Being confident will serve you throughout life. It is the little things that help you grow! There are many sites out there on the internet that you will find, many resources that make you feel confident and set you on the path to achieving the goals that you have for yourself.