How to increase your self-confidence in 6 steps

Several keys and strategies to improve in this important aspect.

The self-confidence (self-confidence) is necessary for you to achieve the goals you set for yourself and is key to your well-being, as it is closely related to self-esteem.

People who have self-confidence manage to develop their life projects or professional projects, because they are individuals who know how to take certain risks, make difficult decisions and are highly resilient, ie, They know how to overcome negative situations that may arise throughout their lives..

Self-confidence and self-esteem are not the same thing.

Many people think that self-confidence and self-esteem are the same. But although both concepts are related, they are two different terms with clearly different implications, they are two different terms with clearly differentiated implications..

Self-confidence or self-confidence is The appreciation of the capabilities you possess and focuses on the beliefs you have about your capacity and ability to succeed in a given context. and ability to succeed in a given context. Whereas self-esteem is the general feeling of how valuable you are as a whole and refers to the appreciation you have for yourself.

If this difference is not clear to you, imagine a salesperson or salesperson who knows that he does his job very well. He has no doubts about his great ability to seduce customers and knows that he possesses the people skills that not everyone has. Thanks to this, he performs his job to perfection, so he has full confidence in himself when performing this task.

However, this person has a low self-esteem, because when he gets home after a long day of work, he thinks: "I don't have a partner, and I can't save enough money to buy a house. I am a failure". As you can see, he is self-confident and knows he is a great salesman. However, he is not at ease with himself, and regardless of whether this assessment he makes is correct or not, the overall image he has of himself is negative.

Self-confidence: the self-efficacy theory

One of the great theorists of self-confidence is Albert Bandura, who formulated his theory of self-efficacy (meaning, roughly speakingwhich means, roughly speaking, something very similar to self-confidence) as part of his Social Learning Theory.

His research on the social learning of human beings allowed him to identify other cognitive components that facilitate the process of change and influence the formation of intentions and motivational self-regulation. motivational self-regulation. One of these components is perceived self-efficacy or perceived self-confidence.

Bandura states that the development of self-confidence is made up of four components:

• Performance achievementsPast experiences are the most important source of self-confidence information, as they provide evidence of actual mastery.
• Vicarious experience or observationrefers to modeling, i.e., watching (or imagining) other people successfully performing certain activities.
• Verbal persuasion: Verbal persuasion is important, especially in those people who are already confident and need just a little more confidence to make an extra effort to succeed.
• Physiological state of the individualIndividuals often interpret states of high anxiety as signs of weakness or poor performance. Conversely, mood or positive emotional states will also have an impact on how one will interpret experiences.

How to improve your self-confidence?

But, what steps can you take to improve your self-confidence? Here is a list of 6 steps to improve your self-confidence:

1. Live situations in a positive way

As you have seen, for Bandura, verbal persuasion is a very important element in the development of self-confidence. Therefore, be positive even if you are going through a period of self-confidence, be positive even if you are going through a period in which you feel that things are not going your way.. Stop focusing on the problems and focus your energy on solutions and positive changes.

Low self-confidence is often associated with thoughts of failure and negative thoughts that stand between you and your goals. If you are constantly telling yourself that you are not up to the task, all you will achieve is a "self-fulfilling prophecy". So, even in the unpleasant moments, motivate yourself.

• Recommended article: "The 30 best motivational phrases".

2. Be prepared

It may happen, for example, that you have to make a presentation at the university and you notice that you do not have enough confidence in yourself. In this type of case what really works is to prepare well for the presentation so that, when the day comes, you will be confident in your abilities..

Another example could be that you have just started working in front of the public, and as part of your job you have to give a welcoming speech to clients. Since you have never done this kind of task before, you may not have full confidence in yourself. In this case, you can prepare the speech well, and, in this way, you will feel comfortable and confident in front of the customers.

Whatever is on your list of objectives, being well prepared and feeling that you have mastered what you do increases your self-confidence..

3. Make a list of what you have already accomplished and remind yourself of it.

As in the first point, Difficult times can make you doubt yourself and cause your self-confidence to waver..

Life is full of changes, and sometimes it's hard to stay on top. In cases like this, it is ideal to have a list of what you have achieved so far, it is ideal to have a list of what you have achieved so far in relation to your goal. with respect to the goal you have, because visualizing your progression can help you to motivate yourself in complicated moments.

4. Act

The engine of self-confidence is action.If you dare to act, then you gain self-confidence. Bandura, in his theory of self-efficacy, talks about "performance achievements", i.e. experiences are the most important source of self-confidence information.

It may happen that, even before acting, you are already visualizing failure. So remember: if you don't act, you lose 100% of the chances of achieving what you want..

5. Accept any past failures

And what happens if you act and it goes wrong? Well, performance achievements are our self-perception of our victories and failures.. By perception I mean the assessment you make of the events that have happened. If it has gone wrong, you have to accept it and also see the small successes, which I am sure there are, even in the failures.

Self-confidence only develops if we manage to overcome the obstacles that we set for ourselves: on the one hand, resignation (which has to do with acting), and on the other hand, criticism. Seeing successes as the sum of our failures can help us gain self-confidence..

6. Observe successful people

Bandura's self-efficacy theory states that vicarious experience or observation is another key element of self-confidence. Observing or imagining other people carrying out certain activities successfully can positively influence self-confidence..

This is one of the techniques used in coaching to increase the confidence of clients, as it is useful when the latter do not have great knowledge of their own capabilities or have little experience in the task to be performed.