Self-confidence is an all important trait you need to acquire in today's fast-paced world. For one thing, you must have confidence in yourself first to earn the confidence and respect of others.

The following strategies may be useful to overcome such self-conquering thought habits. Consider these steps as the building blocks for greater confidence in any aspect of your life.

1. Concentrate on your strengths rather than on your weaknesses.

Confidence comes from within. You have to concentrate on the positive things about yourself. Remember the past is over; you can only change the future. Write down ten positive things about yourself.

Concentrate on your potentials. These are the reasons you should love yourself and have high self-confidence in yourself. Give yourself credit for every positive thing you have written about yourself. Remember, you’re somebody special.

2. Remind yourself of past successes.

Confidence builds on past success. Because you had success before, you can (and will) have it once more. We strengthen our confidence in any interest when we remind or review ourselves of past successes.

If you are trying to develop confidence in a new aspect, past success can still be useful in strengthening our confidence. For instance, if you had success in doing something new in the past, recall those experiences when trying something else new – even if it is in a completely different part of your life.

3. Take risks.

Try doing things that you’ve never tried before. It’s always a little bit of a challenge in doing new things and just the act of accepting these challenges, some little and some big, whether we are successful or not, frequently improves our self-confidence.

Approach new experiences as opportunities to learn instead of occasions to win or lose. Doing so brings you new opportunities and can improve your sense of self-acceptance. Not doing so turns every possibility into an opportunity for failure, and inhibits self-growth.

4. Use self-talk.

Use self-talk as an opportunity to contradict destructive beliefs. Then, remind yourself to “stop” and replace more realistic assumptions. For example, if you catch yourself expecting perfection, tell yourself that you can’t do everything perfectly, that it’s only possible to try to do things and to try to do them well. This also allows you to accept yourself while still working to improve.

5. Visualize your future success.

Corporate executives, Olympic athletes, and successful people in all types of undertakings see future success. Confidence will increase when we visualize ourselves succeeding. Think about it. If you know you will succeed, your confidence will soar, right?

Seeing future success does that very thing for us. Our minds cannot distinguish the difference between something real and something vividly imagined. So vividly visualize your success. What will it look like, smell like, taste like, and feel like to have succeeded? Who will be with you, what will you be hearing and where will you be? How will you be feeling at that instant? Placing this much vivid detail into your mind increases the likelihood of success, and supports greater confidence!

Apply these steps in your daily life and your confidence will soar!

Copyright 2005 Arina Nikitina