Confidence is all important. Confidence in yourself will influence how other people see you, and the extent to which they trust you both as an individual, and as a part of a team. If you can put aside self doubt, and mistrust, and stop thinking that you ‘can’t do this or can’t do that’, you are on your way to self confidence and success. Some people are just born oozing self confidence, and others develop it as they grow up and develop specific skills and abilities and establish their life path. For others, however, it’s something that needs to be worked on as an adult. This may be because they have too often been told that they are useless, incapable etc. They may have been unfortunate enough to have overbearing parents or older siblings, or perhaps been bullied at school or by others in the neighborhood. It can be hard to unlearn those views of yourself that have probably been internalized over many years. However, it is always, always worth shedding self doubt and re-learning about your self worth. There are lots of ways that you can achieve this. Self hypnosis, using affirmations and neuro
linguistic programming techniques are all possible aids to learning self confidence. For all of them, however, you first of all need to understand that we, as humans, are programmed. Our brain and our conscious and sub-conscious minds operate very effectively. If you pile in to the brain statements about how useless we are, then the brain will effectively fill our data bank with this detail. If we ensure that our brain is told that we are able, can learn, and can achieve, then our data bank will reflect this. If we then ask of ourselves ‘what sort of person am I’, it is the data in the brain that will give us the answer. So a data bank full of positive information will give positive answers. Opening the channel to the subconscious is the key to internalizing the data. Try playing a tape or CD of affirmations when you are just about to go to sleep. Your brain has told your conscious mind that its time to sleep – which is an example of self hypnosis really. So your conscious mind switches off, and your subconscious mind is receptive. This is the technique used to hypnotize people. When a hypnotist tells you that you are feeling sleepy and your eyes are closing, and you will listen to what is being said – this is exactly what you will do. Your subconscious mind will accept the information it receives, and any instructions it receives. So you can be hypnotized into believing that you are a mouse, a dog, a horse etc. Equally, you can be convinced that you are sensible, capable, able and confident.
Self hypnosis is really about learning how to open the door to your sub-conscious mind, and to transmit the information that you want – just the same way that someone else would do. Using tapes or CD’s is a good way of receiving the information you want. Using affirmations is effective and can be done anywhere and any time. First thing in the morning, while you are getting ready in the bathroom, look at yourself in the mirror and repeat your affirmations. For example: I am a confident and capable person. I am an achiever, and will be successful. I work hard and deserve to succeed. I find solutions when there are problems. I am goal oriented and successful. Repeating affirmations, whatever they are, has to be done on a regular basis, and with belief in what you are saying. Self confidence is the key to learning new skills, progressing in your work and home life, and the foundation of all self development.
