Hypnosis Can Create Self-Confidence

A social phobia is a fear of interacting with others on a social level. Examples would be imagining others are looking at you while waiting in line at a checkout, talking in front of other people, or even fear of talking on the phone.

Self-confidence is a mentality, which allows individuals to have confident, yet realistic views of themselves and their circumstance. Self-confident people have confidence in their own know-how, have a general sense of control over their lives, and believe that, within reason, they will be able to do what they need and want to do.

Self-confidence is a demeanor that is garnered through experiences.  When a person experiences success, that person will tend to expect success.  And that expectation will cause a feeling of self-confidence.

As an example: A young man wants to be a prizefighter, so he gets a trainer and a manager.  His manager will not arrange a bout for him until he has built up enough skill and stamina.  And even then, the manager will only put him up against a challenger that he knows his fighter can surpass.  When his fighter beats the challenger, he is successful, and starts to gain confidence in his fighting skills. 

With each encounter, the manager puts his contender up against an opponent who is a slightly better opponent then the last, but not good enough to beat his man.  By the end of the third fight, the young fighter begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to improve.  This scenario continues to repeat itself.  And as long as the fighter is victorious, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to increase.

As another example: A young lady who is scared to death of heights wants to learn to dive into a swimming pool from a high diving board.  So she finds a diving coach who asks her to take a dive into the pool from the first step of the ladder going up to the diving board. The first rung of the ladder is not awfully high, so the young lady feels confident, and she dives from that rung, and lands in the water unharmed. 

Next, the instructor has her dive from the second rung of the ladder, and so forth.  I think that you see what's going on here.  With each new step up the ladder, since the girl was successful on the previous step, and this next higher step is only slightly higher then the last, the fear factor is negligible, and the girl expects to be successful.  When she jumps in and is unhurt, the girl's self-confidence grows, and her expectation of success on the next rung up the ladder increases.

If a person who has a long history of success and feelings of self-esteem does fail, they still tend to expect success the next time out.  Conversely, when a person who is weak in the self-confidence arena fails, they tend to lose confidence, and create expectations of failure, which often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Having true self-confidence doesn't mean that individuals will be able to do everything.  People, who have true self-confidence, usually have expectations that are attainable. Even when some of their expectations are not met, they continue to be positive and to accept themselves.

People, who are not self-confident, tend to depend overwhelmingly on the recognition of other people in order to feel self-confidence. They refrain from taking risks for fear of failure. They put themselves down and tend to discount compliments that are made about them.

Conversely, secure people are willing take a chance on disappointing others because they generally believe in their own capability. They tend to believe in themselves; and they don't feel that they have to conform in order to be approved.

Just because a person feels self-esteem in one or more areas of their life, doesn't mean that they will feel self-assured in every area of their life. For example, a person might feel self-assured about their mathematical talents, but not feel confident where members of the opposite sex are involved, such as in a dating situation, or social relationships.

HOW IS Self-confidence Developed initially?

Powerful factors touch on the development of confidence. Parents' attitudes are crucial to the way children feel about themselves, particularly in their early years. When parents provide appreciation, children receive a great foundation for seeing themselves in a positive light. If one or both parents are highly critical, or if they are overprotective and discourage moves toward independence, children may be fated to believe they are incapable, inadequate, or inferior.

However, if parents encourage a child's moves toward self-reliance, and they are not overly critical when the child makes mistakes, the child will learn to accept herself, and will be on the way to developing self-confidence.

A person can have plenty of abilities, but still lack confidence.  A lack of self-confidence is often the result of focusing totally on the unrealistic expectancies of others notably friends and parents. The control of peers can be more effective than that of parents in shaping the feelings about one's self.

Beliefs That Continue to Have an Influence on Self-confidence.

In response to external influences, people develop assumptions. Some of these are good, and some are bad. Several assumptions that can interfere with confidence and positive ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: I always have to be successful at everything. This is totally unrealistic. In real life each person has their strengths, and their weaknesses.  While it is important to do the best that you can, it's more important to learn to accept the self as being human, and imperfect. Let yourself feel good about what you are good at, and accept the fact that no person knows everything nor are they an expert at everything. 

ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone.  Again, this is a totally unrealistic assumption.  All human beings are open to error. It's more desirable to develop standards and values that are not completely dependent on the approval of others.

ASSUMPTION: Everything that happened to me in the past remains in control of my feelings and behaviors in the present.

ALTERNATIVE: While it is true that your confidence was especially influenced by external influences during your childhood as you grow into adulthood appreciation and outlook on what those influences have been. In doing so, you can choose which influences you will continue to allow to have an effect on your life. You don't have to be helpless based on what happened to you in the past

HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize Your Strengths. Grant yourself credit for everything you can do.  And give yourself acknowledgment for every new adventure you are willing to undertake. 

Take risks. Adopt the point of view of:  I never fail, because there are NO failures.  However, sometimes I learn what doesn't work and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can try out some other action.

Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as a technique to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting perfection, remind yourself that no one can do everything perfectly, and that it's only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself as you are striving to improve.

Make mental movies: Visualize yourself in scenes that you currently lack confidence in. But see yourself behaving like a person who has tremendous confidence would. There are many powerful and effective NLP and self-hypnosis procedures that are effective and will build up a titanic amount of confidence from within your unconscious mind. There are even NLP techniques that will let you take confidence that you do have in areas of your life, and then transplant that confidence to areas of your life that are lacking confidence!

Self-Evaluate: Learn to adjudge yourself as an individual human. Circumvent the constant sense of befuddlement that comes from relying on other people's opinion.

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