How to trick your mind - Chapter 2
How to be confident - And defeat your fears!
What is confidence?
In the purest essence, confidence is knowing your skills and where you´re good at mixed with some arrogance which involves believing you perform better in a particular skill than you think. The closer your self-assessment is to the reality, the closer you are to reach a healthy amount of confidence... Knowing what you like is an important issue. It is helpful to know what you are aiming for. I know that there are thousands, no millions of people in the world, who have never experienced confidence in their lives…
It is time to change that!
Confidence does not grow over night, but the more energy you put in letting it grow, the faster you´ll see some changes. Confidence isn´t like a set of rules which you can learn. Positive thinking, training, knowledge and talking to strangers will help you to boost your confidence levels. Feeling good about yourself and your body, accepting yourself as you are and believing in your own ability and skills are the fundamentals of confidence.
Fear.
Does not everyone have fears in different ways? Anyway, we need to illuminate our fears and be confident in the same way…. The problem with fear is that it affects our behavior. So if we want to fight our fears, we should focus on acting as normal and relaxed as possible when we’re in a situation that scares us. Do not fear failure. Rather, fear being in the exact same place next year as you are today!
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In order to change the circumstances we are in, we need to be willing to go to the places inside of us we´ve never been!
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STEP 1 -
CONTROL YOUR BODY
You need to understand your body´s reaction in order to defeat fears in a long run. I read about some good techniques but a simple one is breathing. When you start to feel anxious or scared, try to slow down your breathing a little bit with 2-3 deep breaths.
STEP 2 -
UNDERSTAND AND FOCUS YOUR FEARS
Once the fear hit you hard enough and you feel a lot of pain, you will never feel as much fear again. It will never turn out as bad as before which makes it a lot easier to work with and defeat what scares you! Realize that it is all in your mind! Everything that´s going on happens just in your brain!
STEP 3 -
RANK THE SEVERITY OF YOUR FEAR
On a scale from your worst experience to your best, how would you rank your feelings right now? For example you have to do a presentation in front of 20 people and you would rank it to a 4… Then you realize it is not the scariest thing you experienced before, so it is a lot easier to deal with it! It is not one of your major fears in life and you are maybe just overthinking!
STEP 4 -
DIFFERENT PATHS
You are in a scary situation. Like - You go on a boat trip but are scared as hell because of the big wide ocean. Think about different ways how this could turn out.
- A huge storm crosses the sea and the vessel isn't strong enough and breaks into pieces.
- You could fall down into the ocean and be consumed by a shark
- Some pirates will kidnap you and your loved one´s
- Everything will be okay and you would arrive safely
So, you got all paths which are possible and NOW you can think about doing it or not. If you are scared before anything would happen, list all possible paths and decide after thinking about them, if you should or shouldn't do it!
STEP 5 -
CELEBRATE EVERY SUCCESS
Celebrate every step you completed in the process of defeating your fears!! Even if its a small one. Use this feeling of success and victory to propel yourself forward and take the next step!
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Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be solved!
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It is difficult to have confidence without letting your ego become too dominant.. Confidence is so awesome and you are going to feel very well but too much isn't good either! you need to balance it out ...
Here are my 5 steps for confidence….
STEP 1 -
LOOKS REFLECT MENTALLY
Your look isn´t everything ! Keep that in mind , BUT: The way you look, the way you feel! So this is a major key to reach confidence! You should dress up how YOU like it and if you feel amazing, you´re very close to self-esteem too!
STEP 2 -
DON´T DOUBT YOURSELF
Being a 100% convinced about your ability to achieve the goal makes things far better then they seem to be when you´re not believing in yourself. To be successful in this method, you have to show that you´re fully in the moment and fully part of what´s going on, and that you want nothing less than the best!
STEP 3 -
UNDERSTAND YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
An important issue to understand is that no one is perfect! Everyone has got strengths and weaknesses ! We all make mistakes and have weak spots in our lives. But the trick is to deal with it it, know your strengths and make use of them! If you know them, it is a lot easier to get confidence!
STEP 4 -
PHOTOSHOP YOUR SELF-IMAGE
Our self-image means a lot to us, more than we often realize. We have a mental picture of our selves which reflects our confidence. If it´s not a very good one, change it! Use your mental photoshopping skills to fix it and shape it into the way you want it to be!
STEP 5 -
EMBRACE THE UNKNOWN
You really have to fall in love with not knowing! This is probably the hardest part in being confident. Most people are scared of not knowing what will happen next but you truly need to embrace the unknown!
I heard a great example - It´s like reading a book. Not knowing what’s going to happen on the next page, and being excited about it , because it has the potential to be the best page you ever read.
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TIP by SOLDIER - Being confident doesn't mean to be how the society wants you to be! If you feel amazing inside and out, then you don't need to change a thing!
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In order to be successful in any area of your life that you want it to be ( in your job , love etc. ) you need confidence. Focus on things in life that you already achieved ! Stay away from negativity and surround yourself with positive people… Sometimes it is great to just sit down, in my way, listen to some classical music and organize your mind. Make your goals your focus and plan the next steps you are going to take, but leave some space for the unknown… I know you have big dreams for yourself but don't forget to appreciate how far you´ve come already. Remember the days you prayed for the things you have now!
Stay focused
Love,soldier
Very helpful. I have no confidence is flat, its very hard to change your way of thinking when you think everyone thinks of you the same way. I will give these a try. I am starting to learn mindfulness meditation, its hard but I'm not giving up :)
I see positive thinking between your lines and thats is the fundament of confidence! Of corse it is not easy if you think about what others may think about you! First you have to like yourself! Sure, these steps are pretty tough but not giving up is the key to success!
I def don't like myself, sometimes I can say I hate myself but thankfully its not as often as it used to be
Great that you see the problem! Think about WHY you dont like yourself. Nothing is impossible so change your self-image. Try to think about what exactly you dont like about yourself?! Is it your character? The way you look? Your fears? Everybody has strengths and weaknesses.... Bring out strengths and learn to love them
I'm disabled and housebound so that's my biggest problem and nothing i can do about it.
Ok that is not nice for sure but you can train your mind and soul as well! Mindfulness meditation is amazing. I mean, everyone of us will be housebound sooner or later. But what lives forever is our soul! I know our everyday life can be tough sometimes and it brings us back to "reality" but we have to jump out of it! Invest into your inner life! Meditation is a great way to start!
I am giving it a good go. Had a few bad days after my gran in law died, her funeral is Monday. Hopefully after i get to say goodbye I can start again :)
Oh I am sorry for that. Rest in piece!
This is a great way to deal with it, give your soul the time to say goodbye and start again!
I will and thank you :)
your welcome :)
Truly this is a plethora of positive solutions and perspectives to improve one's life. Each area you covered could have its own post and a more in depth look while relating to your own personal experience. Just a suggestion for the future but I really enjoyed reading this thoroughly and evaluating my own self and outlook on things. This is the kind of post that deserves attention and is well thought out. Hopefully people can take heed to your positive messages and utilize them to their own life as best as they can. For me, my fear is reserved and rare to share with anything or anyone but my Creator. For if I feared the created, how great should my fear be for God who created all? Makes me feel really small yet I know we are all capable of making great changes, especially for one another as well as ourselves. But will those changes be positive or negative, and will the actions be taken from a ration place with consideration of love and fearlessness or a place of worriedness, cautiousness and closed mindedness? That is the question we must ask and filter out our next move through. :) Easy upvote
Wow amazing speech!
if I feared the created, how great should my fear be for God who created all?
amazing couldnt say it any better! Your words are always so warm hearted and I love to read your comments! You are so right about the changes. Will they be positive or negative? We won´t know until we try ...
You are indirectly responsible for any reflective responses your post inspired out of me :) thank you for the awesome reaction
love your blog. love dancing and photography too. great job @soldier