Confidence: 5 Things It Is Not!!

Confidence is an essential ingredient for successfully achieving goals... to get anywhere in life you have to have a degree (preferably a strong degree) of confidence.

Many of us would like to have more confidence because we recognise the limitations a lack of confidence can have in certain areas of our life e.g. social life, in our work, at home, financially.

Although confidence is a characteristic we want to develop and strengthen, there are several untruths, myths, mistaken beliefs and downright wrong ideas about what confidence is.

Here are 5 common mistaken thoughts about confidence:

1. "Being shy or lacking confidence is the way I am" is absolutely not true.  It's only the way you think you are and keep telling yourself you are.  If you continually think of yourself as being shy, as not being confident, you are in fact reinforcing that behaviour in you.  It's important to become aware of your self talk and the words you use to describe yourself
2. Believing your parents being shy has caused you to be shy is a fallacy.  People are not born shy; there is no shyness gene!  People become shy because they have learned to behave and act in a certain way.  Shyness becomes a habit.  Since shyness is a learned behaviour it means that it can be unlearned and replaced with more confident behaviour (true!)
3. Arrogance is sometimes mistaken for confidence but they are completely different things.  Arrogance is more about controlling, one-upmanship, feelings of superiority or having the right way of thinking and believing.
4. Being confident is bragging about yourself -- if someone continually talks about his or her confidence and achievements they are generally very insecure.  It's almost like they are trying to convince themselves they are confident.  Confidence comes from within and doesn't need to be, and typically isn't, stated to everybody else.
5. Confidence and competence are the same thing -- this is completely wrong because they are 2 very different things.  Competence is your ability to do something whereas confidence is your belief about your competence.  People are a disaster waiting to happen if they lack competence and yet have an over inflated confidence in a particular area e.g. someone who has watched medical television programs and thinks they are competent to do surgery without having studied medicine!

Confidence is something many of us need to work on.  And it is essential to develop and strengthen your confidence if you want to successfully achieve your goals.

There is a great book I highly recommend you look at if your confidence could do with a boost... Unstoppable Confidence is full of easy to learn and apply techniques to develop and strengthen your confidence in all areas of your life.  It's a great book... and worth checking out. I bought it several months ago and wished I had come across it years ago!

Do you have problems with your confidence?  Is there a particular area you would like more confidence in??  Click on the comment link below and let me know... I've loved to hear from you!

Warmly

Jeanne

PS have you ever wondered why some people can achieve goals and others can't?  Have you ever wondered what the secrets are to achieving goals?  Would you like to know??  If so, check out my new e-course... "The Inside Secrets of How to Achieve Life Changing Goals... Revealed!" where you will learn what the secrets are and how to apply them to achieve your own Life Changing Goals!