Imagine being confident? Imagine what would happen if you were so confident that you could walk into a room, feeling totally secure in yourself. You could talk to anyone, anywhere. You were unruffled, relaxed and comfortable. When you read that paragraph, most likely you formed some kind of experience in your mind. This could have been either a mental picture of the experience. It could have been the sounds associated with the experience. Or it could have just been feelings associated with the experience.

We tend to dismiss people who daydream as living in a fantasy world. We think that their daydreaming is just a waste of time and has no impact on the real world. But the fact is, daydreaming can be a very valuable tool in developing your skills. For the mind uses mental images and feelings to prepare for real situations. In extreme cases, it can be difficult for the mind to distinguish between a real situation and an imagined one. You may find this hard to believe, but think about it.

You could be in the safety of your home. You could be sitting on your sofa. And if you suddenly thought of a traumatic event that was upsetting, you would immediately notice your heart rate increasing and your breathing becoming shallow. Some people can get very distressed thinking about an event, even if it was in the past. The mind is reminded of the situation and has a resultant response to it, even though you are currently safe.

We can use this response to our benefit. Olympic athletes do it. You can too. By picturing yourself as confident in different situations you are creating the feelings in your mind. This is an extension of the “fake it till you make it” strategy. If you can continue to feed your mind positive empowering images of your desired behaviour, you can influence your own actions.

So, next time you catch yourself daydreaming, don’t be so hard on yourself. If you can harness this power, you can gain confidence and make incredible improvements.

Have you ever seen a baby try and walk? Babies who are trying to walk, try to do it over many weeks and months. They make a small effort, usually fail and then try again. It is only after many efforts that they eventually master the skill.

What does that have to do with confidence?

It seems to me that even though we see all around us, that anyone that developed a difficult skill took a long time to do it, we somehow kid ourselves into thinking that we can achieve a new skill overnight. We expect to learn a language in a few hours even though you took months and years to learn your own language. Part of it is advertising that promises quick results. Part of it is we have become a society obsessed with speed. But the fact is, you can’t make big changes overnight. Sorry, but it’s just not possible.

So when I see people who expect to be transformed overnight from unconfident to confident, I have to give them a dose of reality. It ain’t gonna happen! If you are serious about developing your confidence, you are going to have to accept the reality. It won’t happen immediately. You have to be patient. You have to apply yourself every day and have a firm plan for action. If you don’t do this, you will never succeed.

Remember, patience is the key. As they say, a desire for instant results can be the cause of a lifetime of failure. Don’t expect results too soon. If you are getting a little better every day, not only are you guaranteed to get there in the end, but the skills you develop will be much more stable and secure. You will have earned the achievement.

Resolve today to apply yourself every day to becoming confident. It’s only with a commitment to day by day improvement that you will get to your goal of being an impressive socially confident individual.

One of the ways that we judge our abilities or our performance in life is by comparing ourselves to others. This seems to make sense, since it would be a good indicator of how we are doing. “Am I earning enough? Let me look at my friends. They seem to be earning less than me, so I must be doing ok. No wait, they are all earning more than me. I must be doing terribly.” His kind of comparison is of course the root of the “Keeping up with the Joneses” phenomenon.

But it is also the root of much low confidence. Why?

When we compare ourselves to others, we are almost never in a position to do it properly. We almost never have all the information. And our perception of them is almost always colored by our own beliefs.

An example would be comparing yourself to a friend who appears to be making more money than you. He lives in a big house and drives a fast car. Lucky guy! Don’t you just feel absolutely awful about yourself when you compare yourself to him? But let’s take a closer look. Let’s take a look at some of the information that you may not have had access to when you made an interpretation about how he is doing compared to you.

Firstly, he is up to his eyeballs in debt. He doesn’t own either the car or the house. He has massive loan repayments that he sometimes struggles to make.

Secondly, he has a terrible relationship with his wife and children. He hates coming home at night, because things are so bad.

Thirdly, he actually feels jealous of you, because he thinks you have a great lifestyle.

Fourthly, even if he had 400 fancy cars, that actually has no physical effect on you, your lifestyle or your ability to be happy. When you take a step back you realize that it’s all in your interpretation of what his success means to you.

When we compare ourselves to others we almost never do it from an objective point of view. We never have the information to make a proper comparison. And it hides the fact that comparison does not actually give a proper measure of your success. You could be comparing to the wrong people!

It’s an interesting fact of life, that most of us are very bad at picking who’s confident and who’s not.

It’s almost a good rule of thumb to acknowledge that most people are actually not confident. Most people could do with increasing their confidence.

The thing that confuses us, is that many people who appear confident are actually not. It’s because we tend to forget that true confidence arises when you are broadly confident over a wide range of domains. So someone who is confident at work, in social situations, even in unfamiliar environments is truly confident.

On the other hand, someone who is only confident in one area of life, but not confident in any other areas is actually not confident.

An example would be someone who is an incredibly confident doctor. They are very good at diagnosing and treating patients. People come from all around to see this particular doctor. She knows she’s a very good doctor and she knows that she has incredible skills. She is very confident that she knows what she is doing in a professional sense.

But when you put her in a room full of people at a party, she is a completely different person. In this environment all her confidence saps away. She is nervous and uncomfortable. She can’t look anyone in the eye. She can’t bear talking to people.

If you had only seen this doctor in a work setting, you would have imagined that she is one of the most confident people you have met. If you had only seen her in a social setting, however, you would have realised that she is not very confident at all.

Her confidence in her work setting simply comes from hard work, study, practice and experience. It is not the form of confidence that can be applied in other situations.

If you want to be truly confident, you need to be able to have firm self-belief in yourself that crosses over from familiar well practiced situations to unknown, unfamiliar situations. This is not common, but it is definitely learnable.

One of the best foundations of confidence is a full and honest knowledge of your strengths.

From when we are young, we get told it’s bad to be “proud” of your achievements. We should be modest and humble. We shouldn’t show off. This is all great advice, but many of us take it so seriously, that we stop acknowledging that we have any strengths. Many of us, so beaten down by the waves of life, stop believing that we even have any strengths.

Of course, if you are one of those people who think that you don’t have any strengths, I’m sorry, but you are so very wrong. The problem is you’ve gotten so used to ignoring your strengths that you’ve forgotten them.
One of the most useful exercises to do is to write down a list of your strengths. But I don’t want a list of 2 or 3 strengths. That’s not nearly enough. I want 50 strengths. I can already hear you recoiling in horror. How can you possibly find 50 strengths? Well, the funny thing is that once you start looking for something, there is a tendency to find it.

Have you ever decided to buy a car and picked a certain color, for example, red. After you leave the car showroom, you will suddenly start noticing red cars everywhere. Once you start looking for something, you will find it. Once you start looking for strengths, you will find them. Sure, a few might be a bit of a struggle and might seem a bit trivial (e.g. “I can tie my own shoelaces”) but that’s ok. Once you get to the 50, you’ll look at the list and see some real gems. Strengths that you hadn’t even thought about.

But we’re not finished yet. Our idea of what our strengths are is always going to be distorted. To get a better picture of your strengths you need to get an objective opinion. To do this, ask 4 or 5 people to tell you some of your strengths. If they ask you why you’re asking them this, come up with some plausible excuse (e.g. “it’s part of my quarterly evaluation”).

You will be amazed at what some of your friends will tell you are your strengths. There will be things that you didn’t even realize were strengths. Things that you had taken for granted. It’ll be a real eye-opener. And you can even be nice, and tell them their strengths too.

Remember, even if you don’t acknowledge them, you do have strengths. You are stronger than you imagine. Honor your strengths, remember them and use them every day.

Do you have something that you’d really like to do but your fear of what others will say stops you from doing it? If so, you’re not alone. Many people will stop themselves from pursuing new opportunities or chasing their dreams because of the fear of what friends, family or colleagues will say.

Guess what? Success attracts criticism.

Successful people must be confident enough to weather criticism. They must be strong enough to believe that what they are doing is right and good for them. Without confidence, success is difficult, since there will always be people ready to tell you that what you’re doing is “impossible”.

One good things to remember when you are criticized is:

Criticism is common and over-rated. By doing anything that causes change (including becoming successful or chasing a dream), you will attract criticism mainly from people who fear that your success or aspirations will make them look bad. Don’t let this stop you from doing what you need to do.

As Jean Sebelis said “Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.”

The real antidote to criticism is a strong self-confidence. Build yours up and you will be able to face down the harshest of critics!

It’s interesting, but most people don’t know what they want. They say vague things like “I want more money” or “I want a job that doesn’t suck”. But that’s not the same as knowing what you want.

Knowing what you want means that you know exactly what you are aiming for. If you want more money, you know exactly how much money you are aiming for. If you want a better job, you know exactly what kind of job would make you happy.

Don’t worry if you don’t know immediately what exactly you want. The point is, that should be your aim. To get absolute clarity about what you want. Always be thinking about what you want. Don’t waste time thinking about what you don’t want.

Confident people know exactly what they want in life.And when you know what you want, you make it much easier to get it!

Remember, developing your confidence doesn’t happen by accident. You need to focus on it every day.

So it’s that time of year when people decide to make resolutions. Stop smoking, lose weight, improve confidence.

It’s already January 6 and for most people their resolutions are already a distant memory.

If you thought that you would make 2010 a great year by improving your confidence then I commend you. Confidence is the foundation upon which all achievement takes place.

But I would urge you to take the setting of the goal as seriously as the goal itself. If you want to achieve your goal of becoming more confident, you need to plan things properly and make sure that you keep progressing.

Making changes to yourself is exciting stuff. But don’t fall into the trap of expecting overnight results. The best way to make sure you achieve your goal is to make small changes every day. As long as each day you are progressing towards your goal, you will eventually get there.

Think about how you learnt to walk, talk or drive. You didn’t decide on New Years Eve that you would suddenly drive, and then the next day you were speeding down the freeway. Anything worthwhile requires a bit of effort and time. If you can master driving, I’m more than confident that you can master confidence. You just need the right teacher and the right system (and of course the commitment to learn).

I don’t want to keep telling you about how incredible the 30 Day Confidence Builder Program is, but the point is it is a system. Unlike other confidence books you might buy in a bookstore, I have designed the program to be easy to follow. You basically get guided through 30 days with knowledge and practical exercises towards greater confidence. As long as you are serious about becoming more confident, all you need to do is follow the simple, easy, quick program and you will notice your confidence skyrocketing.

Imagine looking back at this year on December 31st and seeing how much more confident you are. Think of all the things you would have done with that new confidence. The new job, the new partner, the exciting experiences that only open up to confident people. It’s all within your grasp. Will you take the opportunity for 2010?

Do you feel anxious when you walk into a crowded room of strangers? Most people do.

When you walk into a challenging social situation like that, what is going through your mind? If you’re like most people you will be totally focussed on what everyone is thinking of YOU.

“Everyone’s looking at me”

“Everyone can tell I’m nervous”

“Everyone can see I’m not talking to anyone”

The thing is, when you focus on yourself, all it does is make things worse. The fact is even if someone did notice you standing there alone, the thoughts that are going through their mind all relate back to them.

“That person is standing alone. She’s looking at me. She can see that I’m standing alone. I bet she thinks I look nervous”

Most people can’t take the focus off themselves. It’s all about them.

But what if you took the focus off yourself? What if you stopped worrying about yourself and instead worried about others. What if you were more concerned about the person standing nervously alone next to the drinks table, than about your own nervousness? If you don’t know the answer to that question, let me tell you. As soon as you take the focus of yourself, you will feel MUCH less nervous.

Try it at your next social gathering. Focus on making other people feel less nervous. You’ll find it so much easier to socialize and the bonus is, it makes you much more likeable too!

Hi, Welcome to howtogainconfidence.net!

We spend a lot of time trying to improve ourselves. We work out at the gym, we take training courses, we read books. But have you ever thought about this? You could be the most skilled, talented and good looking person in the world but if you have no confidence in yourself then you are never going to succeed.

Confidence is crucial. It is the essential quality that everyone needs. A person who isn’t good looking, isn’t talented and has very little else going for them can run circles around others if they are confident in themselves.

• Confident people inspire others.

• Confident people are attractive.

• Confident people are likeable.

• Confident people take action while others stand around worried.

• Confident people live their life on their terms.

You may think that confidence is something you are born with and there’s not much that you can do about it. But this site is here to convince you that confidence is not out of the reach of anyone. It’s a learnable skill. You can be conditioned to feel confident. And once you feel confident, you can kiss goodbye to your old life, because things will never be the same again!

This site is made for people who want to live the life they think they were made to. You can only do that with confidence. And the fastest way to confidence is with my 30 Day Confidence Builder Program. It takes only 8 minutes a day!

Check out the 30 Day Confidence Builder Program (and thank me later!)

Doctor K