Self confidence is an emotional and mental state of mind which responds to our need for self-acceptance and recognition. It's among the oldest and most studied concepts in psychology. It is used to describe a good albeit adequate perception of oneself and one's abilities. Hence, self-confident persons generally have a better knowledge of what they are able to achieve and are more likely to be successful in what they attempt. They are also more likely to accept and learn from their mistakes.



Contrarily, a lack of confidence may deter you from trusting that your actions or decisions will ultimately turn out the way you had planned. It can thus hamper the buildup of executive skills, planning and managerial abilities all of which are basic and mandatory skills in today's business world. The pre-occupation with other people's judgment of your work might also cause you to become too self-critical, which will distract you from things you would have otherwise been totally able to do.

Low self confidence will also have an impact your social life, because people with a low level of self confidence tend to stay in their "comfort zone" and dread the risk of rejection. This is called social phobia and presents a high level of co-morbidity with low self confidence, but also other mental conditions such as depression. People with low self confidence are afraid of being judged by their peers and will avoid talking to new people, which can result in isolation and even lower self confidence. Low self confidence is a vicious circle that is hard to break.

On the other hand, because they believe in their own aptitudes, self-confident persons are able to do what they feel is right and don't expect the approval of their peers. They also trigger confidence: your boss, employees, customers, friends or relatives are more likely to trust you or what you are telling them when you appear self-confident.

Different experiences can contribute to low self confidence. New research indicates that parenting style has a major impact on the development of the self confidence of children. Bodily and emotional abuses during childhood are for example the worse for a person's self confidence, as well as divorce and family conflicts. Overprotective parents may also be a reason for a child's social phobia and hamper the independence that is necessary to develop self confidence. Successes and failures, for example at school or in one's professional life, also play a significant role: losing a job or failing a class are among the several experiences that will have a negative impact your self confidence.

There are nonetheless methods to overcome such bad experiences and gain self confidence. The first step to build self confidence would be to learn to know who you are and what your strengths are. Recognizing that you are allowed not to be perfect and cannot be the best in all that you do will help you gain self confidence. Accepting yourself as you are is the key to building self confidence. But improving self confidence also requires that you start taking risks and giving yourself credit for your accomplishments. This is very simple advice which will help you develop self confidence. You may also find many books which will claim they can help you gain self confidence, however not all of them are reliable.

A lot people suffer from low self confidence or are only able to gain self confidence in one or a few areas of their lives because they constantly look for other people's approval and are afraid that they could fail. A lot of factors, like childhood traumas, can explain why some people cannot enjoy the wholesome life a self confident individual could have. These persons also do not always know how to gain self confidence. However gaining self confidence can now readily and effectively be done with hypnosis and NLP.

As we have seen before low self confidence and social phobia can be caused by bad experiences or unconscious fears which are sometimes hard to overcome with self persuasion only. Confidence hypnosis and NLP on the contrary are able to get to the unconscious part of our brain and change belief systems to boost self confidence. They are effective tools that will help you face your fears and believe in yourself to develop self confidence.

Hypnosis for building confidence has been in use for a few decades and has shown significant results in building self confidence. In a hypnotic state, reaching unconscious thoughts is a lot easier and, through hypnotic suggestion, it is possible to replace your negative thought patterns with positive ones to boost self-confidence.