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Self confidence is so important. It could be the difference between getting a new job or having a successful relationship. A lack of self confidence could stop you from grabbing opportunities or feeling like your worth knowing as a friend. […]

The post 10 Tips For Improving Self-Confidence appeared first on NotSalmon.

Indubitably, we humans are social beings, with a long history of living in bands, tribes, villages, town and cities with other people, and with a variety of social needs. But as we live and move through the social world, our priorities can change. I would even say that we evolve socially.

Studying human nature and coaching people in improving their social confidence and social skills, I came to believe that there are 3 levels of growth for us as social beings. Not all people go through all of them; in fact few people do. But ideally, one should climb all these steps, as each step upward entails social and psychological maturation for the individual, and access to a more fulfilling life.

Here are the 3 levels of growth as a social being, from the lowest to the highest:

1. Seeking Approval and Acceptance

Wanting the approval and acceptance of others is a normal human trait. Nearly all psychologists recognize it as such. Psychologist Abraham Maslow put it in the middle of his famous hierarchy of needs, higher than the need for food and shelter, but lower than the need for self-actualization.

Unfortunately, for many people, the desire for approval becomes an all encompassing need in life. They get stuck at this level, and living life here is not very nice. Almost everything they do is to please others and avoid their disapproval. They feel anxious in social settings, they can’t allow themselves to be genuine, and social interactions are a chore for them.

The solution to move past this level consists in improving their self-image and their social confidence, which will get them to care less about approval, and graduate to the next level.

If you wanna learn how to improve your social confidence and self-image effectively, I highly recommend you check out this instructional video I created, in which I’ll show you my tried, tested and proven method.

2. Seeking Authentic Relationships

Once you’ve learned to care less what others think of you, you move to another level, where the priority becomes having authentic relationships with other people. At this stage, you’re mainly interested in finding people you can naturally connect with. Because you know such connections create the most lasting and fulfilling relationships.

In social situations, you don’t fret too much about approval. Instead, you allow yourself to be yourself (although basic social rules and etiquette still apply), you’re spontaneous and you express your opinions honestly. You seek to genuinely get to know others as well, so you can find natural matches.

It’s a good level to be at. But there is one even higher.

3. Seeking Social Impact

At this level, you’re happy to have authentic relationships, but you want something more. A desire to have an impact on the world, to make your contribution, begins to emerge and to flourish. And in order to have a meaningful impact on the world, you generally need to have a meaningful impact on other people.

Thus, at this stage, you care about helping and supporting others. But you’re also concerned with engaging people in crucial conversations and changing their views, in getting them to join various causes, in motivating them to take action. Persuasion and influence become key interests for you.

An ever higher degree of social confidence is required to graduate to this level. Because in order to have a real social impact, you need to speak up, to stand up for what you believe, to be willing to disagree, to be persistent and to not avoid constructive conflicts. So again, for help with this, I invite you to check out my presentation on the steps for improving your social confidence.

Also at this level, it’s not about you anymore. It’s about you, others and the world. You’re seeing the bigger picture clearer than ever. This is something that tends to happen naturally once the need for authentic, rewarding relationships at the previous stage have been fulfilled, and as your confidence that you can do something in this world goes up.

When you’re at the first level you are operating from a position of deficit. They’re kind of in a whole. At the second level, you’ve dug yourself out of that whole, and you’re actually trying to raise something stable above ground. At the third level, you’re building your own Eiffel Tower.

I’ve had the privilege of coaching and seeing many people go through these three stages. It’s a very fulfilling experience for them to grow like that, and for me to be able to offer my support. Growth is the one constant that should exist in every person’s life, and when it comes to growth as a social being, as you can see, your attitude and confidence make the biggest difference. With these tools, you can be on your journey.

For more advice from me on improving your confidence and your social success, please join my free newsletter right now.

Self-confidence is the faith in the capabilities in carrying out the ambition. Generally, this self-confidence is boosted with your familiarity with diverse actions. The indispensable role of any person is the self-confidence.  A person with sufficient self-confidence will absolutely attain the personal and proficient goals. If there is an adequate self-confidence then there will be […]

The post Steps to Become Self-confident! appeared first on Self Help Zone.

This blog has many tips on how to build self confidence. I wrote a post 20 ways to build self confidence some time back. I now find there is even a video based on an article I discussed in that post!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLAogkva-Ok?rel=0]

My main criticism remains – walking faster and sitting in the front row are rather weird suggestions and hardly likely to have the desired effect.  If you lack self confidence you will feel very self conscious sitting in the front and feel worse.  There is no guarantee you will eventually get over that and feel more confident.

Feeling the fear and doing it anyway – as in Susan Jeffers book title – doesn’t work for everyone.  If you go along this route its about coming to terms that we have learnt to feel fear and associate it with that activity.  And, unless you are short sighted or hard of hearing, what actually do you achieve by sitting in the front?

Gratitude builds self confidence

Ironically the video misses the best tip in the original article – having gratitude:-

When you focus too much on what you want, the mind creates reasons why you can’t have it. This leads you to dwell on your weaknesses. The best way to avoid this is consciously focusing on gratitude. Set aside time each day to mentally list everything you have to be grateful for. Recall your past successes, unique skills, loving relationships, and positive momentum.

gratitude for having family

This is something I do everyday in a form of journalling.  The first step I take is to reflect upon what I have to be grateful for. This can vary from family and friends to aspects of the environment around me – the sea, forest, the crazy weather we have (can’t remember who said it, but “never judge the day by the weather…”).

This list doesn’t have to be big things, and it certainly doesn’t have to be unique.  You’ll end it constantly repeating things like your good health and the men, women and children in your life.  But don’t forget the little stuff or more obscure  – being able to hear the birds sing, being able to walk/see/taste/smell,  living in a country where I can voice my opinion/vote, watching a comedy show on TV last night.

Even the things we moan about,  such as expensive car bills, can be turned into gratitude – at least you can afford a car. Reminds me of a favourite quote:-

I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.

When researching my recent post build self confidence, I came across other articles and blogs on this theme. But as I discussed in my post, some of the tips and steps suggested elsewhere are somewhat dubious.

With a title 7 Smart Ways to Build Self Confidence, I thought Mohamed Tohami in Lost-Media.net may buck the trend.  Well, the result is very mixed. Here are his “smart ways”:-

Building self confidence? dadjanda (Flickr.com)

1 Travel

2. Walk on Fire

3. Express yourself

4. Join a Toastmasters Chapter

5. Learn one new skill every year (at least)

6. Break a Record!

7. Study Self Confidence.

I think the last item is somewhat ironic as by studying self confidence you will have to wade through a swamp of contradictory advice! You’ll most likely end up confused rather than more confident.

Skills to Build Self Confidence

As ever, amongst the bizarre ideas – fire walking, camping in the desert! – comes an odd gem. Building skills is often overlooked. However, as a foundation for great self confidence there is nothing better.

We tend to forget we have many skills. As a child we learn to walk and talk. We start to dress ourselves and communicate more meaningfully. Once we start school it becomes an uphill slog – as soon as we learn to write we have to start sitting tests and exams. I have three daughters in their early twenties who seem to have been doing nothing but exams for as long as I can remember!

But we learn skills. Unfortunately we seldom give ourselves credit for what we can do. As part of my reflection in my daily journal, I reinforce to myself how skilled and how wonderful I am. No one but me reads this, so I can (and should) be as boastful as I like. With low self esteem and/or self confidence there is a tendency to downplay our achievements – so make them shine here.

Learn New Skills

I think Mohamed has an excellent point with his “point 5”, learning a new skill. he says:-

Increase your skill set regularly. Every year you should at least have acquired a new skill. With a powerful skill-set under your belt, you will be confident in your ability to get things done. You’ll have more experience and you’ll gain more confidence in your ability to deal with different life situations.

For the past three months I have been learning mindfulness – which is in itself a skill which can help self confidence. If you are interested I can strongly recommend the site I have been using to learn from Get Some Headspace.  You can try it out for ten sessions for free. I will write more about mindfulness in a later post.

Social success has a lot to do with attaining and maintaining a position of power within a group, from which you can exert a large amount of influence. But not all power is created equal. When talking about this topic, I find it useful to make on crucial distinction: the one between formal and informal power.

Formal and Informal Power: Definitions

Formal power comes from the official position one holds within an organization or social structure. It is properly recognized by some type of written contract or official agreement, and regulated by a strict set of rules that everyone in the organization or social structure knows and must obey.

Formal forms of power exist in politics, business, religion, but also in social structures like a sports team or a student’s club. The manager of a company has formal power. So does the captain of a football team. This type of power changes as one’s official position within a structure changes, which is why many people compulsively seek to better their position.

Informal power comes, not from an official position, but from the respect and appreciation one has earned from the members of a group. This respect and appreciation allow the individual to influence his or her peers in a way that others within the group cannot.

Informal power comes from a person’s internal qualities. An employee may gain informal power in his department by being known as very competent and skilled in what he does. A person may gain informal power by having integrity and being trustworthy. And another person may gain informal power by being likable and charismatic.

The Power of Informal Power

Making the distinction between the two kinds of power is essential. Because many people simply aren’t aware of the existence or influence of informal power, and they blindly compete with others for the limited amount of positions that provide formal power. They wanna be managers, and leaders, and bosses, and CEOs. However, informal power is not only real, but it can often be much more valuable than formal power.

Here’s an example I’ve seen transpire many times while coaching clients within companies and corporations.

There is a manager of a department of a company, and he has formal power in that department, stipulated by his job description. In the same department, there is also a guy who is a simple employee, but who is known to be very skilled at his job. Everyone goes to him for advice, and he is eager to help. He is friendly and likable, he encourages others, and he knows everyone by name, while the manager doesn’t bother with such ‘details’ and acts more like a dictator than a manager.

In such a situation, the manager has formal power, but this employee has a lot of informal power. So much informal power, in fact, that it may be worth more than the formal power of the manager. For instance, this employee may have such good relationships with his colleagues, that if he leaves to another company, half of them would follow him. And his manager knows this. Such influence is no small thing, and a smart manager would make sure that such an employee is treated well, because otherwise he might do some real damage.

It’s just one type of situation, but informal power can trump formal power in many ways, in all kind of organizations and social structures.

Leveraging the Two Types of Power

So, while formal power is good and not something to ignore, after this analysis I hope it is clear that many times, informal power is even more desirable.

Ideally, you wanna have both forms of power within a structure. Also, achieving informal power first is often a great way to then acquire formal power as well. But even if you can’t acquire formal power due to heavy competition and political games, you may be better off by acquiring informal power anyway.

How do you attain informal power? It takes three key ingredients, to which I’ve already alluded above:

1) Competence. There is no doubt that people respect competence, especially in a field relevant to them. Members of a debate club respect good debaters; members of a sales team respect good salespeople. So getting good at what you do within an organization or social structure is a great way to earn respect, and thus informal power.

2) Character. Great leadership books and courses regularly talk about the value of character. But its role is much more important in acquiring informal power than formal one, because, like competence, in triggers respect, as well as trust. Being honest, having integrity, being fair, having confidence, being resolute, this kind of character traits will get you far within any group.

3) Social Skills. Your social skills play perhaps the most important role. You wanna be able to engage people in interesting conversations, be witty and funny, and make them enjoy your presence. If they like you, they are much more eager to follow your lead. You also wanna be able to speak in a way that persuades, inspires and motivates people, which directly gives you more informal power over them.

Fortunately, you can cultivate these 3 traits and use them to gain informal power incrementally. Each day you can put in some work, and each day you can see your informal influence rise.

For top practical resources to help you develop your character and social skills, first I recommend you check out this video presentation I created, in which I’ll share with you some top-notch techniques for boosting your social confidence and social skills, based on my 8+years of experience as a confidence and communication coach.

Also, join my free social success newsletter, to get regular advice from me on improving your social competence, career and social life. I’m certain you’ll learn a lot from it.