Self-Hypnosis & NLP Can Create Self-Confidence

A social phobia is a fear of interacting with others on a social level. Examples would be imagining others are looking at you while waiting in line at a checkout, talking in front of other people, or even fear of talking on the phone.

Self-confidence is a demeanor, which allows individuals to have confident, yet realistic views of themselves and their predicament. Self-confident people trust their own capability, have a general sense of control over their lives, and have confidence that, within reason, they will be able to do what they need and want to do.

Confidence is a posture that is learned through experiences. When a person experiences success, that person will tend to expect success. And that expectation will cause a feeling of self-confidence.

As an example: A young man wants to be a prizefighter, so he gets a manager and a trainer. His manager will not arrange a bout for him until he has built up proficient fighting skills. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a competitor that he knows his fighter can crush. When his fighter beats the opponent, he is successful, and starts to gain confidence in his capabilities.

With each fight, the manager puts his warrior up against an adversary who is a slightly better contender then the last, but not good enough to beat his fighter. By the end of the third fight, the young warrior begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to grow. This series of events continues to repeat itself. And as long as the fighter champion is victorious, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to bloom.

As another example: A young lady who is fearful of high places wants to learn to dive into a swimming pool from a high diving board. So she finds a diving coach. He asks her to jump into the pool from the first rung of the ladder that is going up to the high board. The first rung of the ladder isn't awfully high, so the young lady feels totally confident, and she jumps from that rung, and lands safely in the water.

Next, the teacher has her dive from the second step of the ladder, and so forth. I guess that you get the idea. With each further step she takes as she climbs up the ladder, since the girl was able to jump without fear, and this next higher step is only slightly higher then the last, the fear of being hurt factor is negligible, and the girl expects to be successful. When she dives in and is unharmed, the girl's self-confidence increases, and her expectation of success on the next rung up the ladder increases.

If a person who has a long history of success and feelings of self-confidence does fail, they still tend to expect success the next time out. Conversely, when a person who is weak in the self-confidence arena fails, they tend to lose confidence, and expect failure, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Having self-confidence doesn't mean that individuals will be successful at everything. People, who have true self-confidence, usually have expectations that are sensible. Even when some of their expectations are not met, they continue to be decisive and to accept themselves.

People, who are not self-confident, tend to lean disproportionately on the approval of others in order to feel self-esteem. They avoid risks because of the fear of failure. They often put themselves down and tend to discount compliments that are made about them.

Conversely, self-assured people are willing take a chance on disappointing others because they generally count on their own competence. They tend to acknowledge themselves; and they do not feel that they have to conform in order to be accepted.

Just because one feels self-esteem in one or more parts of their life, doesn't mean that they will feel self-assured in every arena of their life. For example, a person might feel self-confident about their mathematical talents, but not feel confident where members of the opposite sex are involved, such as in a dating situation, or social relationships.

How Is Self-Esteem Initially developed?

Many powerful phenomena have an affect on the growth of self-esteem. Parents' attitudes are basic to the way children view themselves, particularly when they are very young. When parents provide appreciation, children receive a good basis for self-esteem. If one or both parents are excessively critical, or if they are overprotective and discourage moves toward independence, children may start to believe they are incapable, inadequate, or inferior.

However, if parents encourage a child's moves toward self-reliance, and they are not overly critical when the child makes mistakes, the child will learn to accept herself, and will be on the way to developing self-confidence.

A person can have plenty of abilities, but still lack confidence. A lack of self-esteem is often the result of centering completely on the unreal expectancy of other people in the main parents and friends. The affect of peers can be more effective and powerful than that of parents in shaping the feelings about one's self.

Assumptions That Continue to Affect Confidence

In response to external influences, people create beliefs. Some of these are helpful and some are not helpful. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and positive ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION: It's imperative that I am successful at every challenge I undertake. This assumption is a totally unrealistic assumption. In real life each person has their strengths, and their weaknesses. While it's important to do the best that one can, it's more important to learn to accept the self as being human, and liable to error. Let yourself feel good about what you are good at, and accept the fact that you don't know everything and you don't need to be an expert at everything.

ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this assumption is a totally unrealistic assumption. All human beings are not perfect. It's preferable to develop standards that are not very dependent on the approval of other people.

ASSUMPTION: Everything that happened to me in the past remains in control of my feelings and behaviors in the present.

ALTERNATIVE: While it is true that your confidence was especially influenced by external influences during your childhood as you gain maturity awareness and point of view on what those influences have been. In doing so, you can choose which influences you will continue to allow to have an effect on your life. You don't have to be helpless in the face of past events

HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

Emphasize Your Strengths. Bestow upon yourself credit for everything that you can do. And bestow upon yourself recognition for every new experience you are willing to test.

Take risks. Adopt the point of view of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I find out what does not work and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can undertake some other action.

Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as a technique to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting perfection, remind yourself that it's impossible to be an expert at everything, and that it's only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself as you are working towards improvement.

Make mental movies: Visualize yourself in the various scenarios that you currently have low levels of self-confidence in. But see yourself behaving like a person who has tremendous confidence would. There are many powerful Hypnosis and NLP processes that can instill a monumental amount of confidence from within your subconscious mind. There are even NLP techniques that will let you take confidence that you do have in areas of your life, and then transplant that confidence to areas of your life that require more confidence!

Self-Evaluate: Learn to judge yourself as an individual human. Bypass the frequent sense of bewilderment that comes from relying on what others think.

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A social phobia is the fear of talking in front of people. Self-confidence is a posture that can be instilled utilizing NLP and hypnosis, which can help to do away with that irrational fear. This article delves into how this process can work for you as an individual.

Alan B. Densky, CH. has been a certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner since 1978. His website offers Ericksonian Hypnosis CD's that will build up a sizable amount of self-confidence from within your unconscious mind. His Self-confidence CD's were recently tested and reviewed at Personal-Development.info in England.

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