BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Body Image Can you learn confidence?

I think I've become a little more confident as I get older and do more things. But every so often I'll meet someone - male or female - and get all flustered because they're SO self-confident. They're not arrogant or egocentric, just quietly confident.

As I wrote this article, Be A Confident Woman http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art9535.asp -- I wondered if you can pretend to be confident, and actually become more confident?

I think it goes back to that old saying " act as if" that is if you act as if you already have it already you will get it.
It also involves your feelings in this, if you just think you are confident then you will never get confident, but if you have the emotion their the feeling (just like you are acting as if ) then you will become it. feelings and thoughts go hand in hand, you can not have one without the other. The people that are confident feel and think it.. You can fake it, and eventually you will become it.

I'm learning that any life goal can be achieved by simply changing your thoughts!

For instance, my husband often says, "When your third book is published, we'll buy a boat" or we'll do this, or that -- I don't have any books even written yet, it's my dream to get published! So I was annoyed when he said that, because it's all just talk.

But now I'm starting to believe! Now when he says that, I feel boosted and encouraged. And (coincidentally?) a publisher has made contact, and I'm up for an interview for a writing gig. woo hoo

So I think you have something there, about feeling "as if" and the real thing comes...it sure does help to have support, too.

Can anyone out there relate?

I agree with you.

This is a good question. I myself have almost no self confidence. I have tried to fake it but it never helped me in any way and it never worked either. I know this is not something like talent which you could not get when you do not have any so maybe confidence can be learned or found some way.

Often when working with my teenage clients, I explain that not everyone who looks confident, feels confident, that often the person they see in front of them who they perceive as an unconfident person maybe 'acting'.
Teenagers are so surprised by this idea, it doesn't enter their consciousness that confidence has to be gained through working hard at our life skills.
Many teenagers I work with think that people are born confident or unconfident. Once we have stripped away the faulty thinking, replacing thought patterns with new ideas we can then begin the process of thinking through how to act with confidence.
Confidence is a life goal that has to be gained through practice. I explain that we have to think, feel and act in a confident manner. I also explain that confidence can be gained by knowing our subject, in other words get to know ourselves, how we tick, what makes us unique.

I became more confident using positive affirmations. I wrote positive messages to myself every day for a year, posted them on the fridge and bathroom mirror and repeated them every time I saw them. I don't think I pretended to become more confident but actually did become more confident.

Positive affirmations are a good method to use in changing our mind-set. I think sometimes people have to pretend (to begin with)just to get a feel of how it is to be confident. Eventually the pretence becomes a reality.
For some people especially the young people I counsel their self belief is so low that building confidence and self esteem is a long slow process.Confidence is a thinking, feeling, behaving process which comes easier to some than others.

Elaine, it's so true that adolescents--even adults--tend to mask their insecurities by "overcompensating" with megalomaniac behavior.

Yet, there is truth in that our subconscious minds will adapt/adopt beliefs about ourselves based upon what it hears from the conscious mind which is why affirmations influence our beliefs.

As for "becoming" more confident, it is absolutely possible. No baby is born with confidence as confidence is a feeling gained from experiences that show him he can trust his own abilities. No matter how much love and support I give my daughter, for example, the only way she'll gain confidence is by experiencing positive results from her own actions.

We can tell ourselves that we are confident but then our actions must back up our claims in order for us to truly become confident. When we tell ourselves that we are confident, we will behave confidently and then hopefully, we'll get the feedback from experiences to solidify those claims. We usually do.

Do you remember the Little Engine That Could? "I think I can, I think I can...I knew I could, I knew I could."

Do something that will make you feel confident about yourself. Laurie, how will you feel when you publish your first book? Pretty darned confident!