Hypnosis Can Build Your Self-Esteem

Self-confidence is a point of view that is conditioned through experiences. When a person experiences success, that person will tend to expect to be successful. And that expectation will cause a feeling of confidence. For example: A man wants to be a boxer, so he gets a manager and a trainer. His manager will not put him into a competition until he has developed enough stamina and skill. And even then, the manager will only put him up against an opponent that he knows his fighter can crush. When his fighter beats the opponent, he is successful, and starts to gain a feeling of confidence in his proficiency. With each engagement, the manager puts his warrior up against an opponent who is only a little bit better of a opponent then the last, but not good enough to beat his man. By the end of the third fight, the young competitor 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 competitor continues to win, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to grow.

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 department fails, they tend to lose confidence, and begin to expect failure, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Having true self-confidence doesn't mean that individuals will be able to do everything. People, who have true self-confidence, usually have expectations that are attainable. Even when some of their expectations are not met, they continue to be positive and to accept themselves. People who are not self-confident, tend to depend excessively on the approval of others in order to feel self-esteem. They refrain from taking risks for fear of failure. They belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that they do receive.

On the other side of the coin, confident people are willing to risk the disapproval of others because they generally trust their own potential. Just because a person does not have confidence, it does not mean that he/she doesn't have abilities.

A lack of self-confidence is often the result of centering too strongly on the unreal expectancies of others, especially those of friends and parents. The power of peers can be more powerful than those of parents in shaping the feelings about one's self.

Assumptions That Continue to Influence Self-Confidence In response to external influences, people develop assumptions; some of these are helpful and some are not. Several assumptions that can interfere with self-confidence and better ways of thinking are:

ASSUMPTION:

It's important that I'm successful at everything. This assumption is unrealistic. In life, everyone has his/her strengths and weaknesses. While it's important to do the best that you can, it's more important to learn to accept the self as being human, and fallible. Feel good about what you are good at, and accept the fact that no person knows everything nor are they an expert at everything.

ASSUMPTION:

I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this is unrealistic. All human beings are fallible. It's better to develop personal standards and values that are not completely dependent on the approval of others.

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 when you were a very young child, as you grow older, you can gain insight and a new slant 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 you can do. And grant yourself credit for every new experience that you are willing to attempt. Take risks. Adopt the frame of mind of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I learn what does not work, and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can try some other action.

Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as an opportunity to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting yourself to be perfect, 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 lack confidence in. But see yourself behaving as a person who has tremendous self-confidence would.

There are powerful Hypnosis and NLP approaches that are effective and will create a tremendous amount of self-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 are lacking confidence!

Self-Evaluate: Learn to evaluate yourself as an individual. Bypass the habitual sense of chaos that comes from relying on what others think.

Alan B. Densky, CH is a certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner. His ecommerce site offers hypnosis CD's for self-confidence. His Personal-Development.info in England. Visit him for Free self hypnosis & NLP newsletters and MP3s.