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NOTE: One of the most frequent questions I get is about what causes a low level of self-confidence and what can be done to improve it. To answer those questions I’ve posted an updated version of a post from early last year on this topic.
Most of us would like to improve our level of confidence.
But why?
- What is confidence anyway?
- Where does it come from? Why do some people have more of it than others?
- How can we improve our level of confidence?
- How does a low level of confidence affect us and what changes in our lives when we gain confidence?
As someone who has helped literally thousands of people build more confidence, I think I am qualified to answer these questions. (By the way, I had very little self-confidence for most of my life but now I consistently experience a high level of confidence.)
What is confidence?
Confidence actually exists on a continuum, ranging from a sense of victimization to a sense that we can handle whatever life throws at us. Some people are almost totally lacking in confidence and some feel confident that they can handle almost anything; most people are in-between. So the issue for most people is where they currently are on the continuum and how they can raise their level of confidence.
It is important to distinguish between confidence about being able to perform a specific task (such as fly a plane or speak a foreign language) and confidence in yourself. One might not be confident about being able to perform a specific task even though one has high level of self-confidence. Such a person knows that her inability to perform a specific task means nothing about her as a person.
Confidence is ultimately a function of the self-esteem beliefs we hold. For example, someone who believes I’m not good enough, I’m not capable, I’m powerless, I’m not worthy or deserving, etc. will likely have a low level of self-confidence. On the other hand, someone with the beliefs I am good enough, I am capable, I impact my reality, I’m worthy and deserving, etc. will likely have a high level of self-confidence.
In other words, your confidence in yourself as a person is the result of having positive beliefs about yourself.
How to improve your level of confidence
The way to gain confidence about specific abilities is to learn those skills and practice a lot. The way to improve our internal level of confidence that we apply to life in general is to eliminate our limiting beliefs. Every negative self-esteem-type belief we have lowers our internal level of self-confidence; every one we eliminate raises our internal level of self-confidence.
Once you understand that negative self-esteem beliefs lower your level of self-confidence and getting rid of them raises it, you will realize that the commonly-held notion that self-confidence comes from succeeding or failing at specific projects in life is a serious misunderstanding.
Even if you usually succeed at tasks as a kid, but your parents constantly tell you that you should have done better, you are likely to conclude, Nothing I do is good enough and other similar beliefs, which will lower your self-confidence. On the other hand, if you don’t succeed at tasks a lot of the time as a kid and your parents say things like: “That’s okay, no one gets it right the first time. If you keep practicing you will get better and better”—you are likely to conclude: If I keep trying I can do anything. That belief would raise your level of self-confidence. In other words, your level of self-confidence is a function of your beliefs—the meaning you give your results—not your actual results.
And if you create a bunch of positive self-esteem beliefs early in life, failures later on probably will be experienced as learning experiences or temporary set backs that have nothing to do with who you are as a person.
Some of the consequences of low self-confidenc
A low level of self-confidence can result in a host of other emotional problems, such as worrying about the opinions of others (we don’t have confidence in our own opinion), a critical “little voice” in our head that constantly criticizes almost anything we do (because nothing we do is really good enough), and stress (because we are constantly worried that what we are doing is just not good enough and we will fail.)
Low self-confidence also can result in self-defeating behavior. It can keep you from ever getting started. Or it can have you quit at the first sign of a problem. Or it can lead you to sabotage yourself when you get close to success because you feel you don’t really deserve to get what you want. Or if somehow you manage to get some of what you want, a low level of self-confidence will keep you from truly enjoying your success. The best illustration of this latter point is a study of large company CEOs done many years ago in which most of them admitted they were terrified that they would be “found out” and that everything they had achieved would be taken away from them. This fear is so common that it has been given a name: “The Imposter Syndrome.
How building confidence improves your life
Some of the benefits of increased self-confidence include: You’ll take more chances. You’ll stop procrastinating. You’ll do whatever you need to do to move your vision forward. You’ll finally start things you’ve always wanted to do and never got around to doing. It will make social activity easier. Talking to people and meeting new people will become easier and effortless. Failure and mistakes will no longer be dreaded. And you’ll do what you want without worrying about what others will think
Do you still have any questions about confidence? Is the difference clear between a lack of self-confidence and the inability to perform a specific task? Please leave your comments and questions below
If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.
If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to htp://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one negative belief free.
For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives including a lack of confidence, and get a separate video of the WAIR? Process, please check out: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence.
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copyright ©2010-11 Morty Lefkoe
I hope this superman. Will give super confident.
podcast at the bottom is static after the first few seconds.
Hi D,
Sorry to hear you are having a problem.
I just tried it using Firefox and it worked fine. There might be something wrong with your browser. Try using a different browser and see if that works.
Have a great weekend.
Love, Morty
I found this post to be particularly helpful. It’s a good distinction to make: not being good enough at a particular thing is not the same as generally not being good enough. If one feels good enough in general, they’re more likely to take the actions that will make them good enough at the particular thing that interests them.
Morty,
I’ve read in one of your articles that for kinesthetic people method is effective in 90% cases … I think i am kinesthetic (is it possible to be both? because sometimes i think i have seen the belief too, and it went away that way, but i always feel like i felt it! Am i a mix?)… and i think that what would make the process more effective for kinesthetic people if you showed us during the process that various possibilities would make us feel various ways – this way we would question our trust in our feelings. I assume problem with emotional kinesthetic people is that you can be “who you are” if you neglect your vision (blind people are still “whole” personalities) while neglecting what your emotions tell you means (generalized, if u neglected ALL your emotions!) that you lose your identity… so maybe even for e.k. people would work to start first with removing belief “my feelings are always reality / truth /i should trust my feelings always”, because when i do ur exercises it is really hard to detAch from something that is fundamental part of my personaliy – feeling… because even when i remove all limiting beliefs… i will have feelings who will judge situations, just like visual ppl will have sight but they can say “its my sigh its not me” and i cant (or can ;))
what do you think, Morty, it was just a blind guess (blind heh heh, maybe i should call it from now on “a nonvisual guess”)
p.s. I am so scared that this fairy tale ive been living in for the last 5 days since i discovered your method end, especially when i read about “only” 90%, i mean does it mean it works only for 90% kinestethic people or it works for about 90% beliefs for all kinesthetic people? i mean are there people for who it simply doesnt work?
for now i am in love with the results, but the fear is still hear
Love, Pepi
Hi Pepi,
Most people are both visual and emotionally kinesthetic. And some are predominantly one or the other.
Some people who are very emotionally kinesthetic sometimes find that some of the beleifs come back once or even twice. If you go through the Lefkoe Belief Process a couple more times, in almost every case the belief doesn’t come back any more.
People who are predominantly visual usually don’t have any beliefs come back.
If you have any additional questions, please let me know.
Love, Morty
I loved my parents but i now realise that as a child and even in my adult life they gave me some terrible, terrible advise. This was not deliberate of course. They were just advising me as best they knew how. They were victims too. For some reason nowadays people think it is the norm to struggle on through life and it is perfectly acceptable to do so. Why should it be?? I think Josie may of hit the nail on the head when she mentioned the industrial era. Maybe it stems from that.
Dear Morty,
if I can kindly ask you to write something on topic about sexual abuse. I was sexually abused and have many consequences, I wonder did you notice some common beliefs that SA victims have and others not as often. I mean, we all have the same but I guess the worse your history is the more you believe your beliefs… is the approach in your practice towards people with more ugly past much different than to others?
I am thinking of paying for a few hours with your staff.
Thanks!
Hi Pepi
Thanks for your interest in our work.
We have helped a number of people who have been sexually abused earlier in life and would be happy to help you get over this issue also.
Call us at (415) 506-4472 to get any specific questions answered and to sign up for a session with Shelly who is experienced in this area.
Love, Morty
Hi Morty, I too think this is an illuminating post. The distinction between the two types of confidence is incredibly helpful and explains things about myself and others that couldn’t otherwise be explained.
Thank you, Dyarl. I, too, am happy to be participating in this with you all as well. I just get so frustrated with this topic because of what socialization does, but as you rightfully mention and we all know, it is not true. Cheers!
Unfortunately, there is no one who we can blame for this belief of not being good enough to be successful. Or maybe I mean, thank God there is no one to blame. The reason that I say that is, when blame is assigned to someone or something outside of ourselves, we become victims, and victims see themselves as powerless to overcome their limitations. It is better to assign responsibility than blame, and I don’t mean responsibility as a judgement but as a commitment. In other words, I am committed to being 100% responsible for my own life from the beginning, all that it is and all that it is not. That is not to say that things didn’t happen to me or that people didn’t do hurtful things to me. They did. It is just that I accept the responsibility for how I interpreted these events, and how I interpret these things, even today.
Putting it plainly, low self esteem is a bad habit. We learned it when we were young and we practiced it and we believed others when they said it about us and we even did things to prove that it was true. But it isn’t the truth. It is just another interpretation about who we are, and most of the time the interpretation of a 5 year old.
We must re-learn to value ourselves. We must give ourselves grace and encourage others to do the same. In a neurological sense, we need to create new neuro-pathways in our brains through practice and repetition until we “feel” what is true about us, that we are all not just good enough… we are invaluable, we are precious. That is what is so great about doing this work, and I am happy to be participating in it with you all.
Yes, Justin. Indeed, parents don’t have total control. But the majority of society thinks that one cannot live life to the fullest and that being miserable is the norm! This is the problem I have. This is the root of it all. Where this mass belief comes from I would not know. Could it be a product of industrialization, during which people were for the first time forced into classrooms and one’s opinions were disseminated as such? It is only my guess. Where the heck do these counter-productive ideas come from?
Good responses guys!
I agree with Josie’s statement. I don’t teach my own kid to think that way but I don’t have total control.
Thank you for the post. It helped. It would be great if you could also post other facets of the topic like how a person can start building his/her levels of confidence and so on and so forth. But thank you for the post never the less. It was helpful :-)
Hi Natasha,
The way to start building your self-confidence is to eliminate the beliefs that decrease your self-confidence, one at a time.
Love, Morty
Dear Morty,
This post is written crystal clear. I get it. The distinction between task specific performance confidence and general confidence in yourself makes perfect sense. It’s actually crucial. It distinguishes the bozos from the grounded and self-actualized person who is aware that performance and one’s overall worth are unrelated. For some reason we connect the two. And the older we grow the more we fear learning new things. How suffocating that is. It’s liberating to realize that failure is part of learning and elementary to growth. Despite changing circumstances we can reach a state of constant high confidence. That’s where I want to be. I travel towards that place step by step everyday by challenging my own limiting assumptions about life. And you support this process with your insightful blog posts. Thank you.
Warm regards,
John
This is truly an excellent article. The thing is, in mist cases, the low self esteem is not our doing. It is instilled in us for our parents, grandparents and teachers, who, at a young age, conclude things about a child and label them and do some sort of branding that seems to stick for life. The point is, they were voicing their beliefs about not aiming too high, you can’t be too happy or else something us wrong or true live doesn’t exist so stop being so romantic, ad no one can live you unconditionally. Growing up hearing this garbage from the previous generations, it’s no wonder most people have problems. So, it is thus up to us, with the guidance of people like Morty, to remove the branding we received as a kid and re-program ourselves to what is right. Thanks Mort!
ps My full name appears to have come out in the post. Is it possible to amend/edit please?
Hi Jackie,
I’ll ask my webmaster to handle this when we return from a holiday Tuesday.
Love, Morty
I came, I read this article, I conueqerd.
Thanks very much Morty.
As someone who is currently working through the ‘Natural Confidence’ programme, I found this to be one of the most helpful posts (I have ever read). Thank you for that.
Until now, I was finding the distinction between ‘capability at a particular task’, and sense of ‘capability in general’, to be unclear and confusing. As I saw it, my ‘below floor level’ lack of confidence in life stemmed from being a first rate underachiever in a family of great academic/career/’successful in every area of their lives’ achievers – or rather perceiving myself as such!
Your comment ” ..realize that the commonly-held notion that self-confidence comes from succeeding or failing at specific projects in life is a serious misunderstanding.” was an especially helpful distinction for me to make.
I’m sure I’ll be calling for a private session at some point, but for now I am appreciating the slower pace of the videos as it gives me time to repeat a section if I have not been clear on something and to understand the basics of your technique. I appear to be kinaesthetic, ‘sensing’ rather than ‘seeing’, but did not realise how much so until I started using the DM technique! Accordingly, I got off to a slow start with the word ‘see’ in the basic process, which I didn’t understand initially and was a real stumbling block in the flow of the process for me. I think now I can work it by understanding that you mean ‘perception’, (by whatever means), ie I perceived it as being out there in the world (rather than specifically ‘seeing’).
Anyway, good progress is now being made and your book is very helpful for extra case histories/examples and essential background info.
Many thanks again for a very helpful and clarifying post Morty,
Jackie (UK)
Hi Morty, I used to have self confidence, but if you’ll pardon the French, I was a bit of an arse hole with it, I’d like to be self confident again but I’m scared I’ll lose the humility that I’ve gained…
I am also struggling with that problem…