Self-Awareness: The Easiest Route to Unshakeable Confidence

Self-confidence might just be one of the most important life skills which a person can have. Just think about how much easier it is to use your talents and to stand up for yourself, to take advantage of opportunities and to ask for what you want when you’re more self-assured and confident. People who are confident have many more options to have what they want because self-confidence gives you the ability to maintain high standards and to ask for the things that you want without having to feel self-conscious.

So how do you develop this secret power of self-confidence and increase your options for getting more of what you want out of your life? There are two ways to approach the development of confidence, one of them produces genuine, long term results and the other can end in disaster...

Two Approaches to Building Confidence

There are two ways to build greater self-confidence, one is practicing all of the outer behaviors which are believed to be characteristic of confident people. This means making eye contact, having good posture, speaking clearly and articulately and smiling when you great other people. The problem with this “fake it till you make it” confidence is that if you don’t develop the inner compass which controls your deep sense of self-worth, it will be impossible to keep up the facade. Not to mention that if your “confident” behaviors aren’t built upon a solid inner foundation, you’ll always have a nagging feeling that you’re betraying yourself.

I’ve always said that you’re never become great through means of imitation, at best you’ll become mediocre. However, you can play the part of yourself to perfection, and that’s why self-awareness is the foundation of genuine confidence.

Confidence Based on Self-Awareness

The only way to build rock solid, genuine self-confidence that will last even under the most high pressure situations is to begin with self-awareness. When you have a genuine understanding of what drives you and of your emotions and your conditioning, you have the ultimate power over your own behaviors and your attitudes and you are immune to being controlled by exterior influences. This begins with having an untouchable standard by which you measure your own value.

When you measure your own value by exterior things such as your ability to achieve, or the opinions of others, your status, your appearance or anything else which isn’t 100% under your control, you’ll always, be controlled by these things...at least to some degree. What is the standard that you use to measure your value? Becoming aware of this is the first step to building confidence that is unaffected by any exterior pressure or circumstance.