Can You Build Self Confidence In Ten Minutes?

Can you really boost your self confidence in ten minutes?

It sounds like one of those ludicrous claims that any advertising watchdog wouldn't allow to pass muster, but let's pause a moment before both baby and bath water go down the drain.

Take any sudden emotion - shock for example - and you'll have an inkling that your emotional state can change in a heartbeat. You can find yourself embarrassed or laughing or crying equally fast. So the question now is: Is self confidence nothing more than an emotional state?

The answer, I believe, is that self confidence is an emotional state comprised of three components. Beliefs are mixed up in there too. Then there's what you're saying to yourself in your head - your "self talk" if you will. Not only that, but high self confidence is almost tangible - you can see it in the way a self confident person carries themself.

Now, psychologists and other experts may take issue with me, but you can actually take these three elements and boost your self confidence in a matter of minutes. There's no need to delve into childhood messages, skeletons in the family's cupboards or any other issue so beloved of the "psychoanalytic" movement.

Psychoanaylsis, as developed by the great Sigmund Freud, would take years - maybe a decade - to achieve its results, and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dr. Freud for his work. Without him, we might still not recognise that we have a "subconscious" which carries our internal programming. The tendency, however, to hang on to Freud's methods, and the belief that psychological change takes years, is so outmoded that it really should long ago have gone the way of the tin bath! We'd all still agree that keeping clean is a good idea, but a quick shower is a much better way to get the result!

If you want to boost your self confidence, start with your body language. Even a slight shift can make a major difference to the way you feel. Square your shoulders, breathe a little deeper, put a slight spring in your step - you will notice changes immediately. If you're sitting, uncross arms or legs.

Should you be in a down frame of mind when you begin, you will quite likely notice your "negative self talk" kick in. You'll find yourself thinking thoughts like, "Yeah ... this kind of thing never works..." Maybe you're even thinking it as you read this article!

Just catch yourself in the act and then decide to change the wording. You don't even have to change the "tone" or rhythm of it to start with. So you might try something like, "Yeah ... well maybe this can work sometimes for some people..." Then you might allow yourself to think, "Suppose I was one of those people...?"

The internal argument might continue. "The effects never last, though." Even if that's true for you, you can always do it again! If you really find yourself being self-defeatist, shift a little more body language. Put a big silly grin on your face! If you're in public, who cares? You might make someone else smile today!

All of which still leaves us with the third component - your beliefs. These self confidence negating ones will be along the lines of your opinions of yourself, whether physical or to do with your intellectual capacity or some other ways you've created to make yourself feel wretched about the wonderful, unique individual you actually are.

You'll discover that your beliefs are nothing more than a feeling of certainty that such and such is true. And now you know how to shift a feeling, don't you?

Does this work? Is your self confidence truly boosted? You will only be able to tell by results. If you feel better, you'll act differently, make bolder decisions and achieve results you'd previously not dared to hope for. Even new opportunities will open up for you. And if the worst that can happen is that you feel better for the few minutes this takes to do, well at least you'll have had a good few minutes today!

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