How to Build the Self-Confidence You Need to Succeed in Life?

Most of us always feel bad about ourselves or lack self-confidence. Everyone seems to have started a multimillion-dollar business, become a star on YouTube, or have achieved great success on Instagram.

Note: This article is by Darius Foroux, who discusses ways to build self-confidence and its importance, along with the ability to achieve accomplishments and goals.

Most of us also know deep down that 99% of the above is nonsense, but at the same time, we see the spectacular lives of all these people; therefore, we do not care whether they are real or not.

It doesn't matter if you want money, fame, travel, or anything because it's about how confident you are, and you can check this by answering the following two questions:

• Do you have the confidence to let go of all the unimportant things and pursue your dreams?
• Are you confident enough to give up all your bullshit and stay realistic and practical?

So, self-confidence is quite essential if you want to succeed in your life; therefore, your lack of self-confidence will always hinder you during your journey in life, whatever the goal you seek, as research shows that it is even linked to depression, loneliness, feelings of neglect, low academic achievement, and low level of satisfaction with life.

I have been researching self-confidence for years, and the most practical and logical theory I have found is what is called trust through competence. Dr. Bernice Milburn Moore published an article in 1952 entitled "Self-Confidence for Competence" in the Journal of Educational Leadership, in which she discussed self-confidence for teachers. Still, I found it helpful in all areas of life. If you search for the definition of self-confidence, you will almost always get the same description.

Dr. Moore described it as self-confidence and a belief in an individual's ability to cope with all the situations that may happen to them. More importantly, she said: “Self-confidence without competence is just as helpful as competence without self-confidence,” which means that going to business school at the university gives you efficiency, but using your business competence to manage a company is self-confidence as well as efficiency.

You will not be able to benefit from either of them unless you possess both of them. Having confidence in yourself without qualifications or competence is also useless. Speaking and talking is not a sustainable strategy and cannot be relied upon for long. Although you need to speak and be proud of yourself, you develop the skills that support your words.

Build Self-Confidence

You can become more self-confident by improving your performance in what you do, which is supported by research and confirmed. Then, we can invest the previous information through a simple process, but completing its steps requires effective effort and hard work as well, and its stages are manifested by the following:

1. Improving and developing your competencies and qualifications.
2. Putting it into action.
3. Staying tuned and seeing the results.
4. Increased self-confidence.
5. Repeating the previous steps.

That's simply the process.

What to do if you do not see the results or have time to practice and apply the above?

If you want to make excuses and find excuses for yourself, that's fine because it's your own life, and you can do whatever you need. Still, this way of building self-confidence is based on actual and realistic steps and not on intangible things like encouraging phrases. Confidence does not magically appear on its own without work and effort.

You can say to yourself every day that you are self-confident and lucky to be alive or whatever you want to convince yourself of. Still, you will not honestly believe in yourself if you lack the skills to help you run your business and achieve achievements, and this is the biggest problem I suffer from with most writers of self-help theories.

Encouraging statements, positive thinking, and goal setting are all great things. Still, they are nothing without execution or action. You can not expect to build confidence in yourself when you are doing absolutely nothing and achieving nothing, as the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle puts it: “Nothing builds self-confidence and self-esteem like an achievement.”

Competencies to be improved

The competencies you should improve depend on the goals you pursue in your life, but there are some skills that I think we can all benefit from:

1. Emotional Intelligence

Research shows that humans are instinctively social beings, as we perish without forming good social relationships with those around us, so if you want to develop successful relationships, you need emotional intelligence, which is understanding the feelings and emotions of others and how to respond to them, which is something you can learn.

2. Self-awareness

You can practice self-awareness by constantly examining and thinking about yourself. Here I advise you to write down your thoughts, try to understand why you do what you do, and find out what you can improve and do better and what you do well; that is, know yourself.

3. Problem-solving

The history of our current school system dates back to the Industrial Revolution. We are trained to be secondary people who carry out all the essential and primary work without being paid for it, while we are not trained to solve problems in complex situations. We do what we are told instead. Still, the world has changed today. The best and most skilled person will succeed in solving problems in the current situation.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that your life will get better and better if you want to. When you put in the effort, work hard, and start seeing results like a more powerful body, more energy, money, or whatever you're after, you'll start believing in your ability to achieve.

In conclusion

Go out into life and achieve, improve your performance and work, look at the results you have achieved, repeat that process, and develop your confidence.