How to Increase Your Self-Confidence and Develop and Adopt a Continuous Self-Improvement Mindset
Firstly, Why Is It Important to Increase Your Self-Confidence?
I'm guessing that you're reading this because you're curious about how you can increase your self-confidence, which suggests that perhaps you're not quite as confident as you might wish to be?
So, let's explore why this topic is an important element of our character.
You may have noticed that some people seem to achieve whatever they set their mind to, effortlessly, whilst others find it so difficult.
Do YOU have unrealised achievements in YOUR life or YOUR business that you wished you had the self-confidence to make happen?
From a young age, I’ve invested a lot of my time studying success principles and reading biographies and auto-biographies of people throughout history, in all fields of endeavour, who are considered to be ‘successful’. I’ve been fascinated by what makes them seemingly so different from the bulk of humanity, who live apparently ‘ordinary’ lives.
The conclusion I’ve come to is the very same thing that I've heard successful people repeat time and again - that those who stand out from the rest have learned that you must increase your self-confidence, plus you must develop and adopt a continuous self-improvement mindset.
In fact, most of our confidence and whether we succeed or fail in our business ventures, or in the fulfillment of our life goals and aspirations aren't a result of the way we have always thought and felt about things, but are in fact a result of the way we choose to think and feel.
Good News - Finding Purpose or Meaning in Your Life Helps You Increase Your Self-Confidence
Becoming aware of, defining and crafting your life's purpose and giving a sense of meaning to your life can immediately make a massive difference to your ability to increase your self-confidence. In fact, by learning to develop and adopt a continuous self-improvement mindset will help you gain new insights and perspectives on the right courses of action to take in life.
Knowing your purpose enables you to create inner calmness and an inner locus of control. Knowing and understanding that you are responsible for the course of your own destiny will help you to create resilience and fortitude in the face of adversity. You may not always be able to control everything that happens to you, but you can always determine how you react to it.
By first being willing to do the bit of 'extra' work on yourself, you have then created a foundation upon which to build that can enable you to transform 'ordinary' into 'extraordinary'.
"Nothing can stop the totally committed will." ~ Sir Winston Churchill
Even more important, is that knowing what you want from life paves the way for your to find increased happiness in following your calling. And what do you notice about happy people? Well, most happy people seem to radiate increased self-confidence.
The Kaizen Principle - a Philosophy of Continuous Self-Improvement
Discovering how to increase your self-confidence and to create a confident mindset then is in fact a process that is learned and a skill that is honed. You don’t just go from being a timid and fragile person to a self-assured go-getter overnight.
When you think about any high-achiever you care to mention, and you study their individual stories, you’ll find that without exception, they have all suffered setbacks, disappointments and heartaches, but what kept them going was the power of their belief in their dreams, purpose and sense of meaning in their lives. The concept of the ‘overnight success’ is nothing more than a myth, because their success was founded on the confidence and character traits developed through struggle.
In other words, you develop a confident mindset over time.
You may have heard of the ‘Ten Thousand Hours’ principle, proposed by author Malcolm Gladwell in his book, ‘Outliers’, which stated that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice were required to become an expert in any field. His examples included the world-famous ‘Beatles’ rock band, who played relentlessly in the bars of Hamburg before they became an ‘overnight success’ back in Liverpool; and Bill Gates, who practiced with a computer around the clock from his teen years, prior to becoming an ‘overnight success’ with Microsoft.
As a soccer fan, the examples that spring most to my mind are two ex-Manchester United greats, David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo. Both of them had a commitment to excellence and constant self-improvement that manifested in them deliberately staying back on the training pitch for hours of extra practice. Beckham used to hang a tyre off the top corners of the goal's crossbar and practice his free kicks, aiming to put the ball through the hole. Years later Ronaldo would do the same, plus spend hours in the gym as well, building up his fitness and physique, with the self-declared intention of becoming the best player in the world - an accolade that he went on to receive, numerous times.
The Kaizen principle was evolved in Japan and is largely credited to the work of an award-winning, American management consultant, named William Edwards Deming, who was sent there after World War II to help rebuild Japanese industry from the ashes and rubble of war. The system is based on the quest for continuous improvement in all areas, and it applies to both businesses and human beings. The continuous improvement is rarely achieved by giant leaps, but rather by a commitment to consistent, small advances.
You may have also heard the old adage, where the question is asked, “How do you eat an elephant?”
Answer – “One mouthful at a time.”
Note: I’m not advocating eating elephants! I am suggesting a quest for continuous, steady and manageable, self-improvement. The better you become, the more you increase your self-confidence.
How I Can Help You to Increase Your Self-Confidence and Develop and Implement a Winning Mindset with my ‘Inman System’
A prerequisite trait of these so-called high achievers or people of influence was that they had a dream, a purpose or a mission to fulfill. They were human like the rest of us and were thus subject to the fears, self-doubt and occasional lack of confidence to be good enough to make it all work, just as we all are. Yet their persistence, backed with some definable tools and techniques, such as creative visualisation, steadily built their inner confidence until it became an unshakeable resolve. They developed self-confidence with a winning mindset, whether they realised it or not, by adopting certain key strategies. As the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs famously remarked in his Stanford University speech, most probably didn't realise how they had grown into that person, until they had the benefit of hindsight...
“You cannot connect the dots by looking forward. You can only connect them by looking backward.” ~ Steve Jobs
The reasons I am confident that I can help you are that I have invested thousands of hours and thousands of dollars, over many years, in studying the behavioural science of the successful and the influential and I have previously helped many clients, peers and employees to improve themselves and their situations. (See testimonials) To achieve a self-confident mindset like these people have will invariably require a few paradigm shifts (subtle or sometimes drastic changes in our belief system that we like to call 'aha' moments) and mastery of our own 'self-talk.'
Using proven tools and techniques, like those evolved from behavioural science study and Neuro Linguistic Patterning (NLP), I can help you foster a winning mindset and the confidence to more easily fulfill many of your life goals.
You can read my books, attend my workshops or seminars, follow your preferred platform of my social media pages, or you can contact me to arrange a no-obligation chat about your specific situation.
I can even tailor a program, specifically designed for you or to suit the needs of your organisation or team, to help you get the results that you want and deserve.
To find out more, simply contact me via this website or leave a message for me, Tony on 0419 860 382.
