How to develop self confidence?

LegacyUser

Anyone any tips?

I'm beginning to become aware of how much of a profound impact this is having on my life. I'm a single, 24 yo woman with a good job and good prospects but I can't seem to truly believe my worth.

I've been in an entry level job for the past two years, having secured my contract after a college placement. This is a job many would kill for because the industry I'm in has so few openings at the mo and this is one of the biggest companies in Ireland. But as I said, entry level job and in reality, not where I want to be. I want to move up, to a different department, within the same company, but the thoughts of actually taking action and making my colleagues aware of my ambitions scares me stiff. I am quite an ambitious person, but at the moment, this is hindered by my lack of confidence - what will people say, think, what if I'm not good enough, what if I get nowhere and make a fool of myself etc...It's a highly competitive industry where you don't get anywhere without being vocal and confident and have conviction so I dread to think what will happen to me (or what won't happen for me) if I don't get a hold of this issue.

Similarly, my love life. I'm eternally single. I hook up occasionally when out on the town but it's always when I'm either drunk or am approached by someone who's vaguely attractive to me - it's never me taking the bull by the horns and chatting up someone I'm interested in. I have it in my head somehow that they would never be interested anyway, I'm a consolation prize, relationships don't happen to me, etc. I couldn't even contemplate putting all the signs out there and hitting on a guy. Scares me stiff to imagine doing that.

On top of the self esteem thing, I have a massive fear of rejection. I think that can be applied to the work scenario also.

I beat myself up about everything and can be quite obsessive about it. I have high standards for myself and expect a lot from myself and start to think of myself as lazy, 'not good enough' etc when I inevitably fall short of my own expectations. I make long to-do lists everyday and if I don't get everything done I feel like sh1t. For example, today I had planned to go to the gym but slept late, ended up chatting to my flatmates for ages and left it too late. In my head this makes me lazy and worthless. What did I do that was productive today? Logically I've had the busiest and most chaotic week at work, haven't slept right all week and needed to relax, but this doesn't cut it for me. I feel like nothing I can do is ever good enough.

How can I begin to actually value myself? How can I stop feeling like I am eternally disappointing myself? How can I stop being a people pleaser, relying on others' reactions to me to make me feel good about myself and actually start to do things for ME, and me alone?

Sorry for the long and tedious whinge. I just have no-one I can really talk to about this and needed to get it all out. Any insights are really appreciated. xx

noconfidence

noconfidence wrote: »

I beat myself up about everything and can be quite obsessive about it. I have high standards for myself and expect a lot from myself and start to think of myself as lazy, 'not good enough' etc when I inevitably fall short of my own expectations. I make long to-do lists everyday and if I don't get everything done I feel like sh1t. For example, today I had planned to go to the gym but slept late, ended up chatting to my flatmates for ages and left it too late. In my head this makes me lazy and worthless. What did I do that was productive today? Logically I've had the busiest and most chaotic week at work, haven't slept right all week and needed to relax, but this doesn't cut it for me. I feel like nothing I can do is ever good enough.

Hi OP, I can identify with all of your post but especially this part. I could have written it. I have really high standards for myself and therefore I can never quite meet them. I also do the whole list writing and then beat myself up when I don't do the things on it. Like you, I'm really busy, I go to college full time and work in the evenings, take a language class the one night I don't work which I know is already an achievement, but I still feel I should be doing more. I'm exhausted at the weekends but I beat myself up if I don't get enough work done or don't make it to the gym, or whatever else is on my list. It's a really awful thing to have, because it means you're never happy and always feel disappointed in yourself. I can see that other people are nowhere near as hard on themselves but I can't copy their attitude.

I'm afraid I'm not much help but I'm trying out a new thing from today. When I make a list, I cross off half the things on it immediately. This leaves me with a more realistic list, and I'll hopefully feel much better when I finish it than if I have a long list and only manage to do half. I don't know about you but my lists are just not realistic - for example yesterday, I was meant to read an entire book, go to the library and photocopy another whole book, return some boots in town, bake cookies, do lesson plans for all next week and finish a translation. It's just too much for a 'day off'. I ended up only doing half the things and feeling sh1te, so hopefully the new idea will work.

kieranoduill

One thing you got to do, although it goes against the teaching of Christianity, is put yourself first, and never care about what others think of you, because in most cases they don't think about you at all.

If you put others first, you'll always be subjected to other peoples' feelings, which you don't have control over

Read the 'Feel Good Factor' by David Burns and 'Maximum Achievement' by Brian Tracy.

kieranoduill

Massive fear of rejection?

Show me a man who's never been rejected and I'll show you a man who has never tried.

Bush, Clinton, Obama, all lost their first elections, Charles Haughey lost his first five.

If you want to increase you're number of successes, triple your number of rejections.

Bottom line, everyone, and I mean everyone gets rejected and the only ones who win in life are those who dealt with the rejections and kept on hammering away, refusing to give up

kieranoduill

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Youtube links not allowed.

LegacyUser

Thanks Fox Scarce Yokel and Kieran for the input and advice.

I've just read back over my original post and it has actually really upset me. It's hit home to me from reading it how much I am lacking in confidence and how much it’s holding me back in life. I barely recognise the person I've always thought I was from that post and I don't know how it got this bad.

Truth be told, I've always been a bit of a perfectionist - I can remember being thirteen and in school and wasn't happy with anything less than 100% or straight As - but I've always seen it as a good thing. Now it's come to the point where I am using this...NEED for perfection/order/whatever you want to call it, to mask how I feel about myself or something…and I don’t know how it has come to this. It's like I'm afraid of life or something.

In terms of just ‘putting yourself first’ and ‘never care what others think of you’…how do you just DO this? I would say my thoughts and actions are at least 90% of the time influenced directly by people around me and how they will react to me - trying to seek approval or trying to not attract attention to myself or whatever, and I can’t envisage how this could just suddenly completely change. I’d love a light bulb moment or a bolt out of the blue on this one….

A few years ago I went through a minor eating disorder (perfectionism gone too far) and that knocked me for six for years after I had physically recovered. I’m wondering if what I’m going through now is the fall out from that time.

Izzy Wizzy, that was good advice about cutting my lists in half and working from this smaller list. Ironically it’s the kind of thing I’d put on my to-do list, not get around to it and feel doubly terrible!!! But I might give that a shot.

Reading back on all of this, I think it’s going to be a long road for me to work my way out of this. The way I think about myself makes me really sad because I have no reason to feel this way, I have a lot going for myself. I really want to move forward in my career and I want to meet someone and all the rest – the only thing holding me back is ME. I should probably see a counsellor but I just can’t afford this financially or time-wise at the moment. I might get a few of those books that were mentioned and work from there.

Thanks again for the replies

dblennon

As a bloke who can honestly say that This time last year I could have written the exact same story minus the Eating dis. as I emotionaly ate!!

I would say that firstly find out who your real friends are. the biggest single difference nbetween this year and last is that I can honestly tell who these people are and I can also say that I am so much happier not trying to gain they're approval etc..

Also I found that when I realised that I was a good person and it was ok to be passionate about whatever it is i want, I found a new confidence that led me to meet a whole new bunch of people who have not judged me in the past for being a being a nobody/ not worth knowing and I wouldn't have
blamed them.

I thought going with the flow and not rocking the boat was the best way to make people like me. how many times in the last year I have had people come up to me and say your a sound man, and they had never said that before.

It is about being a bit selfish, but in a good way You need to care about yourself more than anyone else. It's hard to explain but since your a person that seeks aproval from others you will always have it so if you feel a little selfish it's fine cause it won't be as bad as you think.

don't be afraid to be confrontational, we're tought to be good and respectfull of other people but in truth, people won't respect that!! because it's childish and adults should automatically have mutual respect.

I hope some of this makes sense I always fiind it hard to put it into words.

pretty-in-pink

Hi OP,

you're not alone feeling like that. a lot of mid twenties people have the "omfg wheres my life going? what have i got to show for my years here?what can i do?i feel so insignificant" thing going on. its normal to pick faults with yourself. not good mind you, but normal. Best thing i ever heard is: be your own friend. don't talk to or treat yourself any differently then you would a friend. we're hard on ourselves, and this leads to worse situations. just deep breath and be your friend. once you truly are good to yourself, more good things happen. its the knock-on effect of positivity. what you're feeling now is the knock-on effect of negativity.

fake it till you make it also helps!

kieranoduill

I've got great suggestions of books, that I believe work, pm me and I'll give you the names of them

wylo

OP, I know you cant afford a councellor but have you considered CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. You could at least start reading about it and maybe buy a book or something to do with it.
Your irrational need to be perfect can do alot of mental damage over time and CBT addresses this way of thinking.

wylo

kieranoduill wrote: »

I've got great suggestions of books, that I believe work, pm me and I'll give you the names of them

could you not post them up in case there are people with the same problems?

hinault

noconfidence wrote: »

Reading back on all of this, I think it’s going to be a long road for me to work my way out of this. The way I think about myself makes me really sad because I have no reason to feel this way, I have a lot going for myself. I really want to move forward in my career and I want to meet someone and all the rest – the only thing holding me back is ME. I should probably see a counsellor but I just can’t afford this financially or time-wise at the moment. I might get a few of those books that were mentioned and work from there.

Thanks again for the replies

Don;t be so hard on yourself.

By asking the question, you have made progress already!

I would suggest that you should use a method called visualisation.
What is this?

A lot of how we feel and relate to the world comes from our subconcious.
We have to try to train and control our own perception of the world and our own self perception.
In order to influence our subsoncious - we need to project our thoughts on to our subconcious.

We can do this by visualisation.
Each day, try to go to somewhere quiet and close your eyes.
And start to picture yourself - picture yourself and the progress you have made to get and secure your job.
Visualise the good experiences that you have encountered in your job/life.
Picture yourself doing the things that your are good at.
if your concentration starts to wonder or you start getting negative thoughts, stop - and then start again.

By visualising the positives, you're imprinting these thoughts and images on to your subconcious and slowly this positive image will start to remove the hesitant, less confident projected image.
Visualisation is a hard discipline - but believe me it works and has worked for several people, that I know, who may have esteem/confidence issues.

Believe you me - ask anyone who knows you, they will see a different person to the person you think that you see.
I can guarantee that!