5 Ways to Improve Your Self-Confidence | Jack Canfield

Do you know why most people fail? Well one of the main reasons is because deep down they believe they can't succeed. They believe more in the likelihood that they will probably fail than in the possibility that they will succeed beyond their wildest dreams. And because they believe they will fail, they do. Now the first time they bump up against an obstacle, they think here it is. The thing that's going to stop me. I knew it was going to show up sooner or later and they give up too easily. So their lack of faith in themselves becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I think I can't, therefore I don't. But the truth is you can achieve anything you can imagine if you believe you can do it. That's why today I would like to share five powerful techniques that will increase your confidence and faith in yourself and your abilities and help you understand that you can accomplish anything you want in life. All right. Now my first technique for building building your self confidence is take time to remember and acknowledge your accomplishments. Now the truth is it's much easier to remember and dwell on our so called failures. And why is that so? Well, it has to deal with a little known fact that when an event in your life is accompanied by a strong emotion like sadness or grief, humiliation, fear or shame, more proteins are released in the brain and they actually make a part of the neurons in your brain called little spiny protuberances grow, which in effect thickens that neuron and makes it more likely to fire off more quickly and more often. Now think about it. You probably remember where you were, who you were with, what you were doing, and even what you were wearing when you first learned about or saw the World Trade center towers burning and collapsing in New York City on 9 11. And if you don't live in the United States, you probably have similar events that were tragic in your history that are similar to 911 in ours. And that's why the moment your partner told you they wanted a divorce, the day you were fired from your job, you learned that you had cancer or your child was hit by a car, or your parent died, or you were wounded in battle, or you were arrested, or you failed to pass the bar exam, those memories are indelibly locked into your memory. While some of the great successes like catching the winning touchdown pass, being named prom queen, winning the salesperson of the year award, winning, hitting a hole in one in golf, or giving birth to your first child, or getting your first thousand dollar check, or graduating from college, or your wedding day are locked in as well from the huge positive experience of joy you experienced. But most of our experiences of success fade into the background. But it's important to acknowledge all the little successes as well as the big ones, like getting through Mr. Harper's chemistry class or getting your driver's license, learning to swim, learning to ride a bike or a motorcycle, quitting smoking or drinking, successfully losing weight or maintaining an exercise program, and so on. Acknowledging all of these little successes as well as the big ones builds your sense of, I can accomplish whatever I want in life. I can learn new things. I can persevere until I get what I want. I have what it takes to be successful. I have proven that many times over in my life. Now, a quick exercise that you can accomplish today in about 10 minutes is to start by dividing your age by three, thus dividing your life into three equal time periods. So if you're 21, it'd be 0 to 7, 7 to 14, and 14 to 21. If you can't remember much before the age of seven, you can divide it into birth to 12, 12 to 16, and 16 to 21. If you're 45, birth to 15, or 18 to 30, and 30 to 45. You get the idea. And then write down four successes that you've had in each of those time periods. Now, most likely, you'll be able to think of many more than four. And if you want to go for extra credit, which I highly recommend you do, I want you to give yourself an hour and make a list of 100 things you've accomplished over the course of your life. Now, you may have to resort to things like graduated high school, graduated middle school, you know, past the first grade, survive military basic training, learned how to use a soldering iron. You know, whatever it is, there are lots of things in your life. I remember I was teaching a workshop for high school kids in Chicago once, and this one girl said, I don't have any successes. And I noticed she was wearing a beautiful plaid jumper. And I said, well, you have that beautiful plaid jumper. You purchased that. I think that's a success. You look beautiful. She said, no, I didn't buy it. I made it. I said, you made it. To me, that was even more of a success. I said, well, that's a success. She said, no, that's a have to. I said, what do you mean? She said, well, my mother works as a checkout person in the grocery store. We don't make a lot of money. I have to work after school, and basically, you know, that's what I have to do to have any clothes at all. And I buy some fabric, I go to my aunt's house. She has patterns. I make my dresses. And so I don't think of that as a success. Well, it took me a few minutes, but I got her to see that this thing she took for granted was a success. And many of you do the same thing. We developed a program for welfare recipients. And there was a guy there who had come over from Germany. He had actually gone from Germany to Sweden, from Sweden to France, and then France to the United States. And he said, I don't have any successes. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, a success would be like having a Cadillac car, you know, having a great job where you're making $100,000 a year. I said, you have successfully emigrated to three different countries. You worked in those countries as a mechanic. You've learned new languages. You don't call those successes. And again, he said, well, those were just things I had to do. And I'm telling you, that's what we tend to do. So I want you to think about all the things that you have accomplished in life. The little things, you know, little things at all. Doesn't matter what they are. Now, the truth is that you've had many more successes, many more accomplishments and achievements than you usually give yourself credit for. So make that list. Once you've completed your list and have come to see that you've actually had a lot of successes, I recommend you take another hour or two and write what we call a 101 goals list. Write down at least 101 things you would like to accomplish in your lifetime before you die. And I don't care how old you currently are, Just do it anyway. If you want, you can read my 101goals list, which has been 78% accomplished by typing Jack Canfield 101goals list into your Internet browser, and that'll take you to my website, where all that's listed. What you want to do is put that list somewhere that you can see it regularly. And every time you accomplish something on that list, I want you to put a check mark beside it. Now, when I published mine on my website and in a book I co authored called Dare to Win, I actually had a number of people email me or call me and say, I can help you do that, including the singer Kenny Rogers, who I put on my list of people I wanted to meet. And we ended up meeting at his request in his dressing room after one of his performances in Las Vegas. It was amazing. Now, in addition to recognizing your accomplishments, There are other ways you can consciously boost your self esteem and confidence. One thing I strongly encourage you to do is to give up saying two of the most dangerous and disempowering words in the English language. And I'm talking about the words I can't. How many times a day do those words run through your head or even worse, come out of your mouth? And if you're like most people, it could be dozens, even hundreds of times. You read about people jumping out of a plane and going skydiving and you immediately think, I couldn't do that. You watch a musician playing the most beautiful song in the world on a violin or the piano or singing and you think, I could never hope to be half as good. You hear about an entrepreneur making a series of brilliant business decisions that that allowed him or her to build a billion dollar business and you think, I can't be that smart or have creative ideas like that person. But those words are a lie. I can't is a lie. You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. Make it a priority, schedule time for it, and you work hard enough at it. And don't give up. There are actually very few things in life that the vast majority of people couldn't achieve if only they decided to believe they could and dedicated themselves to achieving it. The only thing holding you back is your own lack of belief in your language, which includes words like I can't. And when you tell yourself you can't do it, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. But the fact is those words simply are not true. The truth is, you won't do it. You're the one choosing not to do it. Anyone can learn to dance, learn to sing, learn to paint, learn to sell, learn a second language, learn to act, learn to tell a joke, learn to play the guitar or the piano, learn to be a great cook, learn to be an effective speaker, learn to be a coach, learn to surf, learn to fly an airplane, learn to write a book, learn to do Internet marketing, learn to have a podcast, anything at all. You just have to choose to believe it, decide to do it, find someone who can teach you how to do it, and then simply do it. If you were to take one of my live trainings, you'd see a pair of fishbowls on the front of the stage. And anytime you said the words I can't, you'd have to deposit $2 in one of the bowls. Not to punish you, but to show you that when you say I can't, it's costing you. There's a price that you're paying in terms of your self esteem and your self confidence and ultimately your success, you are trapping yourself in a lie. One other self confidence booster that I'd like to teach is to take small risks as often as possible. Now the way you grow your perception of yourself as an achiever is, is to achieve things. And as research and experience has shown, self confidence is the result of taking a risk and succeeding at it, or simply from surviving the risk. And when you do something new and nothing bad or unsurvivable happens, your confidence builds. But the key is to start small and build up. So I encourage you to start taking small steps a little beyond your comfort zone and challenge yourself to try new things, learn new skills and gain new expertise. Every time you take a risk and succeed, you will grow your self confidence and be tempted to take on even bigger challenges. And that's how you will become a great success. Now here's another confidence building technique that is so simple and so powerful that it almost feels like cheating. But it's a secret that all Olympic athletes use, and most super successful people in all other walks of life, including in the areas of business and relationships, also use. It's simply closing your eyes and imagining doing the thing that you're wanting to do, but somehow may be afraid to do and imagining the perfect outcome, result or reaction you want. You imagine giving the perfect sales presentation and the person chooses to enroll in your program or buy your product. You imagine giving a killer speech and the audience jumps to their feet and gives you a standing ovation. Now I've used this numerous times when I was concerned about my talk. Like the time I had to follow Norman Vincent Peale, one of the great ministers of all time, or Bill Cosby, the great comedian at a conference. And it worked wonders for me. Now the reason this works is that your body can't tell the difference between a real event and a vividly imagined event. So not only are you programming your unconscious with the perfect athletic performance, speech or sales presentation so that you have a cellular memory of how to do it right, but you also have the experience of it working out the way you wanted to so that you now have the confidence that you can do it. Here are a couple of examples of how some athletes I know have used it. One of my friends is an athlete. He's a gymnast. His name is Raj Bhavsar. And he read my book the Success Principles. And he read about affirmations and visualization and he started doing it and he was an alternate on the team that was to go to China. And because he visualized it and did affirmations and kept seeing himself doing the perfect routine, he. He eventually got moved up from being an alter to being one of the four people that actually performed. And he used this technique and taught it to all the other team members on his team who were not supposed to medal in China. And they actually won the bronze. And it was because of this visualization technique. Some of you may remember Greg Louganis, who was this great diver who was in one of the Olympics and he had to do one more dive and he had to do it almost to get his perfect Tim, if it was a 9.9 or a 10. And they showed a video of him in the warm up pool, like a little hot tub, him sitting there with his eyes closed, visualizing. And he was visualizing the exact number of turns and twists that he would do before he went into the water with a perfect little small splash, which is what you want to do that lets you know you went in perfectly. He came back up on that board, did that dive perfectly and won the gold. And I remember being at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and I was watching the high jump and there was an American there and he was doing the high jump, the Fosbury flop where you go over backwards. And every time he'd do the jump, he'd come back to the line where he was supposed to start from. And I'd watch him go like this. And everyone noticed that later that night when he was interviewed after he'd won the bronze medal, he was being interviewed and he said, they said, why was your head bobbing like that? And he said, oh, I guess I was involuntarily moving because I was visualizing step, step, step going over. And he said, that's how I got to where I was. So you see that visualization literally programs the body for success. Now if you ever suffer from a lack of self confidence or often find yourself thinking that you don't have what it takes to achieve your dreams in life, I strongly encourage you to use these self confidence boosting techniques to accelerate your success. Remember what you're capable of accomplishing by creating a list of previous accomplishments. Create a 101 goals list. Replace the words I can't with I won't or I will. Take small risks as often as possible and use the power of visualization to program yourself for success and create vivid imaginable memories of having already succeeded. And let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks again for watching now. If you found this video helpful, please make sure you like it, share it with a friend who may need it and subscribe to my channel for more videos like this one and for additional exercises and tools for boosting your self esteem and your self confidence. Make sure to visit my website@jackcampfield.com and check out the links in the description below.