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A social phobia is a fear of interacting with others on a social level. Examples would be talking in front of other people, waiting in line at the checkout imagining others are looking at you, or even fear of talking on the phone.
Self-confidence is a mental attitude, which allows people to have decisive, yet realistic views of themselves and their plight. Self-confident people trust their own talents, have a general sense of control over their lives, and believe that, within reason, they will be able to do what they want and need to do.
Self-esteem is a perspective that is accomplished through experiences. When a person experiences success, that person will tend to expect success at his/her endeavors. And that expectation itself will cause a feeling of confidence.
For example: A man wants to be a professional boxer, so he gets a manager and takes lessons. His manager will not arrange a bout for him until he has acquired proficient skills. And even then, the manager will only put him up against a competitor that he knows his fighter can batter. When his fighter beats the adversary, he is successful, and starts to gain confidence in his capability.
With each engagement, the manager puts his contestant up against a competitor who is only a slightly better rival then the last, but not good enough to beat his man. By the end of the third fight, the young contender begins to expect to win his fourth, and so his confidence continues to increase. This scenario continues to repeat itself. And as long as the fighter prizefighter is victorious, his expectations of success, and his feelings of self-confidence will continue to accrue.
As another example: A young lady who is afraid of being in high places wants to learn to dive into a swimming pool from a high diving board. So she finds a diving coach and he asks her to take a dive into the pool from the first step of the ladder going up to the high board. The first rung of the ladder isn't truly high, so the young lady feels confident, and she dives from that rung, and lands safely in the water.
Next, the instructor has her jump from the second rung of the ladder, and so forth. I guess that you get the idea. With each further step she takes as she climbs higher up the ladder, since the girl was able to jump without being harmed, and the next higher step is only slightly higher then the last, the fear of being harmed factor is negligible, and the girl expects to be successful. When she dives in and is unhurt, the girl's confidence grows, and her expectation of success on the next rung up the ladder increases.
If a person who has a long history of success and feelings of confidence does fail, they still tend to expect success the next time out. Conversely, when a person who is weak in the confidence department fails, they tend to lose confidence, and create expectations of failure, which often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Having true self-confidence doesn't mean that individuals will be able to do everything. People, who have true self-confidence, usually have expectations that are based on common sense. Even when some of their expectations are not met, they continue to be confident and to accept themselves.
People, who are not self-confident, tend to depend overwhelmingly on the confirmation of other people in order to feel good about themselves. They refrain from taking risks for fear of failure. They often belittle themselves and tend to discount or ignore compliments that are offered to them.
On the other side of the coin, confident people are willing take a chance on disappointing others because they generally have faith in their own prowess. They accept themselves; and they do not believe that they have to conform in order to be admired.
Just because one feels confidence in one or more areas of their life, doesn't mean that they will feel overconfident in all parts of their life. For example, a person might feel overconfident about their athletic prowess, but not feel confident as far as members of the opposite sex are involved, such as in a dating situation, or social relationships.
How Is Self-Esteem Developed Initially?
Many powerful realities have an impact on the growth of confidence. Parents' attitudes are elemental to the way children feel about themselves, particularly when they are very young.
When parents provide acceptance, children receive a good foundation for self-esteem. If one or both parents are overwhelmingly critical or demanding, or if they are overprotective and discourage moves toward independence, children may be found to believe they are incapable, inadequate, or inferior.
However, if parents encourage a child's moves toward self-reliance, and they are not overly critical when the child makes mistakes, the child will learn to accept herself, and will be on the way to developing self-confidence.
A lack of confidence is not necessarily related to a lack of ability. A lack of confidence is often the result of centering totally on the unrealistic expectancy of other people predominantly parents and friends. The have an influence on of friends can be more effective and powerful than that of parents in shaping the feelings about one's self.
Conclusions That Continue to Control Self-confidence
In response to external influences, people develop beliefs. Some of these are good and some are not so good. Several assumptions that can interfere with confidence and alternate ways of thinking are:
ASSUMPTION: It's important that I'm successful at everything that I do. This is a totally unrealistic assumption. In real life each person has their strengths, and their weaknesses. While it's important to learn to do the best that one can, it's more important to learn to accept yourself as being human, and deficient. Allow yourself to feel good about what you are good at, and accept the fact that you don't know everything and you are not an expert at everything.
ASSUMPTION: I must be perfect, and loved by everyone, and satisfy everyone. Again, this assumption is unrealistic. All human beings are fallible. It's preferable to develop personal standards that are not very dependent on the approval of others.
ASSUMPTION: Everything that happened to me in the past remains in control of my feelings and behaviors in the present.
ALTERNATIVE: While it is true that your confidence was especially influenced by external influences when you were a very young child as you grow to adulthood appreciation and outlook on what those influences have been. In doing so, you can choose which influences you will continue to allow to have an effect on your life. You don't have to be helpless in the face of past events
HERE ARE SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE
Emphasize Your Strengths. Bestow upon yourself credit for everything you can do. And grant yourself acknowledgment for every new adventure you are willing to try out.
Take risks. Adopt the attitude of: I never fail, because there are NO failures. However, sometimes I learn what does not work and once I've learned what doesn't work in a given situation, I can attempt some other action.
Use Self-Talk: Use self-talk as a method to counter harmful assumptions. Then, tell yourself to stop. Substitute more reasonable assumptions. For example, when you catch yourself expecting yourself to be perfect, remind yourself that it's impossible to do everything perfectly, and that it's only possible to do things to the best of your ability. This allows you to accept yourself while still striving to improve.
Make mental movies: Visualize yourself in the various scenarios that you currently have low levels of self-confidence in. But see yourself behaving like a person who has tremendous self-confidence would. There are many powerful Ericksonian hypnosis approaches that can be used to create a terrific amount of confidence from within your subconscious mind. There are even NLP techniques that will let you take confidence that you do have in areas of your life, and then transplant that confidence to areas of your life that are lacking self-confidence!
Self-Evaluate: Learn to judge yourself as an individual human being. Avoid the continual sense of discombobulation that comes from relying too much on the opinions of others.
