Category: Confidence

Confidence Essay

The ten letter word ‘Confidence’ is the prime key to success. Some people are born with this attribute; some have to work to achieve it, while others do not know how to acquire it. The significance of confidence lies in the belief in oneself and in one’s own potential. Without hope and confidence, it is almost impossible to achieve anything, as faith portrays optimism which guides to achievement and ultimate success in one’s life.

Confidence or self-confidence cannot be taught to somebody, it is automatically achieved by an individual from the time they start to believe in themselves. Thus, confidence is an attribute that anyone struggles to achieve at one point of time, but can be obtained gradually by believing in one’s own abilities. To obtain anything in life, and to move through one’s daily responsibilities and goals, it is must to have some bit of self-confidence in each and every person. This attitude helps a person to step forward in life and accomplish the ultimate goal. Thus, a self-confident person should have a high self-respect, self-appreciation, and belief in their own abilities. Moreover, by evolving the self-confidence in oneself, one can easily grab more chances by mitigating the barriers in one’s life and to achieve the ultimate goals. Self-confidence in a person is the most crucial to give a boost in one’s successful career.

Thus, if a person has self-confidence, they can accomplish the right thing by keeping themselves calm every time. This self-confidence eventually creates more opportunities for success, and with each success, more self-confidence is built in a person’s attitude. Moreover, a self-confident person has the clear-sightedness of turning nearly impossible things into successful reality. Thus, every person should start believing in themselves; make progress on that belief, and gradually enhance their self-confidence to realize the ultimate goals for making their life successful. Thus, self-confidence is pivotal for leading a smooth, tension-free and satisfying life. So, the level of success gained by a person is directly equivalent to the level of self-confidence in that person. Again, a person who has an evolved level of self-confidence has also the potentiality of surpassing fallacious beliefs, and can separate the right from the wrong actions.

Now, no person has the attribute of self-confidence from their birth, they actually inculcate this magical habit over generations and time. Thus, at the time when the person realizes his abilities, his self-confidence level also gradually increases. Moreover, in order to boost his self-confidence, a person can start practicing the method of self-acceptance, and further making an analytical evaluation of their own personality. However, one should resist oneself from being overcritical in self-evaluation; otherwise negative thoughts may arise in one’s mind. Thus, to enhance the self-confidence level in a person, one can take the positive vibes from their past accomplishments. Furthermore, they can imbibe a strong culture of self-discipline and positive attitude towards life, in order to achieve the self-confidence level. Thus, self-confidence is treated as the prime element of internal prosperity and contentment.

Now, some tactical methods for boosting the self-confidence level in a person in order to accomplish new stratum of success are briefly discussed as below:

The Pragmatic standpoint

The primary approach is to achieve a positive or pragmatic lookout towards one’s life. A person should have the confidence to come out of any adverse situations in their life, and mitigate any kind of negative attitudes, that might spoil their confidence level. Thus, a confident person takes calculated risks to navigate his positive thoughts into profitable outcome.

Self-Recollection

In order to carve a prosperous future, one should analytically decide their prime intentions, and prepare themselves to achieve those goals. Too much worry for a person can spoil their self-confidence level, obstructing their path towards success. Thus, self-awareness is necessary to inculcate one’s optimal ideas and goals to be get fulfilled without any pointless deviations.

Remove fear of failure

Another way to increase self-confidence level is to eliminate the fear of failures that every person has in them. The fear-factor can demotivate their confidence level, if they cannot abstain themselves to fear failures arising from taking crucial decisions or actions. Thus, an individual should always try to eliminate their scare of taking actions, and face things and reality as it is. This will help to boost their confidence level of accomplishing actions more coolheaded. Moreover, a person should have enough audacity to take any risks in life, and mighty confidence to overcome those risks and achieve the optimum goal.

Training by activity

Again, one of the main ways to boost the level of self-confidence is to take up activities and then learn from those practical experiences. If a person does not bring any innovative ideas, or act upon them, they will result into nothing, directly affecting their ability level, and overall decline in their self-confidence level. So, one must bring in new and innovative ideas to work upon and gather a lot of practical exposure, which will automatically boost the self-confidence level for attaining success.

Devising path for future

Here, a person can analyze and implement ways to achieve it, after they have recognized their future goals. So, pre-determining the future goals and implement proper ways to achieve them, will enhance the level of self-confidence among individuals, boosting their spirit towards success.

Set tiny goals to accomplish

Occasionally big goals prove to be staggering to achieve. Thus, a person can set small and lucid goals to achieve, which will help to boost the level of self-confidence and ability. This self-confidence will help to bring the larger and ultimate goals closer to the individual and smooth the way to bigger success in life. Thus, the best way to reach the ultimate goal is to disintegrate their goals into smaller ones, and track the progress accordingly.

Improve the personal image

To boost the self-confidence level, a person has to take care of his attire and personal grooming. Every morning, an individual should spend some time to bring the best of their look, which will directly affect his confidence level for attainment of success. Thus, dressing up nicely will bring out the feel good factor in a person, and showcase a radiant and presentable image to the world.

Think positive thoughts and pay heed to body posture

In order to revitalize the confidence level, an individual first must eliminate any kind of negative thoughts coming to his mind. Then, secondly he should try to think positive thoughts and apply pragmatic approaches in order to acquire the goals of his life. A person should pay heed to his body posture in order to express his self-confidence level. A person should stand tall, sit up straight with head held high, speak understandably, use hand expressions, and make direct yet friendly eye contact. Moreover, a person should exercise the way of active listening. Thus, the body posture should showcase an open and confident body language. Again, an individual should practice public speaking which will definitely boost the self-confidence level. One should exercise to speak slowly and speaking loud enough, so that he is easily audible to the greater audience.

Exercise

Apart from providing amazing health benefits and mental boost for an individual, exercise or physical activities helps to elevate the confidence level for a person. Exercise releases a flow of hormones in the body, removing the stress level and enhances the overall look of a person. Moreover, the hormonal flow shows immediate effect on the body, thereby boosting the self-confidence level noticeably. Exercise improves the body tone, increases self-esteem among individuals, help to raise the level of focus in a person, curb the gloominess in an individual, and also help in memory recollection.

Socialize in positive environments

An individual should try to encircle themselves in a positive, vibrant, and sympathetic environment. The more an individual is near to a positive and optimistic person, the more they will curb on their negativities, and give a boost to their confidence level for achieving their goals. So, individuals should always choose their surroundings carefully, and socialize with persons with positive vibes.

Be true to yourself

An individual must be true to themselves, and follow the actions; even it seems to be a mistake. An individual are prone to make mistakes. But, one should remember that, mistakes lead a person to success. Mistakes or failure is the stepping stone towards a successful future. So an individual should try to learn from their mistakes, and ultimately triumph to achieve their goal.

Keeping track of achievements

A person can keep themselves motivated at all times, by keeping track of their achievements. Even if their achievements are insubstantial in nature, a person must try to give themselves due credit for their actions. This will keep them happy and confident at all times, boosting them to achieve overall success in life. Moreover, individuals should jot down their achievements to keep themselves motivated, and learn from their mistakes.

Visualize

Visualization or prediction is often regarded as a really powerful medium to achieve one’s goals and attain the ultimate success in life. A person can predict their ideal outcomes prior to their actual outcomes by the means of presentations and index cards, which will turn them into more confident persons, and develop themselves for attainment of success. This means the more accurate is the visualization of one’s goals, the more it will help to acquire and boost self-confidence levels.

Acknowledge your actions

Now, a way to boost more confidence in a person is to acknowledge all actions taken by the person to attain his goal. Thus, a person should give due credit to their past accomplishments, which will fortify their confidence on how much they have already achieved successfully. This will pave their way to attain more and more success and reach the ultimate goal in their life.

Neglect what others say

Again, there are so many persons, who will deter an individual from performing and accomplishing their goals in life. These persons will convey negative feedbacks and influence a person by demotivating their confidence level of acquiring the success. Therefore, an individual must be robust in their attitude not to yield under any kind of provocation from anyone, and continue to successfully accomplish their goals in life.

Be humorous

Smiling and laughing is like an internal exercise, increases powerful hormones in the body, which releases cheerful brain chemicals boosting the level of self-confidence in a person, and also reduces pain and sadness to a great extent. Laughter provides an individual relief from his anxieties and worries, relaxing and ensuring a stress-free life. Laughter rejuvenates our mind, increases our energy levels, brings exuberance to our lives, prevents feeling of anger, guilt, emotions, grief, and enhances our overall confidence levels.

Be kind to yourself

Again, being kind and understanding yourself is very essential to save your own self-esteem, even if you make some unintentional mistakes or failures in your life. This self-caring attitude will save you from any kind of demotivation and mockery from others. Thus, caring for one’s own self will surely stimulate the level of self-confidence and steer an individual towards eventual success in life.

Do not compare with others

One way to nurture confidence in an individual is to stop differentiating that individual with other persons. It has been proven that when a person is compared to others, they start to feel jealous. This leads to more demotivation and loss of confidence in that person. Being more curious to others and comparing with their skills and accomplishments, will gradually deprive a person of his confidence, and ultimately cast him as an unsuccessful person. Thus, one should only believe in himself and boost his self-confidence level to attain his ultimate goal.

Revitalize yourself with wisdom

To magnify the confidence level, a person should fortify himself with wisdom or knowledge. Thus, one of the best known strategies to strengthen self-confidence is to become more and more knowledgeable through learning and analysis. This can be done easily by studying books and novels, research materials, and exploring the internet for more wisdom.

Thus, we can conclude that self-confidence is the foundation stone for the overall refinement of a person determined by factors like, nurturing from childhood, levels of education and enthusiasm exhibited, along with robust tenacity and positive self-management techniques displayed to attain success in one’s life.

Buying into the mythos that going back to change test answers will lower test scores, many students decide not to revise any test answers they’re unsure about. Personal experience would have it that many people rely on that ‘gut feeling’ when it comes to taking tests. Whether or not that ideology is helpful is largely up for debate. Based on common sense, it would seem beneficial to go back and change an answer if a student is confident they made a mistake. Statistics can begin to highlight if there exists an advantageous strategy to answer revision at face value. In essence,

Success Rate for Changing Answers

McMorris et al. (1987), in a study involving master’s level students in educational and psychological measurement classes, found the majority of test answer changes were from wrong-to-right. This doesn’t mean that changing the answer, on its own, will likely make the new answer correct. On the questionnaire given at the end of the exams, students answered ‘rethought’ and ‘rereading’ as their prevailing reasons for changing answers (McMorris et al. 1987). This adds to the notion of, so long as changing a test answer is informed by logical processes like ‘rethought’ or ‘rereading’, it may be in the student’s favor to change their answer. There still remains the possibility that a student can simply be overthinking a question upon rereading, which could lead to a wrong answer upon changing it. This study can’t definitively match up people’s reasons for answer-changing with their success rate. Statistics alone can’t account for the many ways students choose to answer test questions. Looking at just the correlation, it remains unclear if intelligence and creativity are associated with success rates for answer changes. With the ability to think critically and in novel ways, perhaps more intelligent and creative people would be more successful in changing their test answers (Hudson et al. 2019).

Trusting First Instincts and Confidence

Research has identified a ‘first-instinct fallacy’ which comes from people placing too much trust in their first instincts (Couchman et al. 2015). One reason for this may be belief bias stemming from many folk beliefs telling students to ‘trust their gut’, which interferes with the possibility of answer revision being the right choice (Hudson et al. 2019). Other reasons for the first-instinct fallacy have to do with how students remember their test-taking experiences. Students place more emphasis on times when an answer was changed from right-to-wrong. This is accounted for by the negativity bias, which predisposes people to better remember negative experiences. As a result, times in which a student incorrectly changed their answer are recalled more easily and perceived as more common according to the availability heuristic (Tversky et al. 1973). In a study assessing students’ confidence with their answer-changing decisions, general confidence in the correctness of an answer was positively correlated with correctness. Stemming off of this result, it would make sense to revise low-confidence answers while not revising high-confidence answers (Couchman et al. 2015).

Many students may already employ this strategy of only revising low-confidence answers. This factors into prospect theory, which involves risk-assessment during decision making. When a student is highly confident in their answer, there’s a greater perceived loss to changing the answer, and risk is averted by sticking with the original answer. Likewise, when confidence is low, there seems to be minimal loss and more to gain from switching (Hudson et al. 2019). To draw a more complete picture of these kinds of decisions, confidence needs to be broken down further. The motivators behind students’ confidence in their answers is relevant in determining whether answer-switching is appropriate. Under and overconfidence could both prevent students from getting the correct answer.

Analyzing Confidence During Tests

Shynkaruk et al. (2006) found test-takers based their confidence mainly in their beliefs and prior knowledge. Based on this relationship, problems that people had more background knowledge about were rated with higher confidence. People were also more confident in their answers when given more time to analyze the problem. When some participants used extra time to reexamine problems and switch their responses, there was a small overall increase in accuracy.

Despite people’s increased confidence in areas of greater prior knowledge, Shynkaruk et al. (2006) found a poor correlation between confidence and accuracy in reasoning. This bears a stark contrast to Couchman et al. (2015), which found a positive correlation between confidence levels and accuracy. This isn’t to say that confidence can’t be a valuable tool for deciding whether to change an answer on an exam. These contrasting results bring up the issue of whether confidence alone should be the primary measure when deciding to revisit a question.

The weak correlation between overall confidence and accuracy may be because of other variables that affect each differently (Busey et. al 2000). According to context-dependent memory, matching study and testing conditions may improve recall accuracy (Hudson et al. 2019). However, matching context may not affect confidence on its own, unless the student is deliberate in doing it. This under confidence would make it disadvantageous for a student to go back and change a potentially correct. The amount of time for which students study prior to testing can work oppositely by boosting confidence while not affecting accuracy depending on the study method. A student may feel more confident after employing rote memorization techniques for hours, but that actual memory improvement could be insignificant (Hudson et al. 2019). At this point, overconfidence can prevent a student from making the right choice.

Discussion

One of the problems presented by criticizing confidence measures is that there aren’t many other metrics a student can use during a test. Personal experience would say confidence is the only metric a student can really use to gauge performance in the middle of a test. What’s required is metacognition delving deeper than simply, ‘Am I confident in my answer?’

Students can be more specific and honest with where their confidence, or lack thereof, comes from. By being truly aware of their understanding in a subject or specific question, they can better determine whether it’s worth it to change an answer. Statistics alone seem to advocate for a ‘revise-more-often’ mentality. However, this draws an incomplete picture of what motivates revision in the first place. Further research can illuminate the underlying mechanisms of students’ choices to change answers during tests. At the same time, on a student-to-student basis, it would be wise to study effectively and efficiently in the hopes that such a difficult choice doesn’t happen too often.

References

1. Busey, T. A., Tunnicliff, J., Loftus, G. R., & Loftus, E. F. (2000). Accounts of the confidence-accuracy relation in recognition memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 7(1), 26–48. doi: 10.3758/bf03210724
2. Couchman, J. J., Miller, N. E., Zmuda, S. J., Feather, K., & Schwartzmeyer, T. (2015). The instinct fallacy: the metacognition of answering and revising during college exams. Metacognition and Learning, 11(2), 171–185. doi: 10.1007/s11409-015-9140-8
3. Hudson, D. L., & Whisenhunt, B. L. (2019). Psychology.
4. Mcmorris, R. F., Demers, L. P., & Schwarz, S. P. (1987). Attitudes, Behaviors, and Reasons for Changing Responses Following Answer-Changing Instruction. Journal of Educational Measurement, 24(2), 131–143. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3984.1987.tb00269.x
5. Shynkaruk, J. M., & Thompson, V. A. (2006). Confidence and accuracy in deductive reasoning. Memory & Cognition, 34(3), 619–632. doi: 10.3758/bf03193584
6. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5(2), 207–232. doi: 10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9

In this essay, I will be discussing this statement of ‘public confidence in nursing is essential’ in relation to the significance of professionalism and trust within values-based nursing. Public confidence is important because it affects attitude towards practice of nursing students and nurses and their professionalism. It helps to guide day to day practice so nurses can provide excellent care to patients. The nursing profession is a demanding, highly technical job and it is often undermined and isn’t given as much appreciation by doctors, patients and the general public (RN, 2011).

This and other factors can affect the confidence level in the nursing students and nurses which will consequently affect the way they practice. Lack of confidence in healthcare by the public can interfere with a nurses/ nursing student’s ability to reach their full potential and this can affect their professionalism. According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), professionalism in nursing is characteirsed through “purposeful relationships and underpinned by environments that facilitate professional practice”(NMC, 2020). The main purpose of professionalism in nursing is to provide a safe, effective and consistent environment to patients that also provide support to patients and their families (NMC,2020) . Nurses through graduate level education are socialised to work in an inter-professional manner where their compassion and collaborativeness is recognised (NMC,2020). “Public confidence in health care as a whole has been steadily eroding” (Collier, 2012). This elucidates that the relationship between public confidence and professionalism is that if the public are less confident in the healthcare system, in nurses in particular, then it can result with nurses slacking in professionalism. However, if public confidence in nurse and other health profession is strong then it would ensure that their professionalism is intact and that they would provide a more effective, productive care to patients. It would give them an incentive to value the nursing experiences.

Knowing the nursing professions history helps us understand the importance of public confidence. For example, the Nurse Registration Act 1919 ensured that there was a register for nurses so they can be defined for their qualification and profession as a nurse. There were also supplementary registers that were specifically for other groups such as mental health nurses. This 1919 Act also helped establish the General Council of England and Wales. This meant that examination was compulsory to enter the register of nursing. All these changes ensure that in today’s society all nurses have been provided with a full education and regardless of what field of nursing it is, we are all seen as equal. As a consequence of all these historical important events in nursing, it has ensured that the public identifies us as an important profession on which they can rely on. This raises public confidence in nurses and as a result professionalism in the nursing profession is signified and helps ensure that efficient care is provided to patients. Therefore, the nursing profession’s history help us to understand the importance of public confidence because it provides a sense of identity and by understanding what happened in the past allows us to understand what caused changes in the laws and public eye and how it affects today’s society. Now, nursing is seen as one of the most important responsibilities.

Nurses main duty is to give care to patients. They choose certain values that their act accordingly towards. According to Mohsen Shahriari et al. in order for nurses to evaluate their actions affecting their functions and goals, the values they choose form a framework which becomes resource for them to “conduct towards clinical ethical competency” and how they face concerns with ethics (Mohsen Shahriari, 2013) . An overall recognition of the nursing ethical values can help nurse students and nurses to come together with a mutual understanding to reach a common goal of care in patients. According to the NHS, values that inform professionalism in nursing are things such as compassion, caring, competency, commitment, communication and courage, also known as the 6Cs (NHS,2020). Public trust in the nursing profession can be promoted by shared values such as listening to patients needs, respecting their dignity, communicating clearly, maintaining confidentiality etc (NMC, 2020).

To conclude, I have learnt that professionalism is a very important value within the nursing profession because it helps to safeguard the well being and the health of patients. Professionalism helps to maintain a positive environment where honesty, respect, communication, teamwork, compassion is held high in regard. This overall helps to reduce tension that can arise in a health workplace that is resulted from personal differences (Regis College, 2020). By addressing the question of how public confidence is essesntial in nursing, I have also learnt the important of the history of the nursing profession and how it has influenced the progression of professionalism throughout the years. For example, in 1969, the Royal College of Nursing carried the ‘Raise the Roof’ campaign. This helped to address issues such as increase in salaries, conditions were improved because recruitment services and retention were poor (McGann et al. 2009). When I go to my first placement, I will practice professionalism within my learning experience by ensuring I look back at the NMC codes and the 6C’s .e.g. I will ensure I show compassion and respect towards my patients by getting involved in personal care by listening and responding to their needs, I will act in their best interest.

Introvert means shy people, and shy people are usually the most talkative people around the best company. As an introvert, you always think of how you can build more confidence in life. We all are introverts in a few places or phases of our lives. In today’s scenario, more and more people are turning toward the motivational speaking. Be it or speaking for others or listening for themselves, motivational speaking and sharing success stories have now become the new trend in social life.

Imagine yourself being surrounded by a mob of people in a conference room where you are present for a business meeting or public meeting with the fellow individuals. Consider that place the hub of networking where hundreds of other fellow business professionals are present. A few of them are discussing their business strategies, and other few are trying to make new connections with the entrepreneurs in some better ways! Now picture yourself; in that scenario.

It’s totally a waste feeling if you’re still an introvert person in this social age. Being an introvert in front of new people is okay, but not getting out of the introvert state in the company of the people who have dreams, aspirations, desires is not good. Business meeting places and events are major secret sauce elements that can help you in a long business run only if you know how to use it as an opportunity.

So, if you are someone who is an introvert person and wants to join the conversations with the brilliant mind or you want to build your network and close business deals for your company, then here are some tips :

Join Toastmasters

Joining Toastmasters will help you to get rid of awkward pauses, rambling stories, and you will learn how to overcome your verbal tics. Speaking in front of the public is a wholesome different thing from the usual conversation with the people.

Joining Toastmasters is a good option for the introverts to overcome shyness. Additionally, you will get to learn new skills – ‘Public Speaking’, which will benefit you in the long run if you are looking for the road to be an influencer on social media. Moreover, the atmosphere of the Toastmasters is very clubs are very chill, and you’ll feel a sense of enthusiasm even if you lack confidence. So, give it a try in 2020.

Don’t Pretend To Be An Extrovert Person

A mistake you can make in your early days if you are a new influencer is to assume that people wouldn’t like you if you are an introvert animal. It’s perfectly dining to be quiet in some situations and being reserved is okay! Pretending extrovert means you are telling other people, mostly strangers, that you are fond of making connections without reviewing the roots of finalizing the connections. Your goal should be to become the best version of yourself. For that, you just don’t need to become like someone else.

Develop The Habit Of Listening, More Than Speaking

From the deck of entrepreneurs, I would like to share a piece of wisdom with you guys – listening is much more important than talking. you should become a good listener first, and your talking skills will automatically enhance. Being a good listener means – you understand how to fulfil the need people are expecting from you! Moreover, if you know how to react to a situation, you will never get bluffed in life.

On the other hand, being talkative most of the time would surely land you in some troubles of life. So being, talkative is important, but being a good listener is way more important.

Take Advantage Of Your Previous Wins

Frankly, when you celebrate your win, your body gets a jolt of testosterone, which eventually boosts up your confidence and put you to a whole new stage of productivity. With each win in your life, be in any sector, you feel more confident for the upcoming challenges. We suggest you take baby steps to small wins in your life so that when you feel it is time to make bigger moves, you are already pumped up!

Outsource, If It All Fails

If it all fails, you still have the best option, which we called outsourcing. Some motivational speakers are matchmakers and can introduce you to the same mindset people who are not introverts and are excellent in creating and giving new business opportunities. By this way, you give yourself access to enter into the community of the life longwise friends, influencers and professional mentors.

CONCLUSION

Developing social confidence is easy, but it takes the right approach to do so. Know you know what it takes and how an introvert can build confidence. Share this knowledge with your friends if you think they need to see this and learn. Embrace the power of giving, and the goodwill be to get back to you!

‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.’ ~ Dr. Seuss. The dictionary naturally defines confidence as “freedom of doubt and belief in yourself and your abilities”. To me, confidence is not something anyone can teach you that. It’s about what you see when you look in the mirror and recognize the power you have inside of you. Altogether, you can explain confidence in many numerous ways. I feel that I know the best way to do so.

For example, confidence isn’t about being cocky or flamboyant; it’s more so how you present yourself and go about difficult situations in your life. It’s not something where you fear self-doubt and express hesitation to make a move on something. And it is not a trait where you sit and wait for the “big” move. Confidence is a trait where you don’t dread conflict or feedback, but you embrace it. Confident people can accept feedback and act on it positively. Confidence allows you to be able to move freely without a care and doubt in the world no matter the outcome or effect.

Nonetheless, when you are confident, you are comfortable with change. Good self-confidence makes you enthusiastic in seeking out new opportunities and allows you to be comfortable with new ideas, embrace them fully. Furthermore, confidence playing a role in being goal-oriented. This means that you are focused-on self-improvement and success which allow you to have a sense of purpose & direction. As a result, you approach things confidently. And in addition to that, confidence is directly related to people who are driven to succeed. When you are confident, everything comes easy, so having challenges & disappointments on a journey doesn’t detour you from it but causes you to go harder. Because of the faith you have in yourself that you are going to overcome it. Confidence means you’re able to fail and get back up and try it again. It’s knowing that everything is okay if I fall a hundred times I just know I have it in me that I’m going to get back up a hundred and one times.

Therefore, how would you define confidence at this point? Would it be safe to mention that “confidence is simply a magnet that pulls paperclips and cockiness is like two positive magnets that repel each other”? Confidence is like a line. Some days you genuinely have it & it’s maxed out; then some days it’s in the middle. Then there are those days when confidence is like looking for your favorite socks, and you just can’t find them but, you must go about your day. Confidence is a bonsai tree. Its branches take ages to grow, and when they do, it’s a beautiful thing. But in the wrong situation or hands, it won’t last long.

In the end, Confidence is one of those things that only you can define. Once again, as the great Dr. Seuss once said “…You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.’. Confidence is primarily about what you see in yourself and knowing the power & potential you have. Confidence can’t be defined by realities expectations only yours.

Self-confidence is not something that holds me back, in fact, I appreciate the level of confidence I enjoy and feel that I can make the choices and decisions I want without a feeling of concern or overriding fear. That is not to say that I am always successful, but I realize that even by trying I am moving closer to a higher level of confidence.

I did not always have a high level of self-confidence. When I was younger, I had a lot of self-confidence in my ability to do well in football and track, but my confidence in my ability to deal with life’s challenges was quite low. This was probably caused by a fear of not measuring up to my parent’s expectations and a little bit of social shyness. However, as I got older, I realized that my parents only wanted me to be healthy and to try my best at everything I did. As a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I had a lot of social interaction with people from all walks of life and I lost most of my shyness. My job also required that I respond to all different kinds of situations. The more success I had, the more my self-confidence rose.

Self-confidence or confidence in yourself means that you know that you can do whatever task you are faced with. This does not mean that you have to do every task by yourself. It means that the ones you know you can do by yourself you do and the ones where you need help you know how to find it. Confidence is a learned trait, not something you are born with. It is the force that pushes you forward and allows you to find the right path amidst the confusion and chaos of life. Confidence is the necessity you must have to assist you in realizing your dreams and goals.

We all have the power of self-confidence within us. Sadly many leave it unused for long periods while others use it sparingly like a miser. Forget about past worries and build the power of self-confidence within you. Since you can’t change the mistakes of the past, don’t let them spoil the present or dim the future.

The first thing that you must practice is don’t hate yourself before deciding to practice self-confidence. It is very difficult to become self-confident if you do not like yourself. Remember, just like everyone else, you were born into this world for a specific reason. Think about the things that you are good at doing. Work at becoming better at them. Don’t worry about the things that you are not very good at. A very successful person I was talking to recently said, Why spend your limited time here on earth working on things you are not good at? Instead, perfect the things you are good at and hire someone to do the things you are not good at.

Mediocrity and poor performance are often due to low self-confidence but it is not something you have to live with. You can build your self-confidence by challenging yourself to take action and do something. Even though you feel as if you lack confidence, it doesn’t mean other people can tell. Building good self-confidence is a wonderful thing, and it’s much easier than you’d imagine. One of the easiest ways of building self-confidence is to take baby steps. What I mean by this is to set small goals or projects that you have to complete. Each time you do one in the time you have set for yourself, you will build your self-confidence. The accumulation of small victories will convince your subconscious mind that you can do what you set out to do. It will then convince your conscious mind that you have a lot of capabilities and your self-confidence will grow. If you continue to do this over months, you will find that your self-confidence becomes greatly improved. With improved self-confidence, you can take on bigger projects and goals and as these are completed your self-confidence will grow by leaps and bounds.

So what other techniques are available to anyone wishing to develop more self-confidence? It should be no surprise to you when I tell you that the single most influential person on your self-confidence is you, or more specifically, your mind. This probably sounds very basic but are you using your thoughts to reinforce your self-confidence and self-esteem? Talk positively to yourself all the time. Become your own best friend and supporter. Encourage yourself to do more. Congratulate yourself on every small or large victory. Remember that very few people are successful the first time they try to do something. You didn’t ride a bike the first time you tried. Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb on his first attempt either. It took him more than 10,000 attempts before he made the first successful light bulb and it only lasted a few minutes. The biggest thing to remember is that you are never defeated in doing anything you want to do until you quit. Donald Trump, during a recent interview, stated that he was richer than most people because he failed more times than most. However, in his case, he learned from his mistakes and tried again. Why? Because he was confident that he could do what he wanted to do if he just continued trying. You are no different from Donald Trump. Do what he did. Just keep trying until you succeed. When you do, your self-confidence will soar and you will realize that you can do anything you want to as long as you continue trying.

Another technique is to watch other people. When you see someone that stands upright and moves with a sense of purpose watch to see if they give you the impression that they have a lot of confidence. If they do, duplicate the physical characteristics of these confident people and you will start to gain the confidence they display.

One thing that you must ensure that you do not do is listen to people who talk down to you or try to tell you that you cannot do something. Usually, these people can’t do these things themselves, so they try to convince others that they can’t do them either. If something like this keeps happening to you, tune these people out and stop associating with them. Your inner confidence needs to be liberated from this constant barrage of negative thoughts and statements from the dream stealers around you. Your limitations are in your mind, not in your reality.

Here are some tips for everyday practice. If you want to develop and build confidence, associate with positive uplifting people. Good people around you will help you build self-confidence. If you want to build up your confidence, do something new every day. Each of these small acts will add to your confidence and also make your life more enjoyable. The most sacred thing in life is self-confidence because it is the secret of all miracles. When you have confidence in yourself, you arouse everything stronger, greater, and superior in you. In consequence, the more confidence you have in yourself, the more you will attain and accomplish. A person who knows the power of self-confidence walks a path of inner growth and achievement. With self-confidence, a person of mediocre ability can achieve more in life than those with exceptional talents and little self-confidence.

Supreme self-confidence is a birthright for every person so isn’t it about time you claimed yours?

Studies show that among high school students, 44% of girls and 15% of boys feel that they need to lose weight in order to look better. This shows that many students suffer from low self-esteem as a result of body issues. Self-confidence is when you have trust in someone or something and believe in yourself and your abilities. Most people lack self-confidence because they do not feel like they deserve trust in anything that they do. They often feel like they cannot achieve certain tasks because they are not good enough. Having self-confidence can lead to a happy and healthy life. The author Rupi Kaur writes poems about gaining self-confidence and learning how to love yourself. One piece of her work that stood out to me was in the book called ‘Milk and Honey’.

‘Milk and Honey’ by Rupi Kaur show’s how she gains confidence in the way she looks and feels about herself. “It was when I stopped searching for home within others and lifted the foundations of home within myself, I found there were no roots more intimate than those between a mind and body that have decided to be whole”. The way I viewed this quote’s meaning was that for you to find your own happiness, you have to stop looking for it in other people and try to find it inside of yourself. When you finally find happiness within yourself, it’s a key step in gaining self-confidence and self-love.

Finding happiness and love in yourself can be difficult. Social media has had a huge influence on the way people think they should look. They portray the ideal body type as being thin and muscular, having clear skin, etc. The key to gaining self-confidence is to believe in yourself and know your worth. People need to realize that everything they see on social media is photoshopped or heavily edited. Nobody can be perfect in real life. Having confidence in yourself will make you happy and can also help avoid depression and anxiety.

There are three types of self-confidence. The first type is false confidence, this is when people talk big but do nothing when it’s time to show it. They have false confidence because they are really insecure on the inside. The next type of confidence is temporary confidence, which is when an event or achievement gives you a boost of confidence and it makes you take a risk. The final type of confidence is true self-confidence, which is when you actually believe in your capabilities, trust in yourself, and know that you are worthy.

Gaining self-confidence can be difficult to achieve, but it can be done. Avoid all of the negativity if you can. You should have faith in yourself, and that will lead to your success in a happy and healthy life.

Certainty is the conviction that one will play out a demonstration in a right, legitimate, or compelling way. This conviction, as I would like to think, is the way to prevail in numerous things we do. The Dictionary characterizes certainty as an opportunity of uncertainty; faith in yourself and your capacities. Numerous individuals come up short of the fearlessness to carry on with a glad and sound life. (Hawkins, Swannell, and Weston 1998, pg141) Yet, certainty is a helpful and incredible asset for everybody to accomplish objectives and satisfy wishes. Sureness must be accessible in people’s regular daily existences with the objective for them to believe that they can do anything. The best way to deal with increment dauntlessness is to peer someplace inside yourself and trust that you can vanquish all obstacles and troubles that you are looked with, on a consistent bases.

Certainty is something that can’t be educated. It is needy upon the individual to pick how much conviction they have inside themselves. I am at the point where I comprehend that I ought to at first have confidence in myself before others will have confidence in me. No one instructs us to be cheerful or miserable. (Kent 2007) Self-certainty is likewise when you feel sure about yourself, your activities, choices and feelings, and confidence. They are regular assessments that come as we develop sanely, physically, openly, and rationally.

A daring individual is a cheerful, revering, independent, confident, energized, feeling of pride and restriction individual, and acknowledges and contemplates guarantee limits. (Mitchell 2007) Physically, an individual looks certain with positive non-verbal communication and a great stance. That is, standing, sitting, and strolling with a straight back, getting a handle on hands in front or back of the body, strolling with wide advances, strong handshakes, looking, and grinning are indications of fearlessness. When you come to the heart of the matter where you enable others to direct how you feel about existence, you need to stop and take an inside review. ( Densky 2006) says you additionally need to trust that you can succeed. Inquire as to whether your lacking certainty and confidence are keeping you away from being as well as can be expected probability be. Much of the time these feelings begin from people empowering the negativity of different people to vanquish them. You must be happy to assume responsibility for your life and whatever is keeping you down. So normally we, as a people, look for endorsement from society before we affirm ourselves. I have empowered society to choose how I should look, dress and feel. It is the perfect open door for me to stand firm and be in charge of my own fate.

( Raudsepp 2007) Your watchers will see you certainly and they will have trust in you as you are revealing to them that ‘I can do it’. When you talk, walk, think continue and feel, confidence is showed up. Wherever you go and all that you do, Confidence is required for your achievement of what you did. For all these while, various people feel that they perceive what and how courage is, yet why some of them couldn’t win in what they did. This is on the grounds that they don’t completely comprehend what certainty truly is and realize the best possible and successful approaches to improve it. All things considered, improving certainty is particularly relying upon one’s own self. Also, the approaches to improve certainty are simple as long as you have a solid will to pursue and never surrender. Henceforth, certainty can be improved inward yourself by speculation decidedly, putting stock in yourself, defining practical objectives, and learning.

‘Motivation is a profound inward drive to accomplish an objective while an objective is perfect that speaks to a need or a need that hasn’t been accomplished. Everybody is motivated. Motivation implies having a need, want, desire, or objective that isn’t being met at an ideal level. A ‘hole’ is experienced between the perfect and the genuine. That hole helps provide guidance and vitality towards understanding that hole limited. We have a wide range of ‘thought processes.’ Our essential requirements for nourishment, water, air, warmth, learning, and so forth all push us to go about as accomplish more socially scholarly wants for cash, love, regard, achievement, inventiveness, magnificence, self-development, and so on. ”Honest goals are insufficient. Adhering to one’s arrangement is difficult to work. We people are famously poor at finishing our arrangements. We will, in general, be irresolute about rolling out an improvement. We need to get in shape; by using the following strategies.

• Avoid temptation
• Motivation
• Willpower
• Confidence

These strategies can help you to be strong and motivated by self-control. While the physical autonomy of today and tomorrow is genuine enough, the reality remains that activities today influence activities tomorrow. Therapist Howard Rachlin contends that poise originates from picking ‘designs’ of conduct after some time as opposed to singular ‘acts.’ The choice to quit smoking is, as a result, a choice to start an example of conduct. To smoke the cigarette this evening is to neglect to see the association between today’s demonstration and the example of acts over numerous evenings and days. Not smoking today around evening time makes it simpler not to smoke tomorrow and not smoking tomorrow makes it simpler not to smoke the following day, etc. The more you need the objective, the almost certain you are eager to endeavor the endeavors and forfeits required to accomplish it. The quality of individuals’ promise to something relies upon its incentive to them and the possibility that the worth will, indeed, happen. The connection between these two elements is multiplicative. This implies there will be no inspiration to seek after the objective if the estimation of the objective is zero, regardless of how high the probability of progress. Essentially, there will be no inspiration if the normal possibility is very low.

Self-control little heed to what we are doing, regardless of whether it includes a physical demonstration or a psychological choice, must be kept up to create alluring outcomes. On the off chance that feeling assumes control over, the reason, for the most part, flies out the window and the demonstrations or choices are not prone to be as beneficial as they ought to be. “This isn’t just valid on the ball court or in the working environment, however in the home too. ‘Regardless of whether it is teaching your kids, and our youngsters shout out for and need discipline, it must be finished with motivation to be viable,’.

On the off chance that we lose reason in our control of our kids, it won’t be compelling. You can’t offend and be a positive impact, and you will estrange when you discipline through emotion. Remember that order isn’t to rebuff, yet it’s to address, to improve, to counteract, to help, so we should keep up our self-control on the off chance that we are going to work anyplace approach our specific degree of skill, whatever that may be. Restraint is self-control. As I figured out my friend facing the problem with self-control, I tried to handle him and make him understand how to achieve self-control. I gave him some examples of self-control so that he can learn how to reach people. I gave examples such as Take a profound inhale; acknowledge you shouldn’t need to respond, something which you can’t control, let go. It’s the most ideal approach to maintain a strategic distance from future issues, try not to hurt somebody who had harmed you, since you decide not to and many more. It expects us to monitor our feelings consistently. We should settle on choices dependent on reason does not fear, since dread is a feeling and, in this way, can’t be sensible. Absence of discretion will bargain our judgment, presence of mind and confidence. We should likewise keep up our poise when others speak with us in an opposing way. If we permit another person’s correspondence to exasperate us, we have accidentally allowed them to command over our feelings, instead of keeping up control of ourselves. If you don’t care for how somebody is conversing with you, attempt to focus on the data and why they are imparting it instead of how they are stating it. Along these lines, you can, in any case, assimilate the data being imparted, however, can do as such without having your very own feelings influenced by the other individual. Try not to give anyone a chance to take your grin.

Motivation and self-control are supposed to be worked together but in the same value. The consumption of discretion skills has been clarified by an outside move in inspiration, and late research has underlined that controlled kinds of inspiration and poise abilities are emphatically connected with depletion in youth competitors. Straightforward intervention models indicated tenable roundabout and direct impacts of inspiration on weariness through poise inside an inspiration, and inborn, incorporated, distinguished, and outer guideline examinations. These believable impacts were not reproduced in the engaged intercession model while controlling for restraint and weariness auto backward impacts. We can all handle our motivation with self-control it’s just the way to handle both the things equally. These experiments helped me also to learn how to make self-control and get motivated.

Literature Review

In the literature review of this study relevant points from the previously done researches in the area of confidence building in classroom through effective teaching practices are given. There had been researches on developing confidence in students regarding certain subjects. Some work has also been done to propose strategies to develop confidence. We need to first study about what kind of teaching practice are effective on the whole and how they can be effective to develop confidence. We also need to study what is confidence according to research and how can it be measured. The major findings of some of the most relevant studies are given below.

What kind of Teaching Practices are Effective

Effective teaching practices are the practices that are carried out by teachers to make a positive impact on the students. It is an art but simultaneously a science too. Effective teachers blend theoretical, conduct and communal aspects together while teaching in the classroom. Through every activity that they carry out their focus is on the active involvement of students. They teach, monitor and reinforce their students simultaneously. They reinforce positive behavior and also modify the negative behavior for bringing out an improvement in the personality their students. (Gage, Simonsen, Briere, 2012)

According to Snyder, 1978 the success of a student is the ultimate obligation that majorly lies on the shoulders of a teacher. He or she has to increase the positive variables in the personalities of students and strengthen them. Thus, the development of confidence in a student is also the responsibility of a teacher and confidence can be build effectively if the teachers make their teaching effective.

What is confidence

Confidence in yourself to be specific is the believe in yourself it a treasured strength for a person. It can also be defined as how much positivity one carries about their own self. This is an attribute that gives a person inner happiness first of all, secondly individuals who have self-confidence have high chances of convincing others and it motivates one to improve more and make progress for the achievement of better results in any field. Confidence is what leads an individual to success. (Bénabou & Tirole, 2002)

Self-confidence gives you opportunities to celebrate your success that is achieved by confidence itself, because having confidence in your skills increases the chances for you to achieve the desired results. It increases motivation to by giving you more energy to excel even more. Self-confidence and self-efficacy come under the same umbrella when talking about an individual’s future performance but self-confidence is built on the past performance so it emphases on that as well.

Relationship Between Confidence and Motivation

Binabou and Tirole, 2002 proposed that confidence enhances will power and motivation thus it is a very important trait of personality. Motivation is needed in order to carry out each and every task of in one’s life this reflects to the importance of confidence as well.

Attributes of Confidence

Mackay, 2006 in his book listed the given qualities as important characteristics of confidence building that are self esteem, assertiveness, achievement, and constructive feedback. All these factors need to be strengthened in order to boost confidence.

Self Efficacy

According to Bandura’s well acclaimed self-efficacy theory the term self-efficacy means individual’s views regarding their abilities to give desired performance. How individuals feel, think, motivate themselves and behave is checked by self-efficacy principles. Through the basic 4 procedures these views bring out varied conclusions. The four basic process to name are intellectual, motivational, emotional and selection procedures. Strong self-efficacy increases an individual’s inner happiness and level of achievement in a number of ways.

The individuals who have strong self-efficacy love difficulties because they take them as challenges that they want to complete rather than getting threatened by a difficult situation because they believe their abilities to cope with it . Such people make different challenges for them and complete them through their commitment towards their goal. They face failure by increasing their efforts and remaining persistence. If they ever face failure they regain their confidence in a short span of time. Such individuals assert that if they fail that means the effort on their behalf was not enough or they did not have enough information and they believe they can improve both these attributes. When they meet a threat, they are certain that they are able control the situation. These attributes make them achieve more in life hence they have less tension and they don’t fall victim to depression.

On the other hand, individuals who do not believe in their abilities and are uncertain about their skills run away from challenges because they find them threatening. They do make goals but are not persistent to achieve them and have week ambition. If a challenge comes their way they start thinking about their short comings, the difficulties that will come their way and all the negative aspects that they will have to encounter instead of focusing on the strategy that they need to adopt in order to successfully complete that challenge. Such individuals make little effort and lose hope in a short span of time. If they face failure they need a lot of time to regain their self-efficacy. They confuse their less performance with not having enough talent or abilities. Such people experience tension a lot and are usually depressed.

Sources of Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy or one’s believe in their capabilities can be strengthened by 4 major sources.

• The first one is having experience of success. The taste of success increases an individual’s self-efficacy. They need to experience that challenges keep coming but they are able to overcome them.
• Taking examples and making people role models can also create a sense of self-efficacy in people that if someone else can do something despite facing challenges then they can also do it. There should be a similarity in the circumstances of themselves and the role model.
• Reinforcing people that they can do it also increases their self-efficacy. People need to be told about their strengths and verbally influenced to believe in their abilities.
• Individuals also depend on their emotional stability regarding the believe in their capabilities. Mood also influences self-efficacy, this can be tackled by psychological ways and can also be improved by adding physical activities such as sports. (Bandura, 1994)

Role of Teachers in Confidence Building of Students

Begaj, 2014 conducted a study on role of teachers in increasing self-confidence to high school students in this research mixed method approach was used. The researcher used interviews, questionnaires and observation for data collection. The conclusions of this research proposed self-confidence of students is highly dependent on the relationship between teachers and students, admiration and reinforcement by the teachers. The researcher highlighted the fact there are numerous proofs that psychologists, educators and students themselves believe that teachers can boost confidence level of students. This study also reinforced that the role of teacher is central in the confidence building of students.

Activities to Develop Self Confidence

Dammani and Indani, 2014 conducted a study development of self confidence as an effort to find the attributes of people having self confidence as well as to find out tactics to boost confidence. The researcher developed a scale of 30 items and made 138 participants fill it. The participants were selected from different fields. The attributes of confident people as per the findings of this research were dress nicely, walk faster, sit in the front, have a good posture, speak more, speak slowly, and workout. While the strategies proposed in this research to boost confidence were cherish good memoirs, do not sit idle, make eye contact, act confident, smile in the mirror, do not overthink, accept compliments with humbleness, be positive, be kind to negative self-talk, be thankful, recognize your talents, be proud of yourself, remain focused on contributing to the world, identify your insecurities, be rigid on your rules, bounce back from mistakes, compliment others, avoid perfectionism, spend time with people you feel good with and live in present. The researcher has claimed these activities to be useful for teachers, students, administrators, leaders and politicians to boost their confidence.

Teaching Practices that can Develop Confidence

There are a number of practices that teachers can adopt to develop confidence among their students. They need to remind them to believe in themselves. Teachers have the responsibility of giving their students the confidence that they can do everything. It is in the hands of teachers to endorse self-confidence and motivation in their students. (Ordonez, Carlos, Stoller, Friederike, Bernd, 2015)

As stated by Maples, 2007 if performances are made a part of classroom activities it proves to be very beneficial for both teachers and students. The author improvised melodramatic strategies i.e. making students perform without rehearsals or preperation while teaching English subject and in elementary classes and it helped in boosting the confidence level of students along with the course information.

Harting, 1985 stressed that confidence comes when you actually dare to perform and step out to keep your shyness aside. The strategy that individuals who lack confidence can use while performing is that they should keep their attention toward judging their own performance rather than thinking what people might be thinking of it, oral guidelines also help such people to perform with confidence. Once such individuals allow themselves to perform they will gradually start developing confidence.

Stiggins, 1999 asserts that confidence can also be developed through assessment if it is conducted with this intention. Assessment should be carried out in such a way that it does not make students lose their confidence end the help the ones who have already loosed confidence regain it. They must be given some sort of encouragement that makes them try more next time. A little achievement can also help in boosting one’s confidence.

Bunker, 1991 highlighted the importance of role play and physical activity in teaching and how it helps in developing confidence among students. During work and play activities students make small goals for them and feel confident after achieving they, they develop self-efficacy and start believing in themselves.

Traditional method of instruction or lecture method just imparts content knowledge in the students, that even in the short term memory and it does not focus on the development of practical skills of the students. Role play develops practical skills such as confidence in the students. It gives the students experience that is helpful for them in future life. It builds confidence in students by sharpening their communication skills. Through research it was proved that role play effects the confidence level of students positively, low confidence students exhibited improvement after being engaged in role play. (Dohaney, Brogt, Wilson, Kennedy, 2017).