How Do You Build Self-Confidence? | Sales Skills | Sales Training

It must be remembered that every person progressing through life will from time to time lack confidence. Confidence in many instances comes from familiarity. If we are doing something new, it is at that stage that we feel a lack of confidence.

Before we look at the stages of building confidence, let’s explore the conditioning we are subjected to. First, we are conditioned by our environment: that is, the people we mix with, the people we work with and the people we socialize with. People will naturally conform to their environment. If you were to mix, meet and talk only with millionaires, that alone would immeasurably increase your chance of becoming one. Why do we ensure that children don’t get into ‘bad company’? Because we know that if they do they will conform to the behaviour of the group. The same can be said of adults.

"Here are five ways to develop greater confidence:"

Get rid of excuses.

Don’t allow yourself to make excuses for non-performance or non-achievement, such as ‘I am too old’, ‘I am too young’, ‘I haven’t had the right education’, ‘I am never in the right place at the right time’, ‘I’m just not lucky’, or ‘It’s not my fault.’

Always be positive and say to yourself positive affirmatives: the ‘I can’ and ‘I am able’. Don’t talk yourself down.

Build your self-image

Let me ask you ‘How do you see yourself?’ I hope you are pleased. I hope you are proud of what you see, and I equally hope you see ways of improving. You must have a good self- image. You must have a pride in yourself. You must believe in you. You must picture yourself as winning and succeeding.

There is a great expression: ‘We become what we think about.’ It is true that we do become what we think about. And how you see yourself is what, in turn, will be manifested to others.

Don’t visualize failure

People are conditioned to believe that failure is something dreadful. It’s one of the most negative words of all because it conjures up negative picture imagination. But in order to fail, one has at least had to do something. So many people are caught up with this terrible fear of failure that they actually never do anything, they never try, they never have a go. My personal definition of failure is that it doesn’t exist and all there is an unsatisfactory result.

So what if you fail? Or I hope from now on, you will only have experienced an unsatisfactory result. The reaction must be: ‘What have I learnt from that, and now how can I turn this to my advantage and then have a go at something else?’ And do remember it is impossible to fail at anything until you actually give up!

The only way to conquer fear is to keep doing the thing you fear to do.

Remember that appearance builds confidence

One of the first outward signs of people who are suffering from a lack of confidence (or may be going through a down spell in their own life) is that they let their appearance become shabby.

Their clothes start to look a little bit untidy and they don’t take much care of their hair.

Have you ever had the unfortunate experience of arriving at an evening event where everybody is dressed in a dinner jacket and you turn up in a lounge suit or day dress? You instantly suffer a lack of confidence. You are the same person inside, but your appearance does not conform. The smarter the appearance, the greater will be the confidence. Women know how much better they feel when they have been to the hairdresser or they are wearing a new dress. If you are ever going through a tough spell, to help you rekindle your confidence, invest in yourself. Get the outside looking good and the inside will become good.

Compile a record of success

Go back to your earliest memory of success. Get a scrapbook and write in and record that success experience. It may have been at school, winning a race or getting a very good report. From that beginning, add every success you have ever had up to the present and then continually record in your personal success book every new success story. This alone is a great confidence builder, as we all have some successes in life but we very often forget them and only remember the failures. In years to come, when you might be suffering a lack of confidence, take out your personal success story and rekindle the ‘I cans’ because of what you have done in the past.