“With confidence, you have won before you have started.”

Confidence is powerful. Confidence is essential. Confidence is contagious.

If you are confident, you are much more likely to be successful. Confidence breeds success.

As a study from The National Academies Press states, self-confidence is considered one of the most influential motivators and regulators of behavior in people’s everyday lives. A growing body of evidence suggests that one’s perception of ability or self-confidence is the central mediating construct of achievement strivings.

Whether or not you are confident in yourself or in a situation can have an enormous impact on the result.

If you have no confidence in yourself, how do you expect to be successful in the things you pursue throughout your life?

If you have no confidence that you’re able to finish a book, or change your diet, or deliver a speech in front of hundreds of people, how do you expect to actually do so successfully? You’re already going in with doubt, which will consume your mind and affect your ability to concentrate on what you’re doing.

It’s the opposite of winning before you start. It’s losing before you start, or at the very least, putting yourself at a considerable disadvantage.

If you go into every situation, or even wake up every day, with this disadvantage, it will be hard to accomplish your goals.

On the contrary, showcasing a high level of confidence will enable better performance, regardless of the situation. If you truly believe you can do something and you’re confident in your abilities, your chances of succeeding in the end are higher.

Confidence also brings a positive approach to the table that would not exist otherwise. If you’re confident, your point of view on life is optimistic. If you’re not, it creates a negative perception in your mind.

A lack of confidence often leads to failure. Sometimes, the failure comes prior to the beginning. You can learn from failure, but the real lesson lies in the shift of your mindset.

Specifically, a shift towards more confidence.

How?

Luckily, there are ways to improve your confidence if you are struggling.

One of the things that has worked for me is doing things that make me feel uncomfortable. Whether it’s something I have tried and disliked, or something new that makes me feel uneasy, this method seems to work well.

After completing whatever it is, you feel a sense of accomplishment, with a wave of relief filling your mind and body. You feel proud for doing it, and this brings on confidence.

This technique is a challenging one and it’s probably best to start slower with it, as well as spacing it out so you don’t get too uncomfortable or burnt out. But the results and the broken barriers could be worth it. You will gain more confidence each time, which effectively builds up and creates momentum.

Another method has everything to do with your mental health. If you put in a genuine effort to feed your mind with positivity and prioritize peace, your confidence will come much easier.

This is a lifestyle change, but it can be done incrementally in stages.

Reading self-development books, meditating, eating healthier, listening to motivational podcasts and many other wellness concepts can go a long way towards improving your confidence.

Finally, if you know people in your life, or even see people you don’t know as well, that display a high level of confidence, study them. This can be as simple as analyzing their situation and how they remain confident or asking them about their journey.

Hanging around confident people can also tend to reflect back on you and increase your own confidence.

As Chris Dunn from Entrepreneur states, nobody is born with limitless self-confidence. If someone seems to have incredible self-confidence, it’s because he or she has worked on building it for years. Self-confidence is something that you learn to build up because the challenging world of business, and life in general, can deflate it.

This is true. It also provides assurance that there are ebbs and flows to confidence, but the key is maintaining a consistent effort to stay afloat and make adjustments as you go.

The Wrap Up

Confidence can take you places you might not otherwise be able to go. Sometimes, if you don’t know something, or you don’t feel comfortable in a situation, exuding a supreme level of confidence that everything will turn out fine is sufficient in achieving what you want.

Confidence levels will waver from time to time, but if you can understand this volatility, and the importance of its benefits, it will never dip too low.

In the long run, establishing a comfortable degree of confidence and creating a normality in your mind will prove beneficial in many ways. Your self-esteem, energy, belief and productivity will all thrive in accordance with it.

With a high level of confidence, and the other areas of your life firing on all cylinders as a result, your life will be full of victorious moments.

Express confidence. Breed success. Flourish.

“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.”