Building Confidence - a Fundamental Component of Marden's Keys to Success

Building your self confidence is perhaps the most important single step you can take to increase your chances of success in any field.

Your self image affects how you challenge yourself. A confident outlook inspires you to tackle more difficult goals. It also affects how others see you and therefore how they react to you.

How you see yourself in your mind's eye shapes your future - it's the closest thing to a self-fulfilling prophesy you'll ever come across. If you see yourself as capable, in control, ready to take on new challenges and responsibilities - then you are well on the way to becoming that type of person.

As Orison Swett Marden said: "There can be no great courage where there is no confidence or assurance, and half the battle is in the conviction that we can do what we undertake." and "walk, talk and act as though you were a somebody, and you are more likely to become such."

Self confidence can be simply inborn (until or unless the hard knocks of life diminish it) but more often is built through personal experiences. Succeeding in small endeavors inclines us to attempt bigger and grander things, and further achievement boosts the level of confidence still higher. So, one way to build confidence is to tackle new things, gradually increasing in difficulty. This is similar to the way you might train a muscle through lifting progressively heavier weights.

But there is a purely mental approach, too. You enlist the help of your subconscious.

Positive self-talk is absolutely essential to building confidence. Successful people
condition themselves to intensely bombard their subconscious mind with their chosen goals and desired self-image. This leaves no chance for the subconscious to absorb anything but these confidence-boosting messages. The subconscious doesn't question anything. It simply accepts, then acts on whatever it is told.

This may be why children who are repeatedly told by their parents and teachers that they are lazy, clumsy or sullen act accordingly and reinforce that trait. On the other hand, those who are repeatedly told that they are clever, capable, and a pleasure to be around, also live up to that message.

Comments from other people may carry a particular influence, especially if these are respected or authority figures - but can still be overwhelmed by consistent, frequent, powerful inner messages.

To make the inner message as strong as possible, it requires more than just the repetition of key phrases within the privacy of your own thoughts. Attaching strongly felt emotions and, if at all possible, speaking the words out loud makes them infinitely more effective.

You don't have to turn yourself into a table-thumping, red in the face maniac shouting "I can do this!" to reap the rewards of this technique. Try something like "I lead a charmed life - I'm the luckiest person I know and I count my blessings every day. I look for the fun in every situation and I find myself laughing easily. I enjoy myself and make the most of every opportunity." While you're saying the words, create a mental picture of yourself in a happy situation, enjoying the success you have earned.

Of course, you'll need to construct a script tailored to your own circumstances, but remember that even if what your affirmation says is totally at odds with where you are today - it won't stay like that for long. Your subconscious will soon take notice of where you want to go and start moving you
in that direction. Once you're happy with your own affirmations, recite them at least twice daily, out loud, putting as much emotion into the recitation as possible.

If affirmations sound completely alien to you, and you feel "that's just not for me" - there is still a simple, effective way to use positive self talk. As an absolute minimum, every time you hear yourself questioning your ability to do something, immediately recall a time where, in similar circumstances, you obtained the result you were aiming for. Make the memory as real as possible - including the feeling of elation at your accomplishment.

Then make the connection - "I did that. I can do this, too."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want to know more about Orison Swett Marden and how his works inspired Napoleon Hill, W. Clement Stone, Norman Vincent Peale, Anthony Robbins, and many others then visit http://www.MardensKeysToSuccess.com where you can also gain FREE access to Brendan McKeogh's mini-course on Marden plus a FREE copy of the first chapter of "Marden's Keys To Success."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------