Confidence Demystified

The little book on how to become more confident and start living your life the way you want to live it.

De: Russell Jamieson

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Self-confidence is a quality that we all admire and desire because it appears to be extremely important if you want a happy, successful, and fulfilling life. We hear it all the time; confident people do better at work and are more successful. Those with a healthy amount of self-confidence seem to be thriving and in control of their lives. We all strive for confidence because nobody wants to live a life full of self-doubt.

Self-confidence is one of those things that we recognize when we see it. You can see it from across the room. Some people just seem so comfortable with themselves and can socialize with ease! Those of us who struggle with it (like me), ask ourselves, how come they’re so confident? Where does it come from? Have they always had it, or did they develop it somehow?

As I said, we recognize it when we see it, but we don't usually know how to build it. We can’t quite pin it down. The reason why we are so confused on this subject is because we often misattribute self-confidence. Most people think confidence is a natural byproduct of praise, compliments, and success, but that’s not the case. Real confidence doesn’t come from the external world. Confidence is much more complex than that.

What I also find paradoxical and perplexing is this: the harder you try to attain confidence, the less you seem to have. Those who appear to have high levels of confidence don’t seem to care what other people think of them. This attitude appears to give them even more confidence! On the other hand, those of us with low levels of confidence tend to care too much about what other people think. This creates a downward spiral of confidence loss. Often, I would ask, what am I doing wrong?

To make the concept of confidence even more complicated, there is something called the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger effect states the following: the less competent a person is, the more they overestimate themselves. And on the flip side, the more skilled a person is, the more they underestimate their competency. So, the people who are overconfident are usually the least competent and the people who have low confidence are usually the most competent! Quite ironic, isn’t it?

My goal with this book is to help you understand the different aspects of confidence, help you break out of the low confidence mindset through various strategies and techniques, and increase your self-esteem and self-efficacy. You will also learn how low confidence can be beneficial, how overconfidence can be detrimental, and why competence and REAL confidence matter.