Is This Really Self-Confidence?

Have you ever had a first impression about someone loud, outgoing and perhaps a little obnoxious as having high self-confidence but then figuring out later that they were actually acting in a way that covered up a rather low self-esteem?

You wouldn’t be the only one, I have fallen for this too as we often make the mistake of assuming the loudest, most outgoing person in the room is the most self-confident person among the group.

You know what I mean.

The storyteller that at first, makes everyone feel comfortable because they take the lead, but that quickly becomes annoying because they won’t allow anyone else to get a word in edge-wise.  How about the coach or teacher that feels being loud and “tough” is the best way to teach others – are these really examples of high self confidence?

Just as you peel the onion you see different layers, if you look beyond the loud exterior of most of these people lies a deeply troubled person with very low self confidence as they try and cover this with confident – looking behavior.

Unfortunately, without true self-confidence – a true sense of self-worth you will never be able to reach your true potential or be truly happy and healthy.

Inside “Attracting Greatness” – the excellent new book that finally shows a system that combines the best mental and physical traits of top leaders and difference makers in the world – there are traits that clearly identify one as being highly self confident.  Those self-confidence traits include:

1. Not being afraid to make mistakes. If you look for one measure of your self confidence it would be how open and comfortable you are to making mistakes – even putting yourself in situations where you know mistakes will be made with the objective of quickly learning and improving yourself despite how making that mistake may make you feel.

2. Do you make commitments? If you are always making excuses, trying to get out of making a commitment, always hear that little voice in the back of your head that feels as though you are being backed into a corner when asked to commit – chances are you lack self-confidence.  Commitment is one of greatest signs to the world that you can be trusted and is critical to attracting greatness into your life.

3. Do you trust yourself in the worst of times? We all have moments where we are confident, where we are proud and happy with our actions and feelings, but how many points in your life do you doubt your ability to act as you wish?  Do you struggle in certain situations or in front of certain people?  Do you purposely stay away from certain people or stop doing what you really would like to do because you doubt your own ability or fear failure?  At the highest level of self-confidence we have absolute faith in our own behaviors – not because we believe we will do the right thing in every case, but because we have put our fears into perspective and know that we can handle whatever uncertain situation arises – this is the state you can achieve with “Beyond Greatness”

4. Forget about perfect – seek out perfection only in terms of being true to your inner desire, value and beliefs.  This is actually a very profound concept which starts with spending more time figuring out what is inside of you, what truly makes you happy and consistently living your life in harmony with your inner perspective.

Often what we believe is self-confidence is really the opposite – behaviors, actions and defenses that cover up a lack of self esteem, where confidence is so brittle that a battlefield of weapons have been constructed to avoid that which one so often directly seeks.

With the 5-step system in “Beyond Greatness” you can change your life, build your self-confidence and finally be free to make an impact on the world and live in a constant state of peace, fulfillment and happiness that so many seek, but so few achieve.

So what are some behaviors that indicate you have more self-confidence?