Sections:

A person's self confidence is their ability to believe in themselves. People with a high self confidence are optimistic, assertive, and eager individuals ready to take on the world and conquer the goals. On the other hand, people with a low self confidence find themselves often distant and despondent, constantly questioning themselves and often passive or submissive. Self confidence is the key to succeeding in your academic pursuits, athletic activities, employment field, and private life. Individuals that entertain a high sense of self confidence usually go on to phenomenally succeed, whereas individuals with a low sense of self confidence tend to be brought down by their inner demons and fail.

The trap of low self confidence is extremely easy to fall into and extremely difficult to remove yourself. That tiny voice in the back of your head that criticizes, questions, and insults can easily grow louder and louder the more you listen. Instead of traditional angel on one should and devil on the other, someone with low self confidence finds the devil there more often than not. Instead of boosting themselves up by enjoying their accomplishments or congratulating themselves on a job well done, individuals with low self esteem find their shoulder devil is constantly picking and finding fault in the midst of triumph.

They key to maintaining a high self esteem is positive thinking. Individuals that think of themselves in a positive light are more likely to have a higher self confidence than those nay-sayers in the crowd. One way to remain positive and keep and upbeat aura is to surround yourself with positive people. Avoid individuals who criticize, nit pick, and put down. These negative individuals are a sinking ship and will only bring you down with them. By surrounding yourself with positive people, you will find it easier to maintain your high sense of a self worth and banish that devil from your shoulder. If you find yourself in a situation where you must deal with individuals with a negative outlook, confront them on the matter. Often, office gossip, school yard taunts, or home issues bury themselves deep within our minds and wreck havoc on our self confidence. Instead of allowing yourself to be burdened by these harmful words and thoughts, fight back! Refuse to stoop to their level, but insist the back biting and drama cease with the negative words. This task is certain to be difficult and the easiest thing to do is to walk away and let yourself moon over the hurtful words and thoughts, but the right thing to do is to attempt to put a stop to the situation. If the individuals refuse to cease, continue, or even worsen their actions, then break apart from the trend. Unfortunately, this may mean ending relationships, both personal and job related.

If you find yourself surrounded by so-called friends who constantly make you feel poorly about yourself and lower your self confidence, it might be time to part ways. Remember, friends, family, and loved ones are supposed to make you feel good about yourself and have your best interest at heart. This is not always the case and friends by title alone can do more harm than most enemies. Furthermore, personal relationships can have the same—if not worse—affect on one's self confidence level. Quite often, individuals in abusive relationships find themselves despondent and upset about their situation. If a loved one is making you feel poorly about yourself by constant criticism, abusive language, and distrusting actions, drastic circumstances may be due. Make the case for a change in the relationship and make your loved one understand what his or her words, thoughts, or actions do to your self confidence. If this fails, you may need to make a painful break, but remember, your loved ones are supposed to love and support you at all times. If someone is failing to do so, they have not fulfilled their role in you life.