The first thing you need to do in order to Mgain self-confidence is to believe in yourself. It sounds easy enough, doesn't it? But many people don't believe in themselves, and it takes a lot of positive reinforcement before they can feel truly good about who they are.

We speak every day with people whose self-confidence we respect, and even admire. From physicians to politicians to CEO's of major corporations, these people practically ooze self-confidence.

You need self-confidence for nearly every part of your life, but you probably have struggled to find it. If you are not self-confident, there isn't much chance of being successful, so something's got to give.

You probably know what a lack of self-confidence looks like too, in people in addition to yourself. You have no doubt been hesitant to go full-bore on a project at work if the program manager seemed nervous and hesitant. Yet that may be the way you feel in front of others, too.

Put another speaker in front of the same group, a self-confident person, and you might be willing to follow him wherever he leads, even if the project is the same. Why is that? Because the person who was self-confident spoke clearly, explained himself succinctly, and answered questions with a quiet self-assurance that looks like he's had it since birth.

People who are self-confident inspire others to have confidence in them, whether it be their peers, their friends or their boss. By gaining your confidence, and that of the others with you, he will find success because he is self-confident.

Hang on, there is good news here, too. You can learn to be self-confident, and build on that to find success. Others will begin to have more confidence in you as your own confidence grows, and you will know then that it was worth all the effort.

Your body language and behavior, what you say and how you say it, all go into showing whether you have confidence in yourself or not. If you learn to do what you know is right, in a given situation, even if it's not the popular move to make, you are becoming self-aware and self-confident.

People who have low self-confidence often come across as very negative, and people who have confidence in themselves come across as positive, since they feel that what they're doing is right, and they aren't afraid to break from the crowd to do something correctly.

Before you can develop self-confidence, you need to discover self-esteem, and self-efficacy. You can begin to feel self-efficacy when you can see yourself mastering skills you need, and achieving some of your goals. Then will come the confidence that if you work hard you'll succeed. This will lead you to face difficult times, and persist in the right course.

Self-esteem overlaps with self-efficacy, which is in general a sense that you will be able to cope somehow with everything that happens in your life. You should also feel as though you deserve to be happy, because you do.

You can't learn self-confidence from an article like this, but you can learn to look at yourself in a positive manner, and to be unafraid when it comes to doing what you know is right, whether it's the popular choice or not.