I’m a shy quite person around many people other then friends and I am just so ready to come out of my shell! How can I boost my self confidence and higher my self esteem so I can get over this shyness? Any ideas?

Try to be more confident and find YOU ARE HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT YOURSELF! Loving and accepting ourselves is THE MOST CRITICAL FACTOR in experiencing joy,happiness, and success in life. When you really love yourself and you really love other people, you find that life is really an incredible journey where things flow, and no matter what happens you always find a way to enjoy yourself and you feel fulfilled. You MUST love yourself completely.
This determines your STANDARDS for what you are willing to accept or settle for. It determines how well you treat your body and your health, how much money you feel you deserve to earn or feel you can make, your belief in whether you can achieve your goals, how much others RESPECT you and how they treat you, and even whether people like you and want to be around you. People love being around confident people. You see, confident people do not feel the need to judge you or tear you down in order to elevate their own self-worth. They radiate a positive energy. You feel safe around them. You need to consistently and confidently take action to move towards your goals, and towards your ultimate destiny. People who lack in confidence often get ‘stuck’. So you see, your entire DESTINY is shaped by your degree of confidence. True self-confidence comes from an absolute sense of certainty deep within, that you are able to handle anything life throws your way. Truly confident people exude calm, control, power, certainty. They care about people, and they make people feel good when they are around them.They never brag – after all, actions speak louder than words. People who brag are just masking their insecurities. People have varying degrees of confidence depending on what activity they are performing. For example, someone might be totally confident in performing a piano concert, or driving a car, but feel totally inadequate at a new job they’ve started, or at flirting with members of the opposite sex. People with Total Self-Confidence, though, have complete belief in themselves. They never ask themselves “Can I really do this? What if this doesn’t work out? Am I good enough to pull it off?” They know that if they really want something, and they are committed to getting it, it will happen. They know that it’s just a question of time until they’ve mastered the skills and knowledge to make whatever they want a reality

This probably sounds like a silly question…and the truth is it isn’t that I don’t have faith in myself, but I just keeping seeing admirable traits in others that I can’t seem to find in myself.
I certainly wouldn’t want to copy what they have to offer, because then that just wouldn’t be being me.

How does one go about building confidence without having to look for it in others?

Q&A Chick – if you want to build your confidence and like yourself for who you are, there is ONLY one thing you need to do: STOP CRITICIZING YOURSELF FOR ANYTHING and/or EVERYTHING, NO MATTER WHAT.

Make a list (WRITE IT DOWN) of all the negative things you say to yourself, all of your self-criticisms. Then go over the list and try to figure out why you criticize yourself for that and when you started. You will find most of your SELF-criticisms originally came from someone else criticizing you and now you are just repeating what they said. Ask yourself if the criticism is really true. If it’s not true than stop criticizing yourself about it. If it is true, and you WANT TO change it (say you’re sloppy and want to be neater) than make the change and stop criticizing yourself for it. If it’s true and you DON’T WANT TO change it or cannot (maybe you think you’re too short or too tall), then stop criticizing yourself about it.

Also, do not criticize other people for any reason. Our outer life is a mirror of what is going on inside of us. The things that you like and accept about other people are the things that you like and accept about yourself. The things that you do not like or do not accept about other people are the things that you do not like or do not accept about yourself. When you find yourself criticizing someone else, look inside and see where you are criticizing yourself.

The same goes for comparing yourself to others. Either they seem better than you (she’s so pretty, he’s so smart) or worse than you (he’s so mean, she has no manners). Either way, it is a way of criticizing yourself.

Finally, take a little time each day to tell yourself that you love yourself. Stand in front of the mirror and look yourself in the eye and tell yourself that you love yourself. Doing this will bring all of your negative thoughts, feelings and beliefs about yourself to the surface, and may even make you cry. Again, write down your negative thoughts/feelings about yourself and ask if those are true. It may take some time, but if you are consistent you will begin to feel the love you have for yourself.

Why are some people confident and have high self esteem?
Why are some people inconfident and have low self esteem?
What determines if a person develops a high self esteem or low self esteem?
How is self confidence built and is it all in the mind, of what one believes about oneself? Or is one’s self image a real reflection of the reality of one’s genuine abilities?

A person develops low self-confidence if they can sense that they are not liked or appreciated by other people. If you try to make friends, for example and get rejected most of the time, you are likely to lose your self-confidence.

If you try hard to pass a math test – and fail instead, your self confidence will suffer.

I believe one’s self image is, in part, a reflection of one’s genuine abilities. If whatever you are doing is not being accepted by others, then you are bound to question yourself.

What mental health professionals, on the other hand, seem to believe – is that self confidence is all in your head. They think that if you are not confident, that you are showing signs of a pathology of some sort. Without truly examining the negative circumstances you are experiencing in life, they think you should be taking medication or that your thoughts are somehow ‘distorted.’

When someone is lacking confidence, the first thing to ask is if they are getting more negative (than positive) feedback from others.