It’s easy to identify a confident person a mile away – but do you ever wonder just how someone becomes so confident in the first place? How do you create confidence when needed, and how to you nurture and repair it when its lacking? The definition of confidence is quite simple: full trust and belief in your abilities. Athletes harness it to carry them across the finish line, while entrepreneurs use it to blaze new trails. As a sales person or leader, you need confidence to not just survive but THRIVE. It is so necessary to build and demonstrate confidence to both open doors and propel a business forward.
The Source of Confidence
Your confidence comes from your positive experiences. If you experience success often, you’ll build up the confidence that you will complete it successfully in the future. In fact, when you perform a task that you have a lot of confidence with, the areas of your brain that store positive memories show an increase in activity and muscle memory.
But on the other hand, the same confident person performing a new or unfamiliar task will show increased brain activity in the areas of the brain where warning, fear, and protection messages are kept. Thanks to studies like this one, modern neuroscience can actually prove the common phrase “practice makes perfect.” This is also similar to how you develop a positive (or negative) attitude.
