The Importance of Self-Confidence

Life is much more enjoyable and meaningful when you have self-confidence and a positive self-image. Nevertheless, many social and situational influences can prevent you from appreciating your true self-worth. At Thriving Mind Psychology, the caring specialists provide several treatment options that can help you restore your self-confidence and pursue all that life has to offer.

Understanding Self-confidence

When you have self-confidence, you believe that you have dignity and value and that you’re capable of achieving anything you want. A healthy amount of self-confidence helps you feel good about yourself, your accomplishments, and what you plan to do in the future.

However, there are emotional issues, health problems, and other factors that can eat away at your self-confidence. Some of the most common things that can inhibit self-confidence levels include:

Bullying
Criticism
Depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues
Eating disorders
Emotional or physical abuse
Lack of a support system from family or friends
Substance abuse
Trauma

Low Self-confidence and Negative Thinking

Most people go through brief periods of self-doubt and uncertainty, which can sometimes lead to negative self-talk (e.g., “I can’t do anything right.”). However, persistent negative thinking can impair your well-being and lead to new or worsened mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. Without proper treatment, you may also be at risk for unhealthy relationships, self-harm, risky behaviors, and suicidal thoughts or actions.

Boost Your Self-confidence

The mental health providers at Thriving Mind Psychology want to help clients curtail the effects of low self-confidence. If you have low self-confidence that often leads to negative self-talk, it’s crucial that you reach out for help. Treatment options include:

Therapy

Psychotherapy (“talk therapy”) is highly effective at helping people boost their self-confidence. During a session, you and your provider talk about the problems and circumstances that trigger your negative self-talk. By examining your thought patterns, your therapist can help you understand how your thinking impacts your emotional well-being.

Other forms of therapy include exposure therapy and experiential learning, which focus on your behaviors and emotions. With these approaches, you get the opportunity to practice feeling self-confident, examine your behaviors, make corrections, and repeat the process until you’re experiencing more confidence.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is being present in the moment and aware of your thoughts. This practice is essential in boosting self-confidence because it prevents you from being distracted by negative self-talk.

Mindfulness can show you how destructive thoughts affect other aspects of your life. Also, with mindfulness, you avoid saying, “I’m not good enough” and instead say, “Right now, I notice that I think that I’m not good enough.”

Neurofeedback

Another state-of-the-art method for building self-confidence is neurofeedback training, which often occurs alongside psychotherapy. Neurofeedback helps you analyze your brain activity in real-time as you respond to highly emotional situations.

Through this process, you can learn to train your brain to alter its signals, building new synapses in the brain. As a result, you’re better able to respond to situations in ways that boost your self-confidence.

To increase your self-confidence and get a new handle on life, schedule an appointment online or call Thriving Center of Psychology today.