How can you regain self confidence when it gets lost?

so if you recognize these as roadblocks and want to change them, you just have to very purposefully face fears and take risks and do things you're not at all comfortable with, and it gets easier. but i say, like hanle y, appreciate who you are first and most.

Otherwise, the acting advice is good - imagine you are playing the role of a fantastic, strong, confident person, and do small things (like interacting with shop staff) in this mindset. It does help - I've done this myself, and it has helped get me through some tough times.

There goes my Plan B. :-)

Some of the stuff in your post rainy, hints to me at more than just a self-confidence problem. You might want to give that some thought. Too, getting your confidence back often has a lot to do with how you lost it(and *what* you lost) in the first place. More thinking for you.

Otherwise, I think you overcome this sort of problem by continually *trying* to overcome it and not allowing any failures (or perceived failures) to set you back. It's a clear cut case of getting back up on that bicycle, this time, knowing that you're going to fall.

Sooner or later though, you get your rhythm, you get your balance, and one day you realize that you're swathed once more in that bufferous delight of feeling remarkably good at whatever it is you're doing.

Assuming that this lack of self-confidence isn't just masking something else, you sooner or later

But how to drop this? We can in some circumstances, but not most, really. And we know few people well enough to confess to the act - and they are almost entirely not the ones for whom the act is needed. My old friends would just giggle if they saw me in professional meeting mode. If I acted in meetings the way I do with friends, I don't suppose I'd get taken seriously.

(nb i have a vision of some poor person crippled by shyness desperately trying to pawn their own snot/phlegm in exchange for self-confidence)

This is a slang phrase with many variants. The verb is usually either hawk or hock and the subject varies between loogie, louie, lungie, and lunger. It means to cough up phlegm and dates to the 1970s.

Hawk is an old verb meaning to clear the throat or cough up phlegm. It dates to the late 16th century and is probably echoic in origin. Hock is a corruption of the original hawk.

Regarding the second half, lunger is probably the original. That word has meant a gob of phlegm since 1946, and a tuberculosis patient since the 1890s. The other forms are probably corruptions and variants on this original.

-Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

I used to have a lot of confidence, even to the point of being a bit bossy. But after perceived career failures, a major relationship breakup, and a host of other random "bad luck" type horrible things happening to me, my confidence is completely and totally shattered to the point where my utter insecurity and lack of self esteem is seriously compromising my life.

It's not a question of confidence with shop assistants and little stuff. It's a question of utter and complete FEAR stopping me from doing the big things in life. Pursue a career. Have a relationship. Start a new band/send out demo tapes. Even leave the house sometimes.

I can't pretend. That doesn't make me feel confident, it makes me feel like a fraud, it actually makes it worse. What should I do? Set myself little goals and pat myself on the back for accomplishing them? Take yoga? Go on anti-depressants for a while?

Anything, please.

The last time I was incapacitated by fear, I couldn't make phone calls or apply for jobs or take any initiative, or even start the simplest tasks really. I was supposed to be doing some work from home for a charity, and I literally couldn't. And every minute I procrastinated just made me feel more and more useless. Vicious circle.

Things that helped:
1) I made list of small, achievable goals like you mention, and I did reward myself for achiveing them. Even if part of me was thinking 'that was pretty small'. It doesn't matter. Make it a habit and the small things will add up.
2) I made time to do things that I knew I was good at (not much, at that time, but every little helped). I didn't put pressures on the activities though - so I'd write a poem but I wouldn't try to publish it. Yet.
3) Telling myself it was ok to be going through this phase. Sometimes we do need to draw back and sort out internal stuff, before we can function fully in the 'outside' world. I was brought up having a lot of ambition and very high expectations of myself, I think, and I'd been asking too much of myself for so long that it all caved in on top of me. It's not *failure*.
4) Trying REALLY hard to stop judging myself against other people's successes. Involved daily reminders.

This is an incredibly difficult barrier to cross I appreciate especially when you are in this situation (I myself was a year or so back), but once the breakthrough is made its such a boost that building on that becomes progressively easier.

What you shouldn't be doing is looking for things to fill a hole, because the chances are whatever it is *won't* fit, and that will make things worse.

This is all very vague and general, I've no idea if its any use - if not I'm sorry for being rub. (xpost - Archel is wise)

I get so paralysed by the thought that "I *still* don't know what I want to do with my life" that I'm unable to do little things like apply for jobs or look for training to find an alternate job. I don't feel like it's acceptible or OK that I could somehow have reached the age of 33 and still not know what I want to be when I grow up. (Or, even worse, to have had an unrealistic goal, at which I totally failed.)

I get so paralysed by the thought that I'm 33 and I still haven't met the love of my life, got married, had children, or anything like that, and feel like an utter miserable failure, that I'm unable to even go on a date.

I've finally diasbused myself of the notion that I will meet someone and fall in love and that will Make Everything Better. I realise that's totally unrealstic and actually harmful, because doing that actually blows *me* off course when I get sucked into their dreams and desires instead of my own.

But that sort of confidence, that feeling of "I'm an OK person, I'm capable, people like me, I'm good at what I do" - that's just completely shattered and gone. Matt DC is utterly on the money. The sense of *possibility* is gone. I think of myself as a failure, as a loser, and so that is the attitude that I project. Which is self defeating. It's not just that I think other people don't like me, it's that I don't like myself.

Maybe Archel has the right idea about setting little, achievable goals, and getting into the habit.

What I find helpful for me at least: When you want to do something but can't, ask yourself what's the worst that can happen. Rehearse it in your head. Still crippling fear? Imagine you are someone else watching you do the thing. Eg a new bandmate at your band's first rehearsal or someone who receives your demo or a colleague at your new job. Is it still so bad?

It doesn't help to say it now, I know, but it's cyclical and episodic and you'll be up soon.

It's just hard for me to figure out what the small things are, when I feel like I don't have a master plan any more.

x-post :-)

Consequently, I spent most of last night awake, constructing my own self-help book. A tailor-made one, just for me. It helped enourmously. It's on my desk now, and I still keep looking at it and feeling better.

(x-post)

Wierd. That's exactly, to the letter, my situation. Though going on dates is hardly top of my priorities - they're the last thing I can afford right now.
But it is difficult not to let feelings of hoplessness overwhelm you, or to feel completely exhausted by the situation. I'm not a depressive though, I'm just in the shit and every action seems to only take me deeper into it, which is, y'know, depressing. Spending the afternoon reading and posting on message boards really helps matters of course!

OTFM

To me, to be myself, is to be a schitzophrenic, personality-hopping chameleon. And I don't like that one bit.

What am I, chopped liver?
:)

Yeah, Rachel, you're probably right.

I felt like this too. I think what I had to do was forget the preconceptions I had about who 'myself' was, and recognise that shit had happened, both externally and internally, that made that person impossible to get back, if she'd ever existed. Finally I accepted that I was probably going to come out of this as somebody different, and I had to start to learn to like THAT person rather than berate myself any more for not still being the person I THOUGHT I was.

Sorry, that was totally convoluted.

I have been updating my CV and it suddenly occurred to me that it was quite good. Now all I need is for someone to agree with me. And although I haven't done it yet, I've been thinking about writing a 'personal profile', a short text to tell potential employers what I can 'offer'. It's hard, nauseasting even, to try and think good things about yourself, but it does have positive effects on the old self-confidence.

Also, this depends entirely on the person, surely?

I think what I had to do was forget the preconceptions I had about who 'myself' was, and recognise that shit had happened, both externally and internally, that made that person impossible to get back, if she'd ever existed. Finally I accepted that I was probably going to come out of this as somebody different, and I had to start to learn to like THAT person rather than berate myself any more for not still being the person I THOUGHT I was.

Wow, this is actually incredibly perceptive and useful. This is one of the most insightful things that anyone has said to me in a long time and I am going to have to think about it.

How did you go through this process? And how did you discover what the person that you turned out to be *was*?

The logical extension of this is that you should hang around with some complete losers for the sake of perspective*. Kate, if you want, I can give you the number of this guy I know. At the age of 35 he decided he needed to change his life, went back to college, spent two years doing A-Levels, worked to save up enough to go to university... and then quit after a term because he was bored. He then went and got a job throwing dead chickens onto a conveyer belt. Last thing I heard from him, he was living in a tent somewhere near Dover picking fruit for a 'living'. He was the only person living there who wasn't an immigrant being ruthlessly exploited. He was just being exploited.

I've never known anyone who flushed his life down the toilet to such an extent for no reasons whatsoever. I've still no real idea why he did it.

*This is not remotely constructive advice. Please do not follow it.

Anyway, I'm not sure how I did it really. I don't claim that I'm totally self-confident now. Taking life a day at a time, gradually building up those small achievements, it all helped. Going back to university to do a masters was I guess the big decision at the end of all the small ones. I'd been delaying it as I wasn't totally SURE about going into librarianship. But a step in ANY direction suddenly seemed preferable to standing still. And then, rather than having an epiphany about who I was, it was more like just learning to live with a piecemeal me. I'd been trying to construct a grand narrative, but people aren't heroes in real life. Now I just muddle along.

Every now and then I get the urge to really try out something that I will possibly be shit at, and having fun at the failure. I mean, maybe that is the ultimate in low self-confidence/esteem that you just give up caring and try everything. And finding out what I'm bad at was actually more helpful than telling myself anything like "i'm great" without believing in it. Because now I KNOW exactly how good/bad I am at certain things, and I have a definite line that I can try and push forward.

And when I do mess up I know that it doesn't matter (i mean it depends on what exactly you're doing) if I acknowledge it. I never pretended to be good. And God that is a good feeling. I think the first time I felt this way (around the halfway through last year) was the first time I was like "oh my god I think I'm growing up"

"But all I really want to do is occasionally jam with a bunch of mates, and play the Bull and Gate once every few months. I don't want to be on TOTP or take over the world, I just want to have a good time for a few hours a week."

This sounds really okay as a way to live to me!!

Slightly off topic, but this made me realize that, for women, romance is often a reason for being, and that it isn't necessarily so for men.

Archel, what you shared was really helpful, especially because you seem really together.

I was brought up having a lot of ambition and very high expectations of myself, I think, and I'd been asking too much of myself for so long that it all caved in on top of me. It's not *failure*.

Yeah, I know what that's like! phew. OK, so I'm not the only one.

I think what they actually needed was to get that feeling of possibility back - to work themselves into positions where they felt that there were new social connections being made, that may or may not develop into something.

This is a really timely post for me to read. I've been putting in a lot of long term work trying to sort through the reasons why I've never had confidence in the first place and I think I'm making inroads, but what I really struggle with right now is the inability to take advantage of it. Mostly in terms of, like, life goals and what I want to be doing with my life, but also with not having any friends at this stage of life. But my day-to-day life is just so crushingly the same, every day after every day, that I don't even feel the possibility of meeting any new people at all, much less developing anything resembling a friend.