Many people get confused between self-confidence and self-esteem. It is very possible to be self-confident while still having low self-esteem! You can be very confident in your interactions with other people in your actions yet still have low self-esteem.
So, what is the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem? Well self-confidence really refers to how you interact with the world while self-esteem refers to how you see yourself fitting into the world.
You can appear very self-assured and even feel comfortable being around other people or trying new things because you have a healthy amount of self-confidence but if you have low self-esteem then you will feel that you are “less-than” the people you are talking to or that you will not succeed at your tasks!
So, you can appear confident in yourself and your abilities, and to some degree even feel this way, but still feel that you are not going to succeed or that you are not good enough to successfully perform an action or achieve a certain result!
The results you get from life, in your career, finances, relationships and interactions with others is not dependent on your self-confidence but is dependent on your level of self-esteem!
The simple truth is this – you cannot outperform your self-esteem!
So how can you effectively re-program your mind to increase your self esteem?
To increase your self-esteem you must first understand exactly what it is. Your self-esteem is basically your internal self-image. It is comprised on your beliefs about yourself, your abilities, you deservedness and how you feel you should be treated by others.
In order to change your self-esteem you must change your self-image and your beliefs!
There is only one way to increase your self-esteem and that is to reprogram your subconscious mind. However, there are many different methods to achieve this aim.
All effective methods for increasing your self-esteem must involve gaining access to, and changing the programming of, your subconscious mind.
When you use self improvement or personal development tools to improve your life you are really just trying to access and impact your subconscious mind in order to increase your self-esteem and positively change your self-image.
Affirmations are the easiest way to reprogram your mind. Repeating a positive affirmation throughout the day, over about 30 days, is often all that is needed to reprogram your beliefs.
However, when it comes to long-standing, or difficult issues, affirmations alone do not work and very often have the reverse effect of the one desired!
Very often the subconscious mind rebels against new programming. You then feel discomfort because you are affirming positive statements which contradict the reality of your situation. This is negative situation is worsened because your consciously agree with these feelings and will very often give-up on your affirmations or worse – start to think negatively about the whole thing!
This is way affirmations are much more powerful when they are offered to the subconscious mind through something like a Subliminal CD.
Hypnosis is also a highly effective way of reprogramming your subconscious mind and changing your self-image and beliefs to reflect higher self-esteem.
A good Hypnosis MP3 or CD will also implant positive affirmations into the subconscious and make increasing your self-esteem easy and fast.
I would recommend using wither of these approaches to increase your self-esteem. Even if you do not directly target the beliefs and attitudes that are holding you back from achieving your goals just by increasing your self-esteem you will see major positive changes happening in all areas of your life.