Confidence: The Power to Take Control and Live the Life You Want - By Dr Rob Young

Another review of this awesome book!

This book is divided into two sections. The first section is about 'developing life-long confidence' and is like a long-term action plan. This half of the book covers topics such as tackling doubts and niggles ('automatic negative thoughts' is what the author calls them) which I found useful. There's a chapter on positive body language too, which contained some gems of instruction on controlling your breathing in order to control how you feel and come across.

The first half of the book explains things in more depth, while the second section of the book is a series of short chapters containing 10 key points on tackling key topics. It'll help you to understand if this book could be useful to you if I list all of the topics covered:
~ Confident public speaking and presentations
~ Confident conversations and socialising
~ Confident dating
~ Confident meetings at work and networking
~ Confident job interviews
~ Confident life change
~ Handling conflict with confidence
~ Health, fitness and body confidence
~ Quick confidence

I found these short, targeted chapters very useful too.

Writing style of the book is clear and encouraging without being patronising. If you like to understand why you should use a particular technique, the author sometimes mentions snippets of resarch to back up his recommendations too. Great book!
Review by   R Freeman

How to Be Confident without Being Arrogant

Confidence is a powerful trait. Confidence can make you successful. Confident people are like magnets…they tend to capture the attention, trust and respect of those around them. They believe they can do it, so they take risks and reap the rewards. It’s reassuring to work with someone who shows confidence in his work and his ability to get the job done and done well. And confidence can be contagious — we all want to surround ourselves with self-assured people who make us feel like we can do it, too.
But there is a thin line between being confident and being arrogant. No one likes a know-it-all, or someone who doesn’t listen because they believe they have nothing to learn. If you display arrogance, you may turn people off, lose potential opportunities and hurt your reputation. Not to mention it can be a lonely way to live. So here are some ways to maximize your confidence without encroaching into arrogance territory.

How to Get Confidence - 4 Awesome Tips

Here's 4 tips on how to get confidence to help you feel a greater sense of self belief.
1. Be prepared to push through the fear of failure
If you currently lack self confidence, then you'll have had disappointments in the past. These failures created your low self belief. You have to be willing to take a chance that this might happen again because building self confidence is a risky game.
2. Go out and do what you lack confidence in

A Special Thanksgiving Message (It Works in Every Country on The Planet!)

Hi There, in 2 days it is Thanksgiving in USA and Canada, and in every country where citizens of those nations find themselves in the fourth Thursday in November. 
I just had to share this special Thanksgiving message from the amazing Marie Forleo so fasten your seat belt and prepare for-The Downside Of Gratitude.  Yes, really!

Enjoy!

Confidence building - no idea where to start?

People with high self esteem behave confidently. Low self esteem stops all your efforts to be confident.  Confidence matters in:

• relationships
• work
• parenting
• life skills - decision making, achieving, improving situations or circumstances you don't like
• expressing yourself - read more about being yourself socially
• taking up new challenges
• being open to change
• self improvement

Where does self-confidence come from?
It comes from several sources:

• from within yourself
• from others
• from your achievements 

Some people appear naturally confident but guess what? They've learnt how to be that way and so can you! 
If you lack self esteem or self-confidence you must look above for the reasons. You may be overly criticizing yourself or telling yourself negative things like "I'm bound to fail" or "I'm not good enough" or even "I don't deserve to succeed". These will make failure likely.

Maybe you believe others comments about your inability to succeed or your faults as they see them. What's stopping you proving them wrong or challenging their view instead of accepting it? Defend yourself. Your self esteem depends on it! If you have a poor opinion of yourself, why should others respect you?  
Focus on what you have done and you can be proud of.

How you can become more confident and successful?

• Look for a model (someone who is confident) and learn from them. What is it they do that makes them confident, how do they act?
• Focus on your achievements and even if you failed try to work out what you did right and how you could succeed next time
• Act as if you were confident!
• Prepare thoroughly for any task so that you can be sure you are ready
• Work on any skills you need to do what you want, you can never be overtrained or over skilled for any challenge in life.
• Learn relaxation skills
• Always smile
• Set reachable goals for yourself 
• Reward yourself when you succeed

Unsure which are the best confidence building tools?

Accepting the Real Face of Self-Confidence

Self-Confidence seems to be all the rage these days in the realm of personal development, but few people have a real idea as to how they can affect real change in the arena of exuding a positive demeanor through their conduct.  Many self-help premises designed to develop self-confidence seem mostly geared towards placing the focus only on the achievements as opposed to the failures, when really, the most progress can be made when holding to the strategy that both are nothing more than experiences from which to learn.
Make no mistake; great strides are possible in building self-confidence by taking stock and basking in the moment of achievement for even the smallest accomplishments along the way.  The majority of the times, the minor successes are overlooked in exchange for a potential failure imposed on the bigger scheme of things to come.  Of important note is that we will not always achieve each and every little goal we originally set out to tackle since our endgame may have to change as we progress.

How to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

There's no room for adventure and excitement in your comfort zone; in fact, over time you might feel overwhelmed and trapped by boredom and fear. Perhaps it's time to stretch those limits a little! Not only will your life become more exciting, but you'll also build confidence and improve your luck
.

1. Make a fool of yourself. One of the biggest things that holds many of us back is our fear of what people think. After all, you don't want people to think you're weird or rude or creepy or obnoxious or annoying, do you? But wait -- think about the most lovable, magnetic people you've come across in your life. Odds are, they weren't the meek, agreeable people who are reliably pleasant to be around.