人如何变得更自信？

Confidence is a quality everyone wants, yet few people are genuinely confident. As a child, I admired classmates who could express themselves openly and carry themselves with ease. That was my earliest impression of confidence.

I was a fairly quiet and well-behaved child. I was not exactly introverted, but I was certainly not outgoing. I rarely volunteered answers in class, and my teachers did not notice me much. Looking back, I never received any education about confidence. I imagine many people had a similar experience.

So is confidence innate, or can it be learned? Clearly, it can be learned. I believe confidence matters greatly in life. It is worth studying, and it can be practiced and developed.

We can look at it from two directions: external and internal.

First, encouragement and recognition from others really can help someone build confidence. When I had just entered the second year of middle school, my grades were poor. I was barely noticed and had no confidence at all; I saw myself as utterly ordinary, with no particular strengths. Then a new homeroom teacher changed everything. I once took an active part in a class chore and made a good impression on her. She began paying attention to me and encouraging me. Under her influence, I started working hard. Within six months, my grades rose to near the top of the class, and the following year I earned a place in the advanced class of a key provincial high school.

Her encouragement changed how I saw myself and inspired me to keep improving. She showed me that I had potential, and that awakened my confidence.

Children who grow up surrounded by encouragement therefore tend to be more confident. Encouragement helps them form a positive self-image and an underlying belief that they are capable. That belief makes them more willing to face challenges and achieve better results, which brings further recognition from others and creates a reinforcing cycle.

Reality, however, is that life does not go smoothly for most people. We often experience blame from parents, criticism from teachers, pressure from peers, and the pain of failure. Encouragement and recognition from the outside can be scarce. Many people therefore develop a sense of inferiority from childhood and come to believe that they are ordinary, with nothing to be proud of.

If someone remains trapped in the belief that “I am not good enough,” they may indeed spend their whole life settling for less than they are capable of.

How, then, can we become more confident?

In truth, there is never a situation in which no one can encourage you, because you can always encourage yourself.

If every mistake makes you conclude that you are incapable, this negative way of thinking will seriously damage your confidence. By contrast, if you practice constructive self-talk—believing that you can improve even after a poor performance—your confidence can continue to grow.

At the heart of confidence is “self-efficacy”: your trust in your own ability to solve problems and meet challenges. Think of it this way: when you believe someone else can do something well, you have confidence in them. When you believe you can do it well, you have confidence in yourself.

Why, then, do you sometimes trust other people but not yourself? Because you have seen evidence of their ability and believe they perform well, while feeling dissatisfied with your own past performance.

How can that change?

Positive self-talk is not enough. You also need to achieve small goals step by step, build a record of success, and strengthen your trust in yourself.

Suppose you are asked to run five kilometers. If you have never run before, you will find it hard to believe you can do it. But after running two kilometers, then three, and eventually farther, you will begin to trust that you can complete five.

Each small success gradually strengthens your self-efficacy. Every goal you complete gives you another piece of positive evidence and builds your confidence.

This is how lived experience shapes confidence. People who have seen many situations, met many kinds of people, gone through a wide range of experiences, and handled difficult problems tend to become calmer and more self-assured.

When someone consistently handles things well, you begin to believe they can manage almost anything. The same is true of yourself. As you become more capable, you start to see yourself in the same way: whatever comes, I can handle it. That is confidence.

Confidence therefore benefits from encouragement and feedback from others, but it depends even more on building a positive understanding of ourselves. We need to encourage ourselves, work toward small goals, strengthen our self-efficacy, and gradually develop confidence.

Every person's experience is unique, and we cannot control how the outside world sees or responds to us. Even if no one else in the world encourages or applauds you, learn to stand up for yourself.

The foundation of confidence is self-love, and self-love grows from genuine self-acceptance and self-recognition. Confidence, in other words, is a journey of making peace with yourself and learning to continually appreciate who you are.

In the next article, I will explore self-love and how loving yourself can help you find genuine confidence.