What is self confidence?

What is self confidence?

What are seen as the sources or principles of self confidence? What makes one person certain they can try great things, and another falter at unseen obstacles in a world of confusion?

Is it that difficult to learn, given that many if not most people suffer from lack of it?

Or is it that it is difficult to apply - or, rather, that we are unwilling to apply it - even unable to see why it need be applied. Perhaps lack of self confidence is a self-reinforcing thing. The lack of self confidence then obscures itself. While others forge ahead, those lacking in self-confidence seek and find excuses, based on whatever model of the world they accept or fall for.

A few things can be said for certain about self confidence that seem to be timeless and universal.

1. Strong self confidence comes from within.
2. Strong self confidence is generalised, abstract, and broadly applies to all areas of one's life.
3. Strong self confidence is not arrogant nor vain, but humble, simple, and purposeful.

These can be said with certainty. But what of the source of self-confidence?

1. Self confidence exists, but LACK of confidence does not. The basic survival urge springs pure and strong in everyone who lives. It cannot be absent. It can only be obscured or forgotten.
2. The aspect of self known as the will or spirituality is the keeper of self confidence, and in order to become self confident it requires consent alone.
3. Self confidence is exercised in the presence of fear. The perception of fear and low confidence, although it seems loud and clear, can only survive temporarily become subsiding. Self confidence is ever-present, still and silent throughout.

So the process of self-confidence then can be described, but not precisely defined, as it has to do with the abstract level of spirituality.

First, consent of the will allows self confidence to appear within.
Second, the automatic nature of perception creates a temporary perception of fear and lack of self confidence.
Third, the continued consent and awareness of the will allows the self-confidence to sustain itself after fear has subsided.

The consequence of this is to imprint a new pattern of awareness where the potential for self-confidence in the midst of challenge can be asserted. In other words, by being aware of and witnessing the reality that self confidence is our primal nature, we actualise the potential for growth in ourselves and by example in others.