From the author: Motivational conversation on the topic of self-confidence When an ordinary person talks about self-confidence, his sequence of thoughts is something like this: “When I become a hero of Russia, ... when I receive an academic degree, ... when [something happens], then I can believe that I am truly a worthy person." This is the thinking of people with extremely low self-esteem who do not understand that self-confidence grows from within. Like any other attitude, it can be developed. To achieve it, you need to work on several factors: 1. Personal history. Each person has a kind of virtual reality inside with himself in the main role. Moreover, it is important to distinguish personal history from factual history. Different people perceive the same life circumstance differently, and what is just a misunderstanding for some is a tragedy for others. Just like success can be perceived as a successful coincidence of circumstances, or it can be perceived as the result of one’s own efforts. Take a piece of paper, title it “Story about me” and for 5 minutes (or more), without stopping, write everything you say about yourself Do you think what shaped you as a person, what are your opportunities in this world, your chances of success, etc. Express on paper all your stories about yourself. Now take another sheet of paper, title it “My successes and achievements” and write down all your successes and achievements on it, starting from kindergarten. From your first story, take the most important things, the main life milestones, but “stuff” it with experiences from the second story. Remember in detail “how it was.” Fold the first sheet of paper in half, then in half again, and so on as much as possible, until it turns into a crumpled piece of paper. Place the second piece of paper where your most secret lies, or better yet, hang it on visible spot. Now it's you. All that remains is this story. Re-read it at least once a day and every time after reading it say to yourself “It’s ME!” After 21 days, this new story will be perceived by you as the most real and correct.2. The second factor that affects self-confidence is fear of failure. Often a child is taught from childhood that everything should work out for him. Parents, from the height of their experience, argue that going to kindergarten, learning to write and read, making friends, performing at a matinee is NOT difficult, and after appropriate training they expect their children to have no problems. “If you can’t do it, you’re not doing well.” However, any adult fails about 60% of what he plans, and for many, even 80%. You do something that you think should work, but for some reason it doesn’t work out. But you don’t have to treat this as a failure. 80% of what is planned does not work out, but there are NO FAILURES. Why? Because there is no fear of failure. For example, your goal is to become No. 1 in your favorite activity (dancing, cooking, photography, whatever). And when you make plans, you don’t count on “not working out.” But one day a treacherous thought invades my head: “What if I bet everything on black and lose, what a loser I will be then...!” And you give up your goal for fear of lowering your self-esteem and condemnation from others. But life must be lived in such a way that it does not cause excruciating pain for the years spent aimlessly (N. Ostrovsky). And, if you go towards your goal, you will gain enormous experience on the way to it. It’s not a fact that you will or won’t become No. 1, but you will have experience. The more experience, the closer the goal. When you reach the goal, this is success. When we didn’t achieve it, we gained experience and became closer to our goal. When you didn't try to achieve the goal, you lost in absentia.3. Also, a factor of self-confidence is focusing on one’s own opinion or someone else’s. You see how other people are at the start with you. When one of them deviates from the goal, he rationalizes what happened and tries to dissuade everyone around him from trying: “No one achieves anything THEMSELVES,” “You can’t get to the top without a bed,” etc. In fact: “If you have something -it doesn’t work out, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible,.