Have you ever wished that you had more self confidence? Are you fed up with missing out on life's greatest rewards simply because you don't have enough confidence in your-self? Millions of men and women live out their lives in quiet desperation because they lack the necessary self confidence they need to achieve their true desires. If you are one of these people, then why not let today be the day that you learn how to build self confidence.

Before we get into how to build self confidence, I think it is important that we get a clear understanding of exactly what self-confidence is. Self confidence is a feeling of certainty that comes from within. It is being sure of your-self. It is that attitude that says "Yes, I can! Of course I can!"

One of the best ways of building self-confidence is to use our failures as stepping stones to self improvement. Failures are our greatest teachers! All human learning and achievement has come about from trail and error. That is, we attempt to do something and we are at first unsuccessful. It took Thomas Edison 10,000 attempts to create the light bulb. He regarded each attempt as an elimination process that moved him one step closer to his goal.

Unfortunately, most people use their errors as proof of their unworthiness and as evidence that they can not succeed. Don't you be like this. Focus on your goal and persist through temporary failure. Use your failures as they were meant to be used, as incentives to rise above them, not as an excuse to quit.

Another fantastic way to quickly improve your self-confidence is to act as if your were already self-confidence. It has been said that all the world is a stage and every man (and woman) is an actor. No one is always confident. It is part of the human condition that some times we have our bouts of insecurity, but there are those who know how to act confident when it is necessary. They have practiced it so often that it's like second nature.

Confident people speak in a full voice. They don't mumble. They make easy, but solid eye contact with others. They maintain good posture and have a rhythm and purpose to their walks.

Something that is closely related to acting confident is something called modeling. This is when you study and copy the beliefs and behaviors of others. Anthony Robbins is a big believer in this. Get your self a role model who conducts themselves in a manner that you admire. Study them. If possible, try to talk to them and find out how they think and what they believe.

Modeling is what we all do unconsciously anyway, so why not do it in a conscious, focused way? When a son copies the behaviors of his father, he is modeling. When a younger athlete uses the moves of one of his idol, he is modeling. So select a self confident person and model them. It could be a famous person or some-one you know personally.

Replace negative self talk with positive affirmations. From the time we were infants we have been told what we can not do. We all have limiting beliefs that hinder us. When we find our-selves thinking or saying that we can't, we can cancel that thought by saying "cancel! Cancel!" and immediately say "I can!" after awhile, any negative thoughts will trigger us to cancel them and replace them with the positive!

So, as you can see these few simple steps, learning from your failures, acting as if we were already confident and canceling out negative thoughts and replacing them with positive affirmations, are all very effective in helping us develop self confidence.