Confidence boosting special

• How confident are you? - Take this quiz and find out
• Learn to be confident - the secrets of success
• Look confident - feel good inside and out
• Act confident - build up your self-esteem especially at work
• Develop confidence - take positive strides with your relationships

Learn to be confident

What one single personality trait most makes you popular, attractive and sexy? It's nothing to do with being tall, slim and beautiful; it's everything to do with being confident. Countless studies show that people are attracted to people with high self-esteem. If a woman genuinely believes in herself - not with the arrogance of uncertainty, but with a calm inner security - people are drawn to her like a magnet!

It's pretty clear how a lack of confidence can drag you down, look at these five dead giveaways:

1. The most obvious sign is that you don't feel good - you sometimes doubt yourself, maybe criticise yourself, feel pessimistic, fight shy of challenges.
2. At work, you may down-rate your own abilities, feel you let others out-perform you, or hold back from taking responsibility.
3. In love you can hesitate before committing yourself - or fall headlong for unsuitable partners because you don't feel you deserve suitable ones.
4. You don't feel able to take from others because you don't feel you deserve it. You may also give too much to others because you feel you have to 'earn your keep'.
5. You may end up dulling the pain of low self-esteem by unhealthy eating, drinking, drug use or sexual relationships.

What stops you being confident?

1. Negative early messages that you weren't loved, particularly from parents or guardians, can leave you with a deep-rooted and unshakeable belief that you're worthless.
2. Childhood trauma, especially if you were abused, very ill or separated from your parents for a while, can cut across the natural development of your self-esteem and leave you 'stuck' at that unconfident stage.
3. Bad treatment from childhood friends - maybe being bullied - can mean you're nervous of other people and end up not trusting anyone - even yourself.
4. A major shake-up in adult life - a relationship break-up, career setback, even becoming a Mum or turning 30 - can dent your normal confidence and spiral you into self doubt.
5. Depression, which can be caused by imbalanced brain chemicals, can also result in low self-esteem. This is a vicious circle - because lowered self-esteem can then be caused by depression.

To start to turn this round and become self secure, you first need to alter the basics, the way you approach life in general.

1. Learn to think differently. When you fall into self-criticism and unconfident thoughts, note them - and change them to positive thoughts. Tracking down the original life event that made you think negatively - for example, you believe you're ugly because the bullies told you so - will make it
2. Learn to speak differently. If you pepper your talk with self put-downs, you'll not only convince yourself you're not capable - you'll convince others as well. Use 'I can' instead of 'I can't', 'Next time I will' instead of 'If only I had'.
3. Try to stop judging yourself by what happens to you in life, so you're not basing your confidence on outside events. It's tempting to feel confident only when you do well or feel popular. Confident people take the rough with the smooth, so that when things go wrong in their lives they can rise above and deal with the situation.
4. Be aware of when you are succeeding. Naturally confident people take credit for things that go well... and put the problems down to circumstance. So when you do something well, be friendly to yourself and give yourself a pat on the back!
5. If you suspect that your lack of confidence is down to some trauma or disaster in your life, get support from a counsellor to work through the problem.