Is There a Better Way to Gain Self-Confidence?

There has to be a better way of improving self-esteem than deceiving others and deceiving yourself. There has to be a way to be a winner without whining and bullying along the way. Although we humans are very good at deceiving others and deceiving ourselves, we also have some other abilities that are practically superpowers:

• Human beings can turn off their internal fear factory. Did you ever wonder what a professional poker player does that people who usually lose at poker do not? Or how the weather forecaster finds the temerity to get on TV and tell thousands of people what the weather will be a week from now? People who take small risks and immediately analyze the results gain the ability to estimate their realistic chances of success. Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's the ability to take sensible action instead of fear. If you do sensible things long enough, and survive their consequences, eventually you overcome your fear. But this requires being honest with yourself every single time.

• Human beings are natural mind readers. Or at least they can be with a little practice. All of us have a "theory of mind" that helps us understand not just what people say but also what they intend. Most people can "read" other people about five steps into the future. If you can't, there are things you can do about it. Taking the time to write down or converse about what you expected someone to do and comparing it to what they actually did will help you develop your "mind reading" abilities. Again, this natural mind reading ability, your personal theory of mind, only improves when you are honest about what you did and didn't expect.
• Human beings have an inborn sense of the supernatural. Even atheists have a sense of the supernatural. That's not a bad thing. It's there to protect you. We have a natural sense of how other people's minds work. Part of this ability, however, is thinking of minds without bodies, hence we naturally believe in God or gods, spirits, saints, fate, paranormal events, and so on. Whether or not there is some level of truth in our religious beliefs, we are all capable of opening ourselves to amazing experiences, to escaping our circumstances by connecting to another "world." Those escapes to another world can give us the rest and recuperation we need to deal with this one.
• Human beings are the best runners in the Animal Kingdom. You might not think of humans as better runners than horses or Cheetahs or wildebeest, but humans can run faster over more different kinds of conditions than any other animal on earth. Other species can outrun us in specific conditions, but there are always situations in which we can outrun them. We have sweat glands that keep us cool. Most of the animals that might regard humans as soft and tasty do not. We see what is in front of us. Some of the animals have had to run after (goats, for example) can only see to the sides. We can run uphill. Humans run faster than horses up a mountainside. Even out of shape humans have remarkable abilities to escape danger, when they are confident enough to use them.
• Human beings can turn goals into habits. Sometimes it can seem that our lives are controlled by outside influences. We do things the way our parents did them. We emulate the lifestyle we see on TV. We do things with our friends that take us off our diets or interfere with our resolutions for personal growth. However, it's possible to defeat a bad habit by just showing up to a good habit. For instance, if you are too busy to go out for a run, take at least enough time to put on your running gear. Then see what happens. If you want to stop smoking, move them out of sight. If you want to eat less, stop meeting your friends at the burger place. Let your goals control your behavior.