As Tiger said, sometimes you need to be a little nervous to bring the best out of you. I remember I was attending a selection procedure for a software company, was very nervous about the whole thing. I went through test, got selected for Group Discussion and surprisingly I was the only one selected from GD. I was so happy and agreed to attend the interview right then[though they allowed me to take it a few days later as it was getting much late, around 8 pm]. I faced the interview with the least tensed mind and I lost it! I cudn’t answer the simplest question fully. I knew the answers but I answered in a vague and weird manner. Too much of confidence can kill often.

Oe more, One of my friends had a prob with talking to high-end girls. He will never look at them, calls them names[not aloud] and was a kinda afraid to appraoch them. We suggested him a soln. One full week, we pressed and pressed him to talk, walk and do a lot of stuff only with those high-end girls. In the weekend he told us that they are all actually not high-end but simple girls, and he really overcame his complex. Its the only way, to take active effort, so that you can do something where you fear you are less confident.

Keith over To-Done has written a very nice article on confidence. He showed couple of tips on how to develop your self-confidence:

Just Do It
Recall past successes
Positive thinking
Remind what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger
Take deep brea…

Just Do It.

I have been wondering to myself (and worrying) if I should make the jump and just buy a domain name and get hosting for a site that I have been thinking of doing and after reading your last post and now this, I decided you know what “Just do it”. It can’t hurt to try.

I tell myself that if I screw up I can look back, probably laugh my ass off, and realize I learned something in the process.

Very true. Even in failures we learn and it will help us the next time. Sometimes in order to move to that next level or gain confidence, we have to overcome those failures in our lives.

Positive thinking. I try to visualize success when I’m feeling less than confident as well I maintain a positive train of thought.

hehe this is a nice one. And it reminds me of something someone once said to me. “Say it is so, even when its not so, until it becomes so.” We need to keep being positive, and thinking confidently, so that we will be positive and confident.

Keith, I just want to say that I have found this site of yours very useful and encouraging. Keep up the good work.

I’ve heard musicians say, regarding performing, that there is a certain edge you get from being nervous which is in the interest of your performance. They don’t want to stop being nervous. If you lose your sense of nervousness, your performance dulls. The trick is to learn to make your nervousness serve you, to channel it, to transform your nervousness into a kind of enthusiasm.

Regarding gaining confidence from past successes, I like to recall the times when I felt that I had absolutely no chance of succeeding at something. I remember one of my first philosophy classes on classical Greek philosophy. It was a class on one of the most ambiguous Greek philosophers (Parmenides), and it involved some seemingly impossible-to-understand commentary essays. I had to write a long paper on that material, and I thought I would never be able to do it. You can guess that it all worked out well; since then, I always remind myself that I could never be more confused about something than I was then, so it seems that I always have a fighting chance. This, I think, is why “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

(thanks)