How to boost your self-confidence

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The time honored TIC-TOC Technique.
If you are procrastinating about getting down to a specific task, take note of the way you are thinking about it. These TICs or Task-Interfering Cognitions deserve extra credit for doing it. Cognitions, will lose much of their power over you if you simply write them down and substitute more adaptive TOCs, or Task-Oriented Cognitions.
When you record your TIC-TOCs, be sure to pinpoint the distortion in the TIC that defeats you. You may find, for example, that your worst enemy is all-or-nothing thinking (I’m a total failure) or disqualifying the positive, (I’m not any good) or you may be in the bad habit of making arbitrary negative predictions. Once you become aware of the type of distortion that most commonly thwarts you, you will be able to correct it. Your procrastination and time-wasting will give way to action and creativity.

For example:
TIC – "I’m a total failure."
TOC – "Nonsense, I fail at some things but I am mostly a success at things I do. Besides, nobody is perfect, and nothing is 100%"
Or
TIC- "I’m not any good at what I do."
TOC- "Ridiculous, I am very good at many things that I do, and besides I can always learn to do something better. Look at the beautiful job I did yesterday on that project."

You can also apply this principle to mental images and daydreams as well as to thoughts. When you avoid a task, you probably automatically fantasize about it in a negative, defeatist fashion. This creates unnecessary tension and apprehension, which impairs your performance and increases the likelihood that your dreaded fear will actually come true.
For example, if you have to give a speech to a group of associates, you may fret and worry for weeks ahead of time because in your mind's eye you see yourself forgetting what you have to say or reacting defensively to a pushy question from the audience. By the time you give the speech, you have effectively programmed yourself to behave just this way, and you're such a nervous wreck it turns out just as badly as you had imagined!

If you dare to give it a try, here's a solution: For ten minutes every night before you go to sleep, practice fantasizing that you deliver the speech in a positive way. Imagine
that you appear confident, that you present your material in an energetic manner, and that you handle all questions from the audience warmly and capably. You may be surprised
that this simple exercise can go a long way to improving how you feel about what you do. Obvious there is no guarantee things will always come out exactly as you imagine, but there's no doubt that your expectations and mood will profoundly influence what actually does happen.

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