by Lorna Luck

Building self confidence can be a very hard task to accomplish, especially if you're feeling pretty down on yourself. But it can also be a very easy goal to achieve if you have a few simple techniques under your belt, that help you control your feelings and emotions, and react to them in a positive way. It's all based on the premise that when you feel good, your self esteem and self confidence get a boost.

How do you feel when you eat your favourite food? Generally it makes you feel good, and you automatically want to get more of it. But on the flip side, if you taste something horrible, you immediately (and again, automatically) want to get rid of the taste as quickly as possible.

In every situation you encounter, your feelings are immediately brought into play and then determine how you react to everything that happens to you. Let's quickly cover the different types and groups of feelings, because it's important to recognise them so you know how to deal with them and manage them in a positive way.

The first group we'll look at are commonly referred to in NLP and painful feelings.

Imagine you're having a relaxing soak in a hot bath. After a while, you've noticed the water temperature has dropped so you decide to top it up with some more hot water. You stretch your leg so you can turn the hot tap on with your toes. Hot water rushes out scalding your foot a little. You might squeal in pain a little, and you immediately pull your foot away from the water. This shows that we always try to move away from painful feelings.

The first type of painful feelings is anxiety. Anxiety can be a very debilitating emotion, and is also non-specific. By that I mean that you can be feeling very anxious about something, but not really know exactly what is causing your anxiety symptoms. You're feeling apprehension, dread, uneasiness and distress, but not sure why.

Anxiety attack symptoms can be very strong and can have a very negative impact on your self confidence levels. It can be very demoralising to constantly be under the threat of panic attacks, which can also lead to inability to make decisions and take action with your life. So it's vital we learn how to control these negative feelings and turn them round into positive emotions that empower us.

The second group of feeling we call pleasure feelings.

These are my favourite feelings - and it's probably the same for virtually every other human being on the planet. Imagine for a moment that you've just been out on a first date and really fell "head over heels" with your date. You seemed to have lots of things in common, there was never a dull or quite moment, and you got on like a house on fire. After the date, you feel on top of the world. These feelings and emotions cause us to feel pleasure, and we want to get as much of them as possible.

We are all programmed to seek out pleasurable experiences and situations, and to try to have more of them in our lives. This is why romance, holidays and even pleasure parks play such an important part in our lives. Pleasurable emotions and feelings that we can't get enough of include happiness, joy, laughter, love, friendship, fulfilment, winning, being loved and inner peace.

I know it seems like I'm stating the obvious, but pleasurable feelings make us feel good inside and out, and when we feel that way, it naturally helps us in building self confidence levels and self esteem. You feel in control of your life and surroundings, and there's no better way to improve confidence levels than by feeling good about yourself.

About the Author:

Lorna Luck is an NLP and personal development coach . Here she talks about how your feelings can help with building self confidence levels. She offers a free program teaching how to build confidence at http://magic-hats.com Click here for other unique 'improving self confidence' articles. Think and grow rich.

Tags: Improvement Self Tip, think and grow rich napoleon hill, Personal Development Action Plan, think and grow rich, Self Esteem Development, Self Improvement Article