As I write this article the word 'confidence' returns 124 million results on Google. It's no wonder,as confidence is surprisingly difficult to tie down precisely and regardless of how much we have, we crave more.

Confidence is one of our greatest personal resources. With it we can handle any situation, reach our goals and take on new challenges, yet without it we tend to suffer. Simply put, the more confident you are the more likely you are to succeed.

Confidence means something different for each one of us and rather than searching for the perfect definition, let's focus on how we can build more of it.

Confidence is almost all about perception and the perception you have of yourself also impacts how others perceive you. Self-confident people believe in their ability to achieve which drives their success.

Believing in yourself means that you recognise and accept that you have all the capability you need to achieve whatever it is you want. It also means that you accept failure as a challenge and an opportunity to learn and grow. Knowing that you are the greatest asset you have translates into a whole range of positive outcomes.

There is a lot of truth in the phrase confidence breeds confidence. The best way to build confidence is to relive times of prior success and develop empowering beliefs about future success. The key to doing this successfully is to use the process of visualisation. Allow your mind to relive the uplifting and empowering emotions of times when you felt really confident in the past and also to rehearse future envisioned confidence.

Repeatedly focus your thoughts on the things you want to happen in your life and vividly imagine them happening now. Remember to use all your senses to build up the positive experience and emotions of a confident and competent you. Visualisation is extremely effective, as our subconscious mind cannot distinguish between thoughts that are real or imagined. It is particularly useful when building up confidence for a future experience, of which you have no experience or even where you previously failed.

When you repeatedly visualise the confidence you want, you change how you habitually think about yourself. When you begin to see yourself as you want to be, you gradually and naturally feel yourself enjoying more and more confidence.