The only thing normally holding many people back, and away from their dreams, is themselves. They suffer from terrible fears when they try to better their lives. Inner fears like frustration, failure, lack of confidence allow someone to be talked out of success by their own demons. These fears control the lives of many people—but can be conquered.

This new series of blog articles is all about fears that will hold you back—and how to conquer them.

A Lack of Self-Confidence

This is one of the biggest problems faced by many people. The beliefs that you have about yourself often appear to be statements of fact, although actually, they’re really only opinions. They are based on the experiences you’ve had in life and the messages that these experiences have given you about the kind of person you are. If your experiences have been negative, your beliefs about yourself are likely to be negative, too. If you allow a lack of self-confidence to take over, you will never be able to achieve the things you want.

Crucial experiences that help to form our beliefs about ourselves often (although not always) occur early in life. What you saw, heard and experienced in childhood – in your family, in the wider community and at school – will have influenced the way you see yourself.

Sometimes, negative beliefs about yourself are caused by experiences later in life, such as workplace bullying or intimidation, abusive relationships, persistent stress or hardship, or traumatic events.

To build self-confidence and overcome low self-esteem is to actually change how we feel emotionally about ourselves. To change our emotion requires changing two different core beliefs about self-image. The first core belief is obvious.

It is the belief that we are not good enough. It may have a more specific association to how we look, how smart we believe we are, money, and our abundance or lack of it. The second core belief to change is the image of success that we feel we should have. Changing this belief is contrary to logic, but is a must if we are to overcome insecurity and raise our self-esteem.

If you can begin to change some of the smaller thoughts and emotions you have, then you can learn how to change the larger thoughts and emotions you experience.

Start by changing your thoughts and emotions—change small, negative thoughts until you have the confidence to change the larger negative thoughts looming over your life. Little by little, your lack of self-confidence will give way to a new-found sense of enjoyment when it comes to life and following your dream-laden path to success.