how do i increase my confidence level?

I wrote this earlier, I think it applies here as well.. Feeling good about yourself is important as it gives you a sense of control over your life, helps you feel satisfied in your relationships, allows you to set realistic expectations for yourself, and enables you to pursue your own goals. Feeling badly about yourself, on the other hand, contributes to a distorted view of yourself, a lack of self-confidence, poor performance, and unhappiness. No single event or person can determine your level of self esteem. It develops over time, constantly changing with experiences. Your level of self esteem is based upon the unique experiences and personal relationships that have made up your life. Whereas positive and fulfilling relationships help raise your self esteem, negative experiences and troubled relationships tend to lower it. Experiences within your family, at school, or within a relationship all effect your self esteem. For example, if your family always compared you to others or being unhappy in school, especially if criticised or bullied by classmates or teachers, can also negatively affect self esteem as it may leave you feeling incompetent in comparison to others. A relationship ending badly can make you think you will never love again... but you will, given time. Since low self-esteem is a result of negative thoughts and feelings, it is important to try to alter how you think and feel about yourself. Think about all the good things and don't dwell on the bad. You can begin by accepting that you are certainly not alone. Masses of people have this problem. Secondly, you can take on board a very important fact, which is that you are a wonderful, individual and special person — and there is no one quite like you. Your fingerprints and your DNA are totally different from everybody else's — unless you happen to have an identical twin. And your mind — and how it thinks and operates — is absolutely your own. This means that out of six billion people in the world, you are a one-off. So if nature has bothered to make you utterly unique, don't you feel that you should accept that you're important, and that you have as much right as anyone else to be on this planet? You have other rights too. One of them is the right to make mistakes. Don't forget that 'to err is human' and most of us do much of our learning through getting things wrong before we get them right. Furthermore, we have the right to respect ourselves — and to be respected: this is very important. And finally — and perhaps most vitally of all — we have the right to say 'yes' or 'no' for ourselves. Many people with poor self-esteem think that they're not very important and that their views carry no weight. Is this you? If so, try to stop these destructive thoughts; because if you go around believing them, you'll encourage other people to believe them too. Instead, start thinking of yourself — with your individual DNA, fingerprints and mind — as someone who has rights and opinions and ideas that are just as valid as anyone else's. This will help you to improve your 'self-estimation.' Often we make ourselves unhappy because we go over and over mistakes that we have made. But we can feel happier, and improve our self-esteem, if we rethink those things we believe we have done wrong or badly sometime we may come to realise, we really did ok.…

Sometimes it sounds so simple to advice a person who feels this way.....the best solution , really, should come out from you.......just always be positive..meaning at all times...feel happy, feel beautiful, feel rich (LOL) ...ignore those people whom you think, thinks negative of you........who knows, they havent thought negative about you anyway...it's really our own mind who haunts us of this negative attitude so the best solution is ourselves, diverting those powerful thoughts...

you can join a group of ur interest(e.g. religious, civic, community) so you can meet other people that share the same traits as you are and you can increase your confidence level by doing so.