In the movie The Matrix, Neo is offered a choice: take the red pill or the blue pill.

In the words of Morpheus, “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember—all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.”

The Matrix is an interesting movie. After you get past the story itself and begin processing the actual dialogue and thinking about it, you can come up with some disturbing questions for yourself, and some amazing revalations.

The Blue Pill Or The Red Pill—or NO Pill?

The movie relates so well to life. In it, the vast majority of people are going about their day-to-day lives, oblivious to the truth, and to reality. So it goes in the real world. Millions upon millions of people trudge through their lives, birth to death, without an inkling that they can remake their world if they want to, and without the curiosity to even question their existence. Oblivious, really, to the world around them. They don’t even know that a pill exists.

Then there are those that have chosen the blue pill. You know them—they’re your friends, relatives, people that you’ve shared with what you’ve learned. They don’t want things to change; they’re happy being on the treadmill, in the rut they’ve created for themselves. Change scares them. They are scared to change their lives, and they think you’re stupid for trying. They don’t believe there’s a better life that could be theirs just by learning the truth.

Then there’s people like you. You want to learn; you see that there is something more out there. You want to find it; you want to know more about it. That desire is what brought you here to read this, and it is what drives you to search out information wherever you can find it. You want the truth. You want to know just how deep the rabbit hole goes. You have hope that change is possible, that you can make your life better.

Keep a good supply of the red pills around. When you’re feeling hopeless, or lost, take another one. Take one every day. Keep learning, keep searching for the truth. You’ll find it, and when you find it, use it. Internalize what you’ve learned and make your life better with it. You’ll be the better for it, and so will the people whose lives you touch as you go through your day-to-day experience.

The most priceless commodity of our time is something few people have in abundance: self-confidence. In the richest countries of the world, there are still hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who don’t have the confidence to step out and become achievers. They are homeless, hungry, and hopeless.

Contrast that with those few who have faced hardship and adversity head-on and come out on top. They haven’t let their circumstances dictate their success. They haven’t let prior failures, a poor childhood, cultural differences, or any of a hundred other obstacles determine whether or not they’ll triumph in the end.

Why is that? Why do some people do, while other people wish to do? One important factor is self-confidence. People who achieve are confident in their ability to achieve, while those who don’t achieve have little or no confidence in their abilities.

Do you want to influence your world? Keep in mind the following Five Secrets of Self-Confidence and you’ll be amazed at the changes that will manifest in your life.

Five Secrets of Self-Confidence

1. Know What You Want One of the things that set peak performers apart from the rest of the world is that they know exactly what they want. They can tell you, down to the smallest detail, what their objective is. They know what they want, and they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will have it.
2. Sustained, Hard Work Pays Off Peak performers know that in the end, hard work will pay off for them. They know that achieving their goals might mean working when their friends are playing, or it may mean studying into the wee hours to learn how to accomplish their next goal. Modern culture doesn’t recognize hard work as a virtue. We’re into the quick buck, the shortcut. We want something and we want it now, and we don’t have to work for it, that we’re entitled to more fruits than our labor is worth. Ask most young people entering the work force about their expectations if you doubt this.
3. Knowledge Is Power Rather, applied knowledge is power. Knowledge on its own is useless information. Only when you use knowledge does it become powerful. Observe the world around you, and use that knowledge to innovate, invent, or create a solution to the challenges you’ve observed. Make your knowledge work for you.
4. Have Positive Expectations An oft-overlooked source of self-confidence is maintaining a positive outlook on life, expecting good things to happen. If you get bogged down in the day-to-day hassles and challenges of life, your outlook suffers. Your confidence recedes because you find yourself thinking that the world is out of control, and with it your life. How can anyone keep a confident outlook in the face of such thinking?
5. Be A Visionary Have goals that are bigger than yourself. Be bold in your visions for the future. Be outrageous. Visionaries attract people and circumstances that can further them toward their ultimate goals. Dream large!

So how does one build self-confidence? After all, it’s hard to be confident if you don’t feel it. Here are some steps you can take to build your confidence level:

• Face your fears. Overwhelming fear can paralyze you. It can cause you to do nothing. Get a grip! Most fears are completely irrational; what we fear is rarely as bad as we imagine it may be. Confront these fears head-on. Say you have a fear of public speaking, like many people do. Determine exactly what it is you fear about the situation—looking stupid, for instance—and take steps to eliminate the worry of that. Research. Learn. Then go speak to a receptive group. Then do it again. And again. Soon, you’ll wonder what you were ever afraid of in the first place.
• Commit yourself to a cause. When you are commited and passionate about something, your confidence will show through. You’ll amaze yourself. Look at the confidence you’ve manifested, and remember it. Transfer it to the next situation that you find yourself in where you lack confidence. Feed upon your successes.
• Be unique and use that uniqueness. Everyone is unique; we are not all the same. Find your own personal strengths and use the knowing of your strengths to show yourself that you are unique and worthwhile.
• Be persistant and consistent. As you continue to consistently work hard toward your goals, your confidence will increase because you’ll be seeing your successes and progress. You’ll begin to know that you can’t be stopped. Is that confidence? That’s the very definition!

Confidence can be learned, if you don’t have it. Determine that you will have it, that you are confident, and take some action toward it, and you will be rewarded with unstoppable confidence.