According to Osho, don’t try to create self‑confidence at all. The very urge is ego comparing itself with others. Drop comparison and the ambition to be extraordinary; simply accept yourself as you are. Be ordinary, uncontrived, like trees that don’t try to be each other. From such acceptance, a natural ease, clarity and right action arise—no fabricated confidence needed.
Stop trying to be special or like others; just be yourself, and a calm, natural okayness will appear.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
One friend asks: we have no self-confidence. How shall we create it within ourselves?
Do not create self-confidence. What does it mean to create self-confidence? It means you want to claim that you are something and you want to prove it. It means you consider yourself not ordinary. You want to prove your extraordinariness. All mad people are self-confident. It is difficult to shake their confidence in themselves. If a mad person takes it into his head that he is Napoleon, all the world cannot persuade him to the contrary. He is convinced within his mind. I ask you what is the need for self-confidence? Why are you so worried about it? Perhaps you feel the other person is more successful; perhaps he is more self-confident. Your contemporary earns more than you, or perhaps he has made headway in business or politics. You feel you have lagged behind. You feel it is because of the lack of self-confidence. Hence the urge. To worry about…
A friend has asked: Osho, I lack self-confidence; how can it arise?
Only man has gone mad. His doing has become more important than his rest. Why do we act at all? Man acts so that someday he may rest. And the end is that the chance to rest never comes; he ends while still doing. What, then, is the goal? Diogenes is resting, lying in the sand—naked. Alexander has gone to meet him. Alexander says, “Such ease! Such bliss! Still, I ask, if I can do anything for you, tell me.” Diogenes says, “Step a little to the side. The sunlight was coming, and you have become an obstacle. What more can you do? We were perfectly happy—the fresh morning light was falling—and you came in between. Just move aside.” Alexander felt thoroughly baffled. He had thought he would do something for Diogenes—he could have piled up mountains of wealth. And what did Diogenes ask? Alexander said, “Diogenes, you do not…
Should I throw away all my self-confidence?
DON'T think you can do it, because you don't have any. What you call self-confidence is just a lack of it, hence you need it. A man of real self-confidence never carries so much luggage. Why should he carry it? Why should he be concerned about self-confidence? He has it. Nobody can rob him of it, nobody can steal it. There is no way of losing it, you will not need to carry it. When you carry it you show only one thing -- you don't have it. People who don't have any self-confidence create a false self-confidence as a substitute. They are trembling inside, they are afraid inside. Deep down is cowardice but on the surface they pretend that they are brave people, very courageous. Deep down is ignorance but on the surface they are very knowledgeable. Deep down they don't know anything and on the surface they are…
The disappearing self-confidence simply means that now you are becoming aware that life is bigger than reason. When somebody asks you a question -- somebody says, 'Is there a God?' only a foolish person can say yes or no. He can say with confidence! And you can judge by the confidence how foolish he is. I go on looking into christian missionaries' books -- I have never seen such stupid literature. So confident -- and without knowing anything! Somebody asks, 'Is there a God?'... a small child asks you, 'Is there God?' and you say, 'Yes.' Just look behind your 'yes'. What are you trying to pretend before the child? Who are you kidding? Be humble, and say to the child, 'I don't know.' You will be truer, and closer to God.
Our innermost core is always positive so we can transcend all our acts. Just shift your consciousness from the negative to the positive, and you will be surprised: life starts taking on a new colour, a new joy, and becomes a great adventure. Then people are no more enemies. If somebody says something negative, you laugh and forget about it. If somebody says something positive, you feed on it, you are nourished by it. Then people start turning into friends because you remember only the friends and you forget the enemies. Right now you remember the enemies and you forget your friends. That's what happens: if you can't believe the positive that is going to happen.