As I mention previously, confidence is a state of knowing who you are, what you can and can't do, when you are about to undertake certain tasks. My realization of confidence being always within me came when I let go of my desire to be accepted and approved by the company, when I let go of trying to cling on to that job for secure income in the expense of personal happiness. So what exactly is this state of knowing and how do you know when you got that confidence?
Lets take a look at this state of knowing by looking at some sampler examples. Lets say you have been doing 10 pull-ups per day consistently for the last few months. You know you can do 10 pull-ups if you are not too tired/sick/drunk/hurt. That's the state of knowing. So if somebody doubts your ability to do 10 pull-ups, you will either proof this person wrong on the spot, or you will choose to ignore this person. You know your ability and you have already proven to yourself over and over again, therefore you are in this state of knowing that is independent to what others know or don't know about you. Therefore, when it comes to doing 10 pull-ups per set, you are a confident person.
Now, let's take this state of knowing that you can do 10 pull-ups per set and expend on it a little bit. Now your task is to do 15, which you have never tried. Do you still feel confident about completing 15 pull-ups? If your state of knowing is only focused on doing certain number of pull-ups. then you probably won't be confident doing 15 pull-ups because you haven't proven to yourself that you can do it yet. You are not confident anymore.
Now let's change where you focus on your state of knowing a little bit. Instead of 'knowing' how many pull-ups you can do or have done, let's focus on 'knowing' your ability to grow stronger over time. Your 'knowing' is based on the fact that you could only do 1 pull-up when you started out and now you can do 10, this proves to yourself that 15 isn't impossible; your 'knowing' is also based on the fact that after the 10th pull-up done, you can still sense that you still have some strength left and you can probably do a few more with it; your 'knowing' is ultimately based on the fact that you have proven to yourself many times that you have pushed through your previous limit and ascended to new heights, so 15 is just another new height that you will inevitably reach.
So now with this new state of knowing, you will approach this challenge of doing 15 pull-ups with a new found confidence. You may achieve it this time or you may fail, but with confidence, you will tell yourself 'Let's do it, I got this!'
Now, looking back in your life, what are the things you just 'know' you can do because you have done it before? What are the things you 'know' you can give it a shot because you have tried something like this in the past and it wasn't as impossible as you thought?
This implies there are two kinds of confidence: an external-driven false confidence, an internal-driven real confidence.
What kind of confidence are running in your life most of the time?
Until next time
