So you don't think you are a confident person. How can you tell? Are you:
fidgeting around people you just met?
afraid of certain people or individual?
doubting yourself in all aspect of your life?
holding yourself back from getting what you want in life?
thinking that certain opportunities are way out of league?
the list goes on and on.
If you want certain things in life and you are convinced that you need more confidence in order to get those things, therefore you take actions by trying to:
read self-help books
participate toastmaster
learn Improv
do affirmation every day
learn martial arts
do meditation everyday
attend Tony Robbins workshop
this list goes on and on too.
but you still find yourself lacking confidence when you try to:
find the love of your life
build your business
have better social life
get that promotion that you have always wanted
improve your relationship with others
this list goes on and on as well
That's because you have forgotten that confidence is a state of knowing that you can handle the situation whatever the outcome might be, rather than a external attribute that you can gain or loss. Because of that, it is always within you, you just choose to let it come out sometimes while other times, choose to hide it.
In fact, any of the above activities and much more that I haven't mentioned can all work equally well in building your confidence. But, if you are trying to use confidence as a tool to get certain things, then it is not going to be there when you really need it.
To my own life for instance, i had always thought i was not a confident person in the corporate world. I always wanted to avoid meetings with the higher-ups, i was always quite and when I had to speak up during the meeting, i was always afraid. I wanted to gain confidence, so i did a lot of activities that was said to be confidence booster, and i became fairly good at some of those activities. However, it never helped me with my professional life, i was still afraid and quite. It was really frustrating and i even felt depressed sometimes just to thinking about it.
After some years went by, i started to see how people manipulate and play politics at work, and how i was victimized as a result of their politics. I started to lose respect from those people and began to think that me exiting the company would really be a blessing because I no longer wished to be part of them anymore.
By having that change of my person plan, it instantly took away all my insecurities at work. As i mention before, confidence is a state of knowing what you can do, i had the knowing that I could handle all of the work, and I no longer wanted to be in that company. Suddenly, I was speaking up at meetings, I was talking to all of the managers as if they were less than me because I believed i was going to a better place while they would still be stuck there. I became the confident person that I always wanted to become.
When I was trying to use confidence in exchange for job securities and job promotions, it was never there for me, because I had an agenda, which was to make people like me, to accept me, to think that I was confident so they would believe me and leave me along. That never worked out. How can I be confident if I am depending on other people to like and accept me? The moment I no longer need their approvals and acceptance because I am exiting anyways, I no longer need to hide my true self, my true opinion about the environment, the people, therefore i no longer fear speaking up because I believe in myself that my plan is going to work.
So my friends, let me ask you this:
What are you afraid of? What is the thing that you have to hide from people, to avoid being exposed?
Until next time
