I love journalism. I may have mentioned this before, but I haven’t mentioned that I worked on my school newspaper in high school.
It sounds impressive but in reality, I only published one or two stories that year.
One of those reasons was because I was afraid of the teacher. I was afraid that she would hate my story and critique it to the point where I would hate myself. My crippling self-confidence stopped me from trying to become a better journalist.
I am not the same person that I was then. I am different. I have more confidence. But back then, it seemed like the only thing that was holding me back was my lack of confidence.
So, why was confidence such a hard thing for me?
Part of me thinks that it has to do with the identity we have with ourselves, our past experience and our future wants.
To better understand these topics, I have ordered them into sections.
Past Experience
When I was little, my confidence became crippled when I was bullied by my teacher.
I suddenly hated everything that I did and I felt like I couldn’t do anything right. It made me push myself harder than I needed to and made myself overthink every little thing so I wouldn’t get something “wrong”.
This past experience shaped what I thought I could do for the future.
When I believed that I couldn’t do something because of my past experience, I would believe that I didn’t do it right and I became not confident in myself.
Notice that I italicized the word believe. That is because belief is everything to our minds. When we believe in ourselves we can become more confident, have a greater mindset, and accomplish goals we have set for ourselves.
When we have that lack of belief, it becomes hard to accomplish much because we don’t believe that we can.
I didn’t think that I could accomplish much when I was little. This is probably why I would quit something before I could get better at it. It was because I didn’t believe I would get better at it.
Gaining that belief that you can do anything isn’t something that happens overnight. You have to work at it and start believing, one step at a time, that you can do anything you put your mind to.
Identity
It may seem weird that identity has anything to do with confidence but it does.
When I was little my identity was what I believed myself to be in my mind. Some of those things were…
- I am a mess
- I am not good enough
- I am a failure
- I don’t belong
- I am never going to change
These are horrible things to be thinking about oneself but I was so stuck in a loop that I didn’t think that I needed to change my thinking. I kept on thinking these things about myself so I never became confident.
It was only when I started changing these ideas about myself, that I started to have more confidence in myself.
Some of the things I started to say in replacement have been…
- I am hardworking
- I am loving
- I am trustworthy
- I am hopeful
- I am strong
Changing this kind of identity does not come overnight. I didn’t have enough confidence to start a blog back in high school but today, I am now one year into my blog.
One thing to remember from this section is that “who you were isn’t who you are“.
You are constantly changing either for the better or for the worse. It is up to you whether you gain more confidence or if you lose it.
Future Wants
Confidence can be tied to your past but it can also come from who you want to be.
This works well with identity since it is through thinking about what you want to become and seeing it happen that you can become more confident. I really love this quote from Benjamin Hardy.
“The bigger your confidence, the less you identify with who you were and the more you identify with who you intend to be.”
Confidence: 2 Reasons Most People Don’t Have It
Right now, I want you to write down some traits that you want to have in the future. It can be anything from being more patient to being a better sibling. Whatever it is, write it down and think about the confidence associated with it.
If you want, you can make some goals that show how you’re going to get there but take a good look at the person you want to become.
What is the first step you can take to be that person?
Take that step. It may not seem like a lot but like Benjamin Hardy said in his post, “clarity comes from action.”
The more you take those steps to be that person you want to be the more you are going to gain confidence and the more you are going to be that person.
All it takes is looking towards the future of who you want to be, NOT the person you were.
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading my post! I gained so much inspiration from reading Benjamin’s post. I hope that whatever you are going through or whatever you are facing, that you can get through it and become the best person you can be.
I promise that your confidence is going to grow so much. I know I have come a long way from being a person who hated themselves into a person with so much confidence and self-respect.
