TOW#591 — Self-confidence
Self-confidence can be defined as a way of seeing and accepting oneself. It means accepting and believing in yourself, appreciating and loving yourself, and having some control over your life. It’s about knowing your strengths and weaknesses, as well as having a positive outlook on life and yourself. Self-confidence means knowing how to set realistic expectations and goals, to communicate assertively and deal with criticism.
While searching the Internet for information on this topic, I came across some tables where self-confidence had been divided into low and high (or interestingly, — normal, as they put it). Below is a combination I put together of some of what I consider to be the most interesting aspects. I also added a column for you to score yourselves, so you can see where you are on the self-confidence scale (1 — least points, 5 — most).
Woooah, it’s probably better that I stop with this list!! If you know someone ‘normal’ then please tell me so I can ask them how they do it. Why am I saying this!?
Apparently, all problems that arise around low self-confidence originate in early childhood. Our parents’ influence is of crucial importance. Additionally, the system, society, our environment, Hollywood, fashion and beauty magazines, the music industry, education system, work, colleagues, managers, friends, everything, except the Universe, negatively affects us and our self-confidence. All of this means that it’s very difficult, especially nowadays, to succeed in maintaining a high, or ‘normal’ as they say, level of self-confidence.
My idea for this week’s tip wasn’t to give you advice on how to boost your self-confidence. Go online and you’ll find a million books, tips and articles that’ll help you boost your self-confidence. What I wanted to do was point out that we lose a lot of our self-confidence during our lifetimes. Just so you’re aware the extent to which our environment, society and everything around us makes us hostages to fear, leaving us feeling more insecure, less able to love and appreciate ourselves, and thus ending up less happy and satisfied.
Observe yourselves, analyse yourselves, upgrade yourselves, read, practice techniques, experiment. Do everything, just don’t stand still and allow the outside world to destroy your self-confidence and life!!!
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
Petar Lazarov
Member of the Team
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