Building Self-Confidence

Aidy Thomas

Aidy Thomas

Self-confidence is one asset anyone anticipating success in life should acquire. It starts basically from the perception you have about yourself. Being an assertive or lethargic person has an enormous impact on how others see you; there is a way you communicate the real feelings of life to them and they relate to you based on what you feel about yourself. Expectation always precedes acquisition.

Perception, in a way, births reality. There is a direct connection between what you experience in life with what you conceive. If you believe what you are thinking about yourself strongly, it would be a matter of time before others would queue behind to support and follow you.

I heard of a story of a young school boy who made everyone see him as a terror. He was named “The cock of the school” and was fat with a mean, ugly face. Funny enough, all through his school years, no one ever saw him have a single fight because he had taken his time to create a strong impression on the heart of others he could squeeze them dry with just one touch; he was unbeatable-so no student wanted to be the scapegoat.

Meanwhile, the truth was that he simply worked on their psychology: the poor boy would have taken time to reason that if he didn’t intimidate them early enough, they might team up to make life miserable for him following his looks and size. What a smart way to silence people!

I remember clearly when Hulk Hogan was in active wrestling. He would come to the ring, make a lot of noise and rip his T-shirt showing you he was ready to tear opponents to pieces the same way. To some, the fight had ended even before they started-their minds had bought into the perception he’d created of his strength.

However you want people to see you, start behaving that way now. You might be wondering why I’ve gone from point A to B but I want you to know that building self-confidence is a job only you can do for yourself.

You might borrow a few materials from others-appreciation, love, care, good parenting/background, education, etc which go a long way to help but you still need to harness all of these to work in your favour. Are we making excuses for people who didn’t have a good start in life? Not really, everyday is a good time to start making a difference and creating the ‘ideal you’.

Dealing/relating with someone who has severe confidence issues is a difficult encounter and thousands of relationship problems stem from low self esteem.

When a wife feels every outing the husband does is unconnected with female folks and a husband suspects every bib in his wife’s phone- wanting to know who and why he called. They constantly think their spouses are on the lookout for a better catch. Is this really necessary?

There is no particular universal reason for low self esteem; it is a natural emotional state flowing basically from the knowledge you have of yourself-rejection, childhood experience, shortcomings, looks, weaknesses, flaws, inadequacies, limitations, etc.

Interesting to note is the fact that other people may not even notice you have these challenges until you project them through your unconscious expressions or presentation.

Handling situations in certain ways or reacting to things generally give others a clue to who you really are.

Trish had been enjoying her young marriage as a ‘trophy wife’- the type of a woman acquired as part of properties to increase a man’s worth. Some years ago, it was common for a woman to fantasize and wish for a life close to that of ‘Pretty Woman’- a favourite old film where a Richard Gere type hero solved your problems with a flash of his buoyant bank account.

Trish missed out of this affluent experience growing up with her single mum who could only afford the very necessary things she needed to survive. Now that her beauty worked her straight to the arms of a financial investment consultant, she’d to play catch up with her peers who looked down on her misfortune.

The result of course was a bulky lazy bear compared to a slim chick her husband captured when she came with others to compete for the best act in a TV commercial for his bank. She had totally forgotten about modelling which she explored to support her low income earner mum.

Trish’s request to join Mark, her husband for his official celebrations constantly met with excuses and explanations. When she finally forced her way to their end of the year party and saw her husband was the only married man without his wife beside him, she knew something was definitely wrong with her marriage: Mark sure wanted someone more than a mother of two and a house peg that only shop online, ate and slept all day.

Why won’t she be fat? Trish struggled with this feeling for long and ended up depressed. A clever thing to do would have been, get to the gym and shake it off, cut food intake or substitute dangerous ones for healthier options.

Different things make people suffer lack of self confidence. A sound check on your entire life to see the things that cause you pain and shame would be a step in the right direction. Although there might be things you cannot totally change except you want to do a quick fix ‘tummy tuck’ and plastic surgery that would land you in an early grave. For such things, develop a positive attitude to replace every negative thought bombarding your mind.

Once you have identified how to sort yourself, work on those areas constantly until they become no issue to you at all. Always remember to say to yourself ‘life is not a total package’ for anyone; we all have weaknesses and challenges but wise people project their strength not weaknesses.

Allowing your lack of self confidence to shatter your marriage/relationship would be a big mistake. You don’t need to nag, control, jealous, suspect or be cantankerous, because you think your spouse is interacting/mingling with people of higher class.

Concentrate and develop yourself; do it just for you and enjoy it. Our next discuss would focus exclusively on how to build self esteem and become a better, happier person/lover.

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