Redefining Confidence

Have you ever wondered what confidence really means?

According to the dictionary it is the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust. By this definition alone could sound ambiguous, but real confidence is eminently subjective. We all have our definition of confidence, some may say it is beauty, strength, and power, money, fame, and so on. These traits may bolster your confidence, but real confidence comes from within. 

Confidence is when you see yourself genuinely happy and successful and not what other people’s opinion of your success or happiness is. If our confidence is based on external factors we will always be in a cycle of ups downs. For instance, there will be times where you’ll look amazing, then your confidence will go up, but there will also be times where you’ll not look amazing and this will lower your confidence.

The problem with this mindset is that our confidence is dictated by other people around us which keeps us away from acquiring true confidence. One great way to achieve true confidence is by developing self-awareness. We first need to recognize that we need to love and accept ourselves from where we are in our current life. It is about becoming what you want to be without a reflection of what others think. 

This isn’t going to be easy at the beginning, that is why we need to accumulate small wins. First, we need to define our own values and beliefs because this is where our confidence goes around it. For instance, if you don’t know what your values and beliefs are you’ll always be chasing for money, fame, power, and so on as we mentioned earlier which is something that we don’t have control over. 

A big part of our life that is hindering us from achieving our dream and confidence is self-doubt. It has killed more dreams than any failure and rejection in the world because if we are too scared of failure we don’t allow ourselves to fail. If we are too scared with rejection we never face rejection. We are so scared with what would happen that we never tried anything new which leads to stagnation.

It is a good reminder that you don’t need to become confident in all areas in life and this is totally fine because we are all not born with perfect confidence.

Some of us may be confident with their career, but not in their relationship or confident with our physical and not mental. Once we know which area is our weakness we can work towards it and if we know our strengths we can build on it. Do not extrapolate the genius inside of you because you’ll feel disconnected with yourself and will lead to lack of energy and motivation.

It is great to keep in mind that working with our confidence is a lifelong journey and it is something that we need to re-evaluate. Part of the reason why we don’t feel confident it's because of the school system. They brainwashed us to know everything and this made us feel inferior or unintelligent if we don’t know the answer. 

Today the smartest people are those who ask questions because as the Chinese proverb stated, "He who asks a question remains a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask remains a fool forever." A person who never asks the questions will remain oblivious to the answer. A great question leads to great answers and it is asking questions that will lead us towards growth.

What is your own definition of Confidence?