confidence: noun 1: a feeling or consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances; 2: faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way
Confidence is a valuable commodity, but it's also an elusive one. It's difficult to acquire, and maybe even more difficult to keep. For me, this has always been a tough subject and generally leaves me asking more questions than finding answers. At times I have it, at times I don't, at times I feel like I'm not capable or worthy of having it. It's a mystery and it's frustrating. Not having it holds me back from having happiness in my life, drawing upon it has allowed me to do some remarkable, rewarding things.
On a lot of occasions, confidence is a delicate balance. It's a razor thin edge between making great strides and falling into a sea of doubt. How can I feel so confident in one area of my life and so helpless and uncertain in others? What keeps confidence in one thing so high, but doesn't allow itself to spill into other aspects of my existence? There are things I'm good at, some things I'm ok at but would like to be better, and many things at which I'm not good at all. Why can't my confidence in my stronger fields help me to improve in the others? Why do I feel that I'll never be able to be good at certain things, but have the confidence to believe I can improve on the things at which I'm marginally capable? Where does my cross-wired mind draw the line when it comes to confidence? Why does confidence slip away so easily? How does it return so quickly at times and painstakingly slowly at others? Is there anything that can be done to secure the confidence I possess? Can I build upon it and make it stronger, or to work toward bringing it back when it eludes me?
In my own case, I think my confidence is directly tied to my current level of self esteem. Being a sufferer of low-grade depression, my self esteem has never been (and likely never will be) very high. At its low points, it plunges any confidence in even my best skills and abilities to low levels. In a situation where I would usually shake off a bad result, I begin to question myself. It's a vicious cycle, as this brings more uncertainty which yields more bad results and ultimately undermines my confidence level. Having little confidence reinforces the lack of self-esteem, the depression deepens and another major episode is initiated. At its mildest of times (like now), my lack of self-esteem holds me back from having the confidence to move forward. It's almost like the confidence that is there is shoring up the self-esteem that is not present. In a period of time of feeling ok, I don't dare risk anything major or sensitive that would shake my confidence and in turn allow the fragile self-esteem I have to vanish. It is a delicate, complicated formula.
So many questions and not many answers about confidence. I wasn't sure how to go about approaching this topic and honestly stopped, erased, and restarted a few times. I was confident that eventually if I stuck to it that I'd come up with something worth posting. Since you're reading this, it should be evident that I'm pleased with the result. Being the perfectionist that I am, if I didn't like it then it would still be sitting in my draft folder for another day. It bothers me that I can't take this confidence in writing to other things, but I'm beginning to understand myself enough that it's not a good place to go right now. No sense in tipping the scales of the favorable mental and emotional balance I have right now... of that I am confident.
5 comments:
This is a very though provoking post, Bob. Confidence is fickle. At least that's my experience with it. I think for most of us average people confidence is hit or miss. But I'm pretty confident that this is a wonderful post. Keep up the good work.
Confidence is probably the most important asset to anyone. It's what drives us all really. When you're confident, you get more done, you feel like no task is unmanageable. When you're down and the self esteem is low, you get lazy and indecisive. The key to finding it, and more importantly, sustaining it, is finding the positive in the mistakes. Your confidence might be cyclical because you're not perpetuating it by looking for the positives in the negatives. The best way to carry it over from the things you're successful at to the things you're not so good at is finding the transferable qualities you have inside you. I don't know. I'm probably not the right person to being weighing in on this matter, but I thought I would anyhow.
I've bookmarked this blog and I'll be taking a look regularly. If you ever need a laugh, drop by my pop culture comedy blog. have a great day.
My Father used to always tell me, "Fake it till you make it." I think this also holds true for confidence.
What came first, the chicken or the egg?
What drives successful people? Is it their inner confidence that says they can do anyting or a nagging voice that tells them they'll never be good enough?
If it makes you feel better, I wrote several comments, erased them, rewrote them.
:-)
G'day Bob,
I have noticed your comments popping up recently and thought that i would visit you. This is a thought provoking post; one that i can relate to. You might have unwittingly reached the nub of the post where you mentioned and I quote, "Being the perfectionist that I am, if I didn't like it then it would still be sitting in my draft folder for another day".
I have reached the conclusion that, "Perfection is the thief of self-confidence". Just a thought.
Cheers and beers,
Mark.
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