In my early life, I missed out on some significant opportunities due to a lack of self-confidence. However, once I worked on building that confidence, I began to see major progress and success. Let me share a real-life experience that highlights this transformation.
My early years were marked by extreme highs followed by drastic lows. During one of those low points, I became rebellious, feeling the need to prove my worth. After enduring a lot of criticism, my self-confidence was severely shaken, despite my best efforts to fight back and prove myself.
With around six years of work experience, I secured an opportunity to work in the USA. My first assignment was in Chicago with Sears Roebuck and Company, which was one of the largest companies in the U.S. at the time. In fact, the Sears Tower in Chicago used to be the tallest building in the world. Being new to the country, the organization, and the role, I was filled with anxiety and pressure to prove myself.
On my first day, I met my reporting manager, Deborah Brown. I spent that day familiarizing myself with the project and getting settled. The next day, Deborah handed me a set of documents and said, “This is the specification of a program that needs to be developed. Please review it and let me know if you have any questions.” This experience marked a pivotal moment in my journey of rebuilding my confidence.
Listen to the following excerpt from my first book, “Shades and Curves of my Life”, where I talk about how self-confidence is a key differentiator in our lives.
While doing research, I found out that there are a number of causes for lack of self confidence
Excessive Expectations – Childhood criticism on not coming up to the expectations
Uninvolved/Negligent Parents – This also can make a child feeling ignored and not getting the right guidance at the time of personality buildup; leading to lack of self-confidence
Negative Peers – Sometimes negative or bullying peers in school, neighbourhood or siblings can negatively impact the self-confidence of a child
Trauma or Abuse – whether physical, emotional, sexual or a combination of these – often causes feelings of shame and even guilt.
Harsh Self-judgement
Body image is a huge factor in young people’s self-confidence
Pre-occupation with fear – Fear of rejection, failure
Small fish in a Big Pond – It’s easy for young people to feel irrelevant in a world beyond their control. This leads to feelings of ineffectiveness, powerlessness and worthlessness leading to a feeling of lack of confidence.
Lack of experience
Unrealistic Targets – While I believe in taking BHAG (Big Hairy and Audacious Goals) yet if it is taken at a stage where your self-confidence is not high then it will result into a worry and further decrease in self-confidence
Lack of skill or not being aware of one’s true capability (power within)
Lack of small successes
Negative thought patterns
and so on and so forth…..
Similarly, there are many ways and solutions to improve one’s self-confidence:
Gaining small successes in life – Target small achievable milestones; Slowly increase difficulty level
Avoid comparisons and focus on what you are good at and what you enjoy
Focus and prepare yourself for a target/ milestone
Self-belief and Resilience – Realizing the Power in You
Positive affirmations – I CAN DO IT You can say, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and, doggone it, people like me” into the mirror every day — and it couldn’t hurt
Find a Mentor who can show the right path
Spend time with people who support you, who are your well-wishers
Focus on positive outcomes – You either succeed or you learn (You never fail)
Ignore irrelevant people and their criticism (Kuch to log kahenge)
These are the learnings on the curves of my life. And these curves had been my best teachers. For more such experiential learnings of my life please read my book “On the curves of my life”.
