Self confidence is the key
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement, nothing can be done without hope and confidence’-HELEN KELLER
By: Sheikh Nazarat Gulzar
Self-confidence is one of the essential attributes of success in life. It is the cornerstone of a dominant and colourful personality.
To improve self-confidence, one needs to work on our strengths in life as well as our weakness. It also amounts to identify as well as built on opportunities in life and tackle the challenges.
Some incidents break us totally and deform us but they can also mould us into the best version of ourselves. The same thing happened to me when I was in 12th standard. Due to certain reasons, I got terribly stressed. It ended up as a kind of clinical depression and the incident deteriorated my health and I could not attend my classes on regular basis. My health did not support me to continue my studies nearly for a year. I was feeling sad and alone and I started questioning my existence. Why was I even alive? That time, the powerful words of my father helped me to come out of the state of gloom. My father told me that this too shall pass.
God has a greater plan for you, he said adding that he did not knew what it was but God must have a plan for me to shine in life. And that was when I realized that words had the power to heal the soul. In all that stress and grief somehow those words had some magical effect and kept me going. After one year, I got admitted to a college which was my dream. That day, I decided that I was going to fight my fears. I decided to work on myself and to make myself strong.
This incident taught me a lesson that one should love oneself in difficult and fragile times. As a strong girl, I got encouragement to explore my strengths and use them to be the best version of myself. This incident guided me to identify my weaknesses and improve on them to be more compatible with the outer environment. I thought that, as the crown of creation, we should always explore the opportunities in life and grab them when they knock at our doors.
We must learn to adjust to new situations to prove ourselves while using our capacity, competency, and values. All this comes up with challenges and these challenges must not be our stumbling blocks but the stepping stones to tread on the journey of success holistically. We should not become the rolling stones to change our decision in every new situation. This presents us as fake people. We need to accept ourselves the way we are to be happy and successful in life.
The Cause of poor self-confidence is the outcome of poor decisions in life. It is feeling inferior which is the biggest huddle that restricts our improving a positive image. The most important thing is to remember that an inferiority complex is entirely due to one’s imagination where one imagines that others notice, observe and take cognizance of his shortcomings.
Unfortunately, this is a wrong assumption taken for granted by an affected person. This type of person is also in the fear of being a failure. It is also feeling concerned about our shortcomings, our struggling communications, and our confusion in making informed decisions as self-dependent individuals.
When we are in the middle of low self-esteem, the manifestation of poor self-confidence is markedly high in our behavior. An individual who suffers from an inferiority complex is lacking self-confidence. The lack of self-confidence makes a person self-doubtful who overthinks what others think about him. It leads to the development of inferior feelings in an individual. The presence of this complex may manifest in shyness, over-sensitiveness, loneliness, fear, a tendency to speak lies, and so on. This leads to mental frustrations and severe disappointments.
This is a serious impediment in the path to progress and success in one’s life. It should be gotten rid of at the earliest. If we keep our mindset positive, the negative complexes can be cured easily, completely and effectively.
The important steps to attaining complete self-confidence is to turn your interest and concern toward others instead of worrying about yourself. Think outwardly and think of others and their needs, problems, and difficulties. The more we know about people, the more they talk about their problems, and the more we listen, learn and appreciate, the greater will be our knowledge and the stronger our self-confidence.
The attitude of gratitude, empathy, sincerity, and kindness are things that add grace, impact, and charisma to our personality and help us to come out of poor self-esteem. This leads to the building of our character on the ethical basis.
Firstly, we should take calculated risks in life so that we become fearless to face the complexities of the dynamism of the world. We need to be culturally sensitive and concerned about the accepted norms and beliefs in the society where we live, in order to be compatible with the accepted principles.
Secondly, procrastination is the most harmful evil that lets us down in pursuing our aims. We should plunge into the assigned tasks with great and real enthusiasm. Our communication skills can be of great importance to help us to be successful in building our self-confidence. So, speaking, listening, reading, and writing for a good amount of time must be our priority to emancipate in our expression.
We must organize our life, and plan on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. We need to stick to one goal and follow it to improve our self-confidence. If we want to be successful, we should never succumb to the disease of indifference toward the core essentials and areas of concern in our life.
We need to think positively and be critical thinkers, collaborators, creative, and effective communicators to grow holistically and to be high at self-confidence.
summing it up, working on our strengths, weakness, opportunities, and challenges improves our self-confidence. The cause of poor self-confidence must be identified so that steps are taken to address the adverse manifestations of poor self-confidence. This will be a certain guarantee of success in the dreams and desires, we crave in life. I conclude with this beautiful quote, “Self-confidence is the foundation of all great success and achievements”.
The writer is a student of Functional English, Govt Women’s College, M.A Road Srinagar.
Kashmir Images is an English language daily newspaper published from Srinagar (J&K), India. The newspaper is one of the largest circulated English dailies of Kashmir and its hard copies reach every nook and corner of Kashmir Valley besides Jammu and Ladakh region.
