(The following story was published in 2011 1st Quarter issue of JAL Focus, a company newsletter)
Most often, we read the life stories of
the most successful people are usually begin with confidence. Realizing their willpower and optimism, we
are inspired by their stories to become successful as well but we need to build
confidence as well to succeed. Confidence
is defined as consciousness in one’s power, faith or belief that a person will
act in a right and effective way. It is
putting the positive personalities and knowledge together into your whole
packaging to have good general impression.
It is a trait of an individual highlighted by his conviction and the
ability to succeed. To succeed you must
have confidence, to have confidence you must have the courage of
conviction. Discover the source of your conviction
to establish the certitude in yourself. Find your positive features to
feel you’re a worthwhile person, then emphasize on it to enhance your feelings
of self-worth even further.
To build confidence, it is important to prepare yourself because it comes naturally when you are
prepared. During my high school days,
doing my assignments gave me enough courage and felt me ready to attend my
class. Now that I am working, looking at
my work-load for the day that I planned to do as enough to carry out and meet
the deadline is a peace of mind that pushed up my supposition. Preparedness, planning and knowing yourself
add self-assurance – they build if you know your role in life and
responsibilities. By doing your
assignments to understand your position, tasks and the meaning of your
existence, whether it is personal, career wise or community accountability,
your knowledge that stored in you will show your confidence to address the
challenges. Confidence also builds if you
are looking at the bright side and expecting the best
possible outcomes. You have to
think positive and believe in yourself for there is nothing more fulfilling
than to accomplish those you never assumed you can achieve. No too heavy burden for a determined man is
impossible – it is just a matter of confidence.
However, you
need to know how to handle your self-trust in order to distinguish it from
being egotistical. There is a thin fine line between being confident and being conceited. It is indeed difficult to find where the line
is especially in ourselves. To realize
if he have already come across as self-assured or self-absorbed is as hard as
to accept our fault and guilt. When many
among us think we are just holding our self-confidence but instead appearing as
boastful to others, we really need to have self-check if we’re still bounded
with the limitations of self-assurance.
For my personal points of view, the way to separate self-assured and self-assumed
is only lips away. We keep in our selves
our strong belief in our capabilities and we do not say it. We do not speak our confidence because self
assuming comes when you are vocal in your abilities and capacities.
You have the
confidence, now you have to sustain it. It is not just
important we have self-confidence but more importantly we need to have the
right understanding that will back up our conviction. Self-assurance without knowledge is like a
flavoured pop-corn but empty inside. We
need to interact, improve our craft, discover other hidden talent, and have
self study to sustain our self-assurance.
Every experience is a lesson and wisdom that will sustain our belief. It will add the spirit on our self esteem – through
this we will be certain to address the coming challenges. As the past years are learning experiences, we
can deal with the present and coming years with full confidence – all we need
to do is just to sustain it.
By Alex V. Villamayor
Dhahran, KSA