BEING CONFIDENT

(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