A Personal View on Confidence
--
Confidence is a tricky thing, isn’t it? It can be simple or complicated, depending on the situation. But, the bottom line is that confidence comes from you. It feeds on ‘belief in yourself’, on your ability to accomplish your goals and deal with problems successfully.
It is not just about being right or perfect all the time. The truth is that in life, we all have moments where things don’t go according to plan, and that is okay. In fact, when things don’t go to plan, it is an opportunity to identify what went wrong and how you can do things differently in the future.
Why is confidence important?
Confidence is a skill that everyone needs to achieve their daily goals, and it is something to learn in life. It is necessary not only at work but also in your personal life.
Being confident allows you to be able to deal with conflicts and have opportunities for personal growth. It also helps you build connections with others and nurture those relationships to succeed together as a team at work or at home with your family.
The relationship between leadership and confidence
To be a good team leader, having confidence is essential as your team members rely on you to guide and support them into success. Otherwise, if you have a leader that doesn’t believe in themselves, they will not inspire confidence in others.
It is crucial to be sure of yourself if you are going to lead a team to success. It would be best if you were committed to grow and work together. Knowing how to enhance your strengths and improve on your weaknesses is a good way of building up your belief in yourself.
Preparation is also key to your confidence and leadership. Planning things and doing your research allows you to be well informed and communicate information effectively to others. However, asking for help or discussing things with your team or colleagues make the task easier.
How to become more confident?
One thing you have to be aware of: your mood influences how you feel at any point. You can change your state of mind and how you feel when tackling your daily tasks. It is about knowing what helps you get “unstuck”, as I like to call it.
When you find yourself not in the right frame of mind to do a task or feel lazy or unsure, you rely on things that will help you get out of this mindset, like mind mapping or talking to others. This is key to feeling more confident.
Another element is body language. First impressions are important, so show everyone you are self-assured through eye contact or good posture.
Also, being confident is being optimistic in a difficult situation. Even if things go wrong, you know you can pick yourself up and try again. Having a growth mindset can help you learn to be confident. It will help you get gradually become stronger.
Trying new things is an excellent way to build confidence. That way, you will learn what works or what doesn’t. My advice is to go with the flow, see how you can handle different situations and learn from them.
Finally, work on your limiting beliefs. Do things that are meaningful to you, practice self-talk, be gracious in your life, look at your past successes, use visualisation and live in the present. Don’t worry about the past or future and learn to appreciate what you have right now. It will free your mind and allow confidence to flow more easily.
My personal experience with losing and gaining confidence
When I was in school, I honestly thought I didn’t have a confidence issue. While I wasn’t always 100% confident and had ups and downs, I learned from them and did things better. I also got nervous about doing presentations or doing certain tasks. But it was never an issue in school.
However, my first year at uni was absolutely shocking to me. My confidence did a 180-degree turn. Preparing and practising a presentation with other students, I suddenly found myself feeling unsure.
I was so scared and nervous, even to the point of tears. This had never happened to me. As it turns out, it wasn’t just me. There were other girls in the same situation as me. Though, I would say I was definitely the worst out of all of them.
It was such a weird experience for me and something I would never want to experience again. I was so confused, stressed and all over the place. It was not a pleasant experience. It completely shattered my confidence, and I found it so hard to deal with.
Somehow I managed to work on my confidence and personal growth. Slowly but surely, I started coming out of my shell and made friends. I started doing more teamwork and completed my assignments and presentations.
I now know I had to experience that to make me stronger and become more confident. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have learned how to handle difficult situations. As they say, “things always happen for a reason”. Challenging moments allow you to flourish and show you what you are capable of.
One thing I have noticed in my life, that once you have been gone through a tough situation, you might not experience it again. Why? Because you won’t repeat the same cycle or mistakes. You make sure you have learned from your experiences.
This is my view on confidence. What is yours?
This blog contribution was made by Ayesha Quraishy
Youth Leader for Peterborough District and Deaf Children’s Society (PDDCS), Volunteer Blog Writer for Like Minded Females (LMF) and Podcast Presenter for Cambridgeshire Deaf Association (CDA).
“My ultimate goal is to give the Deaf Community a voice on a higher platform. My biggest achievement is, as a Deaf Woman, being able to overcome adversity that Deaf people face on a daily basis and proving to others it is possible to achieve things that you want.” — (Ayesha)
How can you keep in touch?
Email — Hello@lmfnetwork.com |Linkedin |Instagram | Slack
What is LMFnetwork?
The LMFnetwork is a global social enterprise (not for profit) focused on empowering, enabling & educating womxn and marginalised groups into tech, entrepreneurship & digital. We specialise in designing and delivering accessible programmes and supporting a global community. We’ve gone from a brunch club to a social good brand based on what the community wanted. We are a real community run by real people.
