Believe and Succeed: Boosting Self Confidence

“Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye”

- Helen Keller

I wish I understood the importance of this quote much earlier in my life. A good part of my life was spent avoiding looking someone in the eye. Growing up, I always had difficulty talking to people, presenting my ideas and even being part of a group. I wasn’t even confident enough to be honest with myself. I missed out on a lot of good opportunities because of this and I lost a good part of my teenage years. The problem with lack of self-confidence is that others, or even your own family, don’t treat it as a real problem. They treat it like it’s nothing and they worsen the problem with phrases like “man up” or “act your age”.

But I always wanted to get over this. I wanted to go out there and just mingle with the rest of the world. Feel what they felt. But every time I tried to push myself to do something, I felt like I ran right into a wall – a wall between me and the rest of the world. So, I decided to try something different. Instead of jumping into self-pity, I decided to look within to understand what the problem was.

I understood one thing and that is that the main reason behind why I was so scared to face the world was that I couldn’t help but compare myself to the other person. I had always wanted to be like “them” and I wanted this so bad that I completely forgot how to be myself. I started working towards this. I started by addressing self-doubts. I would look at myself in the mirror and talk to her. I know it sounds totally nuts but it has helped me a lot. Every time I was scared to come out to the world, I would remind myself that I was one of a kind and I could be whatever I wanted to be and slowly the fear started to fade away.

The next step I took was to maintain this healthy self-image – I started taking proper care of my body, doing yoga and meditating on a regular basis. Every now and then, you might get the feeling that maybe you are being selfish taking out so much time for yourself or disagreeing with people on stuff, but you need to understand that loving yourself isn’t selfish and that it is important for us to start saying no to things that you don’t want or people that you disagree with. You need to understand that you are worth all the happiness in the world and no one should stop you from getting anything less than what you deserve.

As Maxwell Maltz said, living life with low self-esteem is like driving through it with your handbrakes on. Don’t hold yourself back from living your life because of what others think. Don’t hold yourself back because you are afraid you will fail. Live life exploring all the possibilities before you. Self-doubt is normal but it should come along with more self-compassion and positive self-talk. Stop comparing yourself to others because at the end of the day, it only matters what you do or think. Keep confidence in yourself, you are special, you are unique;

You are You