Everyone admires a person with high self-esteem and loads of in-built confidence. Also let’s be honest, we may even envy those who seem to be at ease with themselves and their work. They invite trust and serve as an inspiration to others struggling with low self-esteem issues. Self-confidence is the key to make any person look attractive and appealing. And, it’s not always easy to be confident in yourself, particularly if you are naturally self-critical or if you are used to people always humiliating you.
If you come across someone manifesting limitless self-confidence, it’s because he or she has worked on it building it for years. Self-confidence is something you need to learn to build up because the world is challenging, and life in general, can deflate it.
In his TED talk, Dr Joseph elaborates all the possible reasons why mastering self-confidence is a skill, and the ways in which one can become more self-confident.
“I use the definition of self-confidence to be the ability or the belief to believe in yourself, to accomplish any task, no matter the odds, no matter the difficulty, no matter the adversity. The belief that you can accomplish it, [is] self-confidence,” says athletic director and head coach of the varsity soccer team for Ryerson University, Dr Ivan Joseph.
“The easiest way to build self-confidence — repetition, repetition, repetition,” he says. “Practise, practise, practise, and do not accept failure. Maybe it shouldn’t be repetition, maybe the answer should be persistence. Because we all repeat something but very few of us really will persist. So that’s one way to build self-confidence. Get out there. Do what you want to do and do not accept ‘no’.” He gives the example of Thomas Edison and confirms the validity of this statement.
“The other one is self-talk… We know that our thoughts influence actions; why do we want to say that negative self-talk to ourselves? We need to get our own self-affirmations,” he says. Dr Joseph goes on to recollect how in his periods of self-doubt, he penned down the ‘future-him’ a letter, listing down all the accomplishments he’s proud of, and to remind himself to be confident at all costs no matter what may come.
“I’m gonna tell you of one way you can build self-confidence in others,” he says. “Catch them when they’re good. We forget it. It’s simple.”
He elucidates how instead of pointing out and correcting negative conduct of one, praise positive traits of others, so that the person’s self confidence doesn’t go for a toss, and they also learn how to do the task right.
Quoting a video shown to the audience previously, he concludes: “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. We’re supposed to be different, folks. And when people look at us, believe in yourself.”