Confidence…

Some of us have an abundance of it, some of us have none, and some of us have it come and go.

But what makes a person have or not have confidence?

I’ve had that question floating around in my mind recently, quite a lot.

I want to break it down a little today, and if you have anything to add, please do.

Confidence, for me, comes and goes. If I am going for a job interview, or starting something new, I can pull confidence from somewhere deep inside me. But then it can hide just as deep when I need it the most.

I’ve asked myself why that is, many a time, trust me.

I think I have been able to understand a little about it though. With maturity comes understanding and knowledge, as they say.

I found myself thinking about what stage in your life you build confidence. And I guess it starts from an early age.

I come from a big family, and when you are competing for attention from five other siblings it can get tough. Imagine six different personalities competing against each other.

I was very sensitive, emotional, and shy. I now understand those personality traits as an adult, but in the 80’s and 90’s it wasn’t understood. It was barely spoken about.

If you mix those with other personalities, it gets lost. Any chance to be confident was slowly pushed down the pile when someone else spoke up first.

But it isn’t just within a family that confidence grows, outside influences play a huge part in a person’s growth.

As a child who was bullied because of how sensitive I was, everything about me was up for grabs when it came to bullies. My freckles, the clothes I wore, the glasses I needed, my learning difficulties, my sensitivity, my personality, everything.

When those parts of you are attacked, it affects a child’s ability to develop confidence. But as children become older and head into their teenage and early adult years, it gives them a chance to break that pattern and some people are successful at breaking it, but I wasn’t unfortunately.

I’m not a loud person, I’m not outspoken, I found it hard to speak up for myself. Anytime I was put in a position where I had to stand up for myself, I never could. My voice hid from me, and the scared little girl who was surrounded by bullies curled into herself.

Confrontation of any kind crippled me.

Over the years, I’ve learned that to be confident, you need to be assertive. You need guts!

For me, I had to learn all these traits as an adult, shaking years of bad habits. Not an easy thing to do. So where do you start? Well, you fake it till you make it. Pretend I’m confident, pretend I’m assertive.

But pretending doesn’t always work.

Recently I’ve learned different ways to be assertive. I was always fearful of it because the types of personalities that were assertive in my life were, to me, kind of aggressive.

I didn’t want and still don’t want, to be assertive in an aggressive way. I want to learn how to say my peace without fear, say it with confidence, and not offend anyone who feels differently than me. I want it to benefit not only myself but others around me. A win-win for everyone.

Some might ask, why do you care what others think? Say your bit and stuff anyone else. Well, that isn’t who I am. I’ve learned that being assertive doesn’t have to come with a mean streak or to be aggressive.

I took a course recently that went through different types of assertiveness, and I learned so much that I want to share it with you over a few posts, so I hope you will hang in there with me as I write more about it over time.

For now, I still dig deep when I want to speak up about something that either bothers me or I feel holds enough importance to me.

Some days are hard though, it isn’t easy to reach out and grab a hold of or take control of that situation the way I want to.

Currently, I am struggling with it. I just can’t find my voice. I don’t want to hurt anyone, and as I stated before, I hate confrontation.

That’s what I feel would happen if I spoke up. So, my natural and first instinct is to hide from it and make excuses as to why I shouldn’t speak up. Then, I tell myself that I can live with the situation, and just wash it off at the end of the day. Grin and bear it.

I say that to one of my kids, you just have to find a way to grin and bear it.

Life will put you in situations where you need to make a choice.

You can stand up and speak out, be assertive, and be confident.

But you can still be confident even if you choose to grin and bear it. I just choose a little differently than others when and how I speak up. I’m learning that there isn’t anything wrong with that either. As long as I am confident in my decision.

If you need to reach out, feel free to contact me, I’m always here to help out where I can.

Until next time, I’d love to hear your thoughts, and as always….

Be kind to yourself.