Though lack of confidence is not as bad as negative attitude, it is still capable of taking so much away from you; especially the big things. This is because all big things almost always need great amount of confidence as well as an undivided faith that you can achieve them, which is not there if you lack confidence.
Lack of confidence is a problem of the subconscious, which says you are not fit to accomplish big tasks. As the intensity of this problem increases; even small goals may become difficult to achieve as you may have very low confidence. Let’s look into the root cause of this problem as the best solution always comes from the root. This is because once we know where the root of a problem lies, it is easier to treat it and remove it.
First of all, let’s see what confidence is. It is a feeling that you have what it takes to accomplish a particular objective. Confidence is a collective result of a number of qualities you may possess. Taking an example, suppose you’re to deliver speech in English which is not your mother language. This piece of speech is related to a topic of science and the size of the audience is about 500 people.
In order to be confident that you’ll get through, you need three major variables working in your favour. First of all, you must be good at the topic you’re going to speak about. Secondly, you should be good in English as otherwise, you may not speak fluently. Thirdly, you must be comfortable speaking before an audience of 500 people. If you have all these things under your belt; you may feel confident about your performance. If one or more than one of them is missing, you may not feel confident.
This is how it works in general where confidence is dependent on a number of variables involved in a particular equation. Some of these variables may be real whereas some may be projected by your fears. In the recent example; being good at the topic you’re going to speak about is the most essential variable and you can’t afford to miss it. Hence if you don’t know much about the topic, you may lack confidence and this feeling is real.
The second and relatively less essential variable is your command over English. Even if you are not very good at English, you can still convey your message; provided you know a lot about the topic you’re going to speak about. Hence this variable is partly essential and partly made up by your mind.
Looking at the third variable which is the comfort to speak before an audience, this is completely made up and no part of it is real. This is because an audience in reality has nothing to do with whether or not you know the topic and/or English. The fear of audience is all made up by your mind. It means you can deliver a wonderful speech even if it is your first time before an audience. Likewise, you may fail to deliver if you fear audience; even if you’ve done it dozens of times.
Hence lack of confidence may have a number of contributing factors; some of which may be real and some may be made up. As far as the real ones are concerned, the best way to fix them is by having them. It means you must learn the topic you’re going to speak about; and there may be no way around it. However in many cases, the imaginary and not the real factors cause the problems. For instance, most people won’t consider delivering speech on subjects they know nothing about. It means they may consider such topics only if they are good at them. Hence the decision of whether or not they are good at one such topic is not difficult to make and it is made on merit.
When it comes to the imaginary part; most people suffering from lack of confidence fail there. The fear of performance is not real and it is imaginary. For instance, you may deliver your first speech before an audience and you may perform wonderfully. It means if you fear that you may not be able to perform before an audience, such fear is not based on real facts and it is imaginary. Hence this part of the problem needs maximum attention.
This is because you’ll perform one thing or another for the first time, throughout your life, as there’s always a first time for everything. If you’re afraid of doing it, you may not engage in it and it may always remain the thing you’ve not tried. Let’s see how this attitude may build the problem of lack of confidence.
Suppose an individual tries something for the first time and he fails. Based on his mindset, he may broadly take two paths. Looking at the first path, he may not bother much about it and he may keep trying until he succeeds. It means he has positive mindset and he understands that failures are a part of the learning curve. Hence he’s not bothered by failures and he keeps doing what he wants; even if he fails. Though this individual may not perform this task well for a number of times, he’s confident that he will, in the end. If you’re this person, lack of confidence is not your problem.
Looking at the second path, he may get afraid that he won’t be able to perform this task well. Hence he may get afraid of attempting it again. It means he has a weak positive aura or a negative aura. Hence he may choose not to try such task again; unless it is something he can’t avoid. He tries a number of other tasks as we all do; and he fails at some of them. This gives rise to another type of fear. The first one is that he may not perform well at a particular task and the second one is that he may not perform well at things he’s doing for the first time.
As that happens, he may try to avoid doing things for the first time as he’s afraid that he may fail. Through all such conscious acts, he may write script on the subconscious that he’s afraid of trying new things and he’s not comfortable with tasks which he’s not skilled at. This gives rise to a big problem since the only way to be good at doing something is through practice. Unless you’ve done something repeatedly, you may not be good or very good at it. Though some people may need less practice and some may need more; everyone needs practice.
Once you’ve reached this stage, your problem may become serious. This is because you don’t want to attempt things that you’re not comfortable with and the only way to get comfortable with them is by doing them over and over again. It means you’re stuck. Your subconscious warns you not to try new things due to fear of failure and you can’t succeed until you try again and again.
Such fear of failure is the root cause of lack of confidence. It may not let you try new things and you may end up lacking confidence more and more. This is because more you feed this feeling of ‘I can’t do it’, stronger it gets. Stronger it gets, more you may feel that you can’t do it. It means the cause starts feeding the effect and the effect starts feeding the cause. Hence you’re stuck in a vicious cycle where fear of failure aggravates lack of confidence and lack of confidence aggravates fear of failure.
In its deepest sense, confidence is not knowing that you’ll succeed if you keep trying. It is a feeling that all you need to do is try and give your best. Whatever the results may be, you’re not bothered. Hence a truly confident person may play football for fun, he may not play well even after years and he may still enjoy it. Even after years of being a bad player or not so good player, you ask him to play football and he’s in before you know.
It means though he may not perform well, he’s confident about playing. Hence in the deepest sense, he knows that his job is to try and not to succeed or fail. With this approach, nothing can take away your confidence because you’re focused on the act and not on the results. When the worst results can’t shake you, what else can? The beauty of such attitude is that in most cases, you’ll succeed. This is because it is fear of failure that puts a lot of pressure on you and affects your performance. If you’re not afraid of failure, the pressure is lifted and you may perform a lot better, succeeding in most cases.
Hence in order to completely fix the problem of lack of confidence, you don’t need to make sure that you’ll win if you keep trying. If you think about victory, you’re still focused on results, which means the pressure of performance is still there. Hence if you don’t succeed at a task even after doing it dozens of times; you may start fearing that you may not succeed at it all, no matter how hard you may try.
It means this is not the best approach though it may be the second best. There are three options here. The first one is that you don’t try because of fear of failure; and it is the worst option. The second one is that you convince yourself that you’ll succeed if you keep trying despite failures. It is a much better approach but it is not the best approach. This is because you’re still fixed on the results of your karmas, which takes the focus away from the karmas. It means you’re focused on the destination and you’re not able to focus on the path. Since the path alone may take you to destination, such distraction may prove costly.
Therefore with this approach, you may try again if you fail. However, if you fail repeatedly at a task, you may quit it, since you don’t want to fail in the end. This approach is certainly much better than the first one where you choose not to try at all. However with this approach, you may not achieve the best possible results since you may still not address the root cause of your problem which is fear of failure.
In the deepest sense, fear of failure can’t be fixed by winning again and again; though it can be treated and kept under control through this practice. This is because you have to lose every now and then, since no one can win at everything. As and when you fail, the fear may come back and you may have to suppress it by winning again, in some other field. Hence the second option may keep it under control but it may not fix the problem.
The third option is the best fix for fear of failure. The moment you learn to welcome failure as well as you welcome success; your problem is fixed. At this stage, you may perform poorly at something but you may still be confident when you attempt it. Hence you may be confident despite failures. It means your confidence is not dependent on success and failure any longer. You’ve learnt this valuable lesson that all you need to do is try and give your best. Whatever the outcomes may be, let them be.
Once you reach this stage, nothing can shake you or your confidence. The beauty of this stage is that you may succeed at most things you attempt since you’re focused on the acts and not on the results. Such focus improves your efforts, since you’re not distracted or divided. As a result, you perform better; and better performance means better chances of success. It means that in the deepest sense, the one who doesn’t bother whether he wins or loses and he only believes in playing; wins the most.
Let’s see how the problem of lack of confidence may be fixed. Since the subconscious has registered a script of running away from difficult situations, it may discourage you when you try to engage in such situations. The visible effect of such discouragement is lack of confidence. Hence you need to replace this script with ‘I can do it’ or ‘I don’t care if I fail’. If you choose ‘I can do it’, you’re going for the second option. If you choose, ‘I don’t care if I fail’, you’re going for the third and the best option.
Though everyone may wish to take the best option, it may not prove good for most people who are currently going with the first option; that of ‘I can’t do it’. This is because switching from the first to the third option directly may prove very difficult for most people. Hence it is better to upgrade yourself to ‘I can win’ first and then upgrade to ‘I don’t care if I fail’. This is because you’re fed up of failures and you may want some wins to gain momentum. Hence going for the second option may prove better.
Let’s look at some activities which can help you in treating this problem. Start with small tasks which are not difficult and at the same time, they are the ones that you have not tried at all. For example, choose an easy-to-play game on a computer or a video game and start playing it. It should be noted that in order to make the most of this activity, you should start engaging in such acts on your own in the first step. Avoid involvement of other people. When you play against a person, your fear of losing and feeling embarrassed may be much stronger compared to when you’re playing against computer, since no one is there to judge you.
You should start with the game that you find the easiest; even if have to play a number of games in order to find out which one is the easiest one for you. Various people are comfortable with different types of activities. Accordingly, they have better chances of performing at their best in different activities. Hence you should choose a game that you really like and find easy.
As you start completing more and more levels of such game with conscious efforts, your conscious mind starts sending more and more messages to your subconscious mind. As your subconscious mind receives more and more messages of success, it may send fewer fears. Hence you may gain some confidence. With time and efforts, you may feel comfortable with this level and the feeling of ‘I can do it’ may be there whenever you try to play. It means you’re ready for the next level.
If you don’t like playing video games or computer games, you can choose other activities like walking, jogging, running, swimming, going to gym, cycling, rope skipping, aerobics, yoga or any other such activities. Here again, choose the one that you feel the most comfortable with and then start doing it with increased levels of resistance, introduced after regular intervals of time. For example, if you find that you are the most comfortable with running, start with one mile or less without stopping. Then move up from there on regular basis like adding half a mile or so, every week or every couple of weeks.
Apart from physical activities, some other types of activities can also help you achieve the same goal. For example, you may learn a new language, learn and remember complete lyrics of more and more songs, learn and remember poems, learn and practice cooking dishes, learn and remember more and more about places of significance, learn and remember about great people in history of mankind, learn and remember valuable quotes and sayings as well as their meanings, learn and practice new skills like sewing, painting, writing, singing, playing guitar, playing piano and a wide variety of other such activities.
If you choose to learn something that needs to be remembered or practiced like lyrics of songs and cooking new dishes, you should not simply learn and disengage as that won’t complete the task. Hence you should repeat such practices so that you are consciously doing them again and again. Through such repeated conscious efforts, you will send more and more signals to your subconscious mind where these signals may say, “I can do it and I can do it again and again”.
The reason that video games or computer games are better is that they require maximum conscious effort from your mind. Since this problem is of the mind, engaging in practices which require more effort from your mind than your body may do this job in far less time. In addition to that, games come with a number of benefits. Playing games requires conscious mental effort and they may increase your concentration, as concentration is the first thing you need to play most games. Next advantage is that games are relatively easy though effective, when compared to physical activities like running or cycling which require a lot of physical activity. Accordingly, you may not like them much; especially in the beginning.
Apart from that, playing games is one activity that you can do for hours and hours whereas you can engage in many other activities like running or cycling, or learning to cook new dishes, only for relatively short periods of time every day. Above all these things, playing such games may sharpen your mental abilities day by day as such games require most of the effort from your end, in form of mental effort. As a basic rule, more you practice with any part of your body or mind, stronger it gets.
Have you wondered why young or very young kids of new generations are much better than we were at their ages when it comes to mental abilities? The reason is that through the introduction of various gadgets and through the revolution of the internet, the kids of new generations are getting smarter and smarter in terms of mental abilities. This is because they are practicing and exercising their mental abilities far more than we did at their ages. As they use their mental abilities more and more, they are smarter.
Another trick that can increase the pace of your recovery is to play games that feature small rounds compared to the games which are long and continuous. The primary objective of playing these games is to send more and more messages of, “I can do it”, to your subconscious mind. That will happen only once you complete a round or mission. When you play games that feature small rounds or levels, you may be able to send more signals to your subconscious mind. You may complete a round every 2 to 5 minutes. This message of completion is what will do the trick, when it is forwarded to your subconscious mind.
Hence avoid playing such games in the beginning, where it may take you 20 or 30 minutes to complete a round. Memorize this fact that each time you want to change the script written on your subconscious mind, you need more and more messages. Accordingly, you should target activities which keep giving you messages of success every now and then. This way, you may be able to send a bigger number of messages in relatively less amount of time. Subconscious is a creature of habit and it loves nothing more than repetition. Hence the quantum of each individual success may not matter as much to your subconscious as the number of such occurrences may.
Apart from that, each time you win in any sphere of life, regardless of whether such win is big or small, you gain more confidence and strength to win the next time. For this reason also, you should increase the number of messages which say ‘mission accomplished’.
To speed up the process, engage in more than one such activity every day. This may ensure that you are not addicted to only one type of activity. Engaging in more and more activities means having more wins. Doing so may give your confidence a greater boost and you may become better at many things. As more and more messages are sent to your subconscious, it may pose less resistance and you may feel comfortable with the first level. Once that happens, you should move to the second level.
In the next level, start doing the opposite of the first level where you chose activities which were new for you. Instead, choose activities from various spheres of life, where you have comfort and start engaging in such activities more and more. Since you have achieved a reasonable level of confidence, you are ready to deal with real things: things that can bring you success and appreciation.
When you start engaging in one such activity, choose the one that you find yourself most comfortable with. This way, you may achieve more in relatively short period of time as well as with relatively less effort.
You may choose to improve your professional skills at this level. Try those spheres where you feel the maximum comfort so that you may gain more and more confidence through repeated occurrences of success. Keep in mind that you should not engage in such spheres at this stage, where you don’t feel comfortable. For example, it may be a bad idea to open a food joint if you don’t know much about cooking and/or managing. Your confidence is building at this stage and you don’t want to push it back by facing failures.
If you have the luxury to change your field of profession, change it if you don’t have much comfort in your existing profession. Even if you earn somewhat less in the new field, it’s worth taking the chance if you have very good comfort level in such field. Since you like your new job, you may feel comfortable and comfort means more success. More success means more appreciation. Hence you may gain more confidence through more success and appreciation. Remember, it doesn’t matter what you do and how you do it is what matters.
During the first and second level, you should stay away from people with lack of confidence and those with negative attitudes. The energy transferred by these people can make it difficult for you to get rid of your problem of low confidence. Taking an example, one such person may bring your confidence down by saying, “I once tried a couple of courses of personality development to gain confidence but despite months of hard work, none of them worked”. Imagine how much damage such a line can do to your confidence at this stage.
Hence avoid the company of such people and instead, keep company with people who are confident and who have positive mindsets. They may transfer a lot of positive energy to you and they may also encourage you to achieve more through your efforts. Some of them may even quote some incidences which may help you a lot in moving forward. For instance, one such person may say, “I also went low on confidence at one point in life. However, I fought back and got everything in order’. Imagine how much motivation such incident may provide. Hence keep company with positive and confident people. You may see them achieve new heights every day; and that may motivate you to do the same. Such people are living examples of ‘I can do it’.
Apart from that, reading or watching life stories of people who achieved great things by virtue of sheer courage and confidence may also help you gain more confidence. You may find that many of these people suffered from failures and setbacks again and again. However, they kept moving and they reached. This may motivate you to keep moving ahead, despite failures and setbacks.
It should be noted that such stories may be used to provide extra boost and you can’t improve merely by reading or watching them and not engaging in any efforts. Memorize this fact that your subconscious is smart enough to differentiate between thoughts generated as results of actions and plain thoughts. Hence it may pay due attention to a thought or feeling which is generated after accomplishing a task. However, it may ignore a feeling or thought if it is generated without action or if it is not followed by action; and you’re trying to fool yourself with words alone. Hence engaging in conscious acts is the most important part.
Another point to keep in mind is that you should move slowly. Remember, speed is your enemy whereas patience and perseverance are your best friends on this journey. Hence don’t get carried away by motivational speeches or biographies and try to attempt a task which may be much bigger than your potential at a point in time. If you do so, you may fail miserably. Such failure may not only shake your confidence, it may also make you lose faith in motivational speeches and biographies. Therefore, move step by step.
Personality development is like raising a building. Consolidate your foundations first, through specifically targeted activities. Keep doing them over and over again until you have made your foundations strong enough to hold the building. Then start building the structure, all the way from bottom to top, slowly and steadily. This is the best mantra for success and you should stick to it if you wish to raise a flag of excellence on top of a building of success, the building of your success.
Once you’ve mastered the second level, you may proceed to the next one. In this level, try attempting tasks which you have not tried, which you don’t feel comfortable with and/or which may be new and difficult. Even if you witness initial setbacks, you should be fine since you’ve achieved a lot by this time. As you succeed in some of them after initial failures; your confidence may gain more strength. This is the time you may realize that despite initial failures, you may succeed if you keep trying. You may build up more and more from here.
Though you can try to achieve the third option of ‘I don’t care if I fail’ once you’ve perfected the second option of ‘I can do it’; it is an advanced option. Hence we’ll not discuss details of this option here, since it is more helpful for people who wish to work more for spiritual growth than materialistic growth.
For material growth; second option works best for most people. However, a mixture of second and third option may prove even better. It means you attempt to achieve every goal you fix and if you fail; you accept and move on.
Himanshu Shangari