According to the oxford dictionary, self confidence is having confidence in yourself and your abilities. Having the confidence takes a process which can be through self- tutored or by the help of your family, friends, and the society at which you find yourself or the circumstances that you’re being faced with. We all need to develop self confidence at all time because this is what will determine how far we go in life and even the relationship we build as we progress. If you can trust in yourself and your abilities there is nothing that will be impossible under the surface of the earth.
Do you know that no matter how successful or talented we are, an unexpected setback can directly impact our self-confidence? When things have been going well and then suddenly take a turn for the worse, rebounding can take some concerted effort.
Confidence is absolutely necessary for success and yet sometimes, the slightest insecurity can make it disappear almost immediately.
“Believe in yourself, and the rest will fall into place. Have faith in your own abilities, work hard and there is nothing you cannot accomplish.” – Brad Henry
We have to believe in ourselves and in our abilities because our inner faith will create our external results. People easily lose faith in themselves when encountering setbacks, failure and fear.
When you lack confidence in yourself, others will pick up on that and won’t take you seriously. Not many people live the life that they have always wished to live; they give up on their life goals as soon as they encounter the first setback. One of the main causes for this is that they do not believe in themselves.
For us to develop this life absorber called self confidence, let us review this steps that will be of importance to us.
1. Take responsibility for your failure:
When a woman finds out that she is pregnant, she first of all tells her husband and they both accept the pregnancy of the unborn baby in the womb. At this point in time, the man has a responsibility to play and the woman does have same. But what if she decides not to disclose this good news to the husband, and then terminates the pregnancy? We’ll say that she’s an irresponsible woman.
So it is with failure. When you are down with failure the easiest way out of it is to take full responsibility of it and stand to the test.
Have you ever thought what could be responsible for Katy Perry success?
Though we are familiar with her, but most of us might not know the struggles that she went through to finally get that breakthrough she was after. Perry started her career early in her life, dropping out of high school after freshman year in 1999 to pursue singing. Originally, she was a gospel singer, taking cues from her parents who were Born Again Christians.
In 2001 Katy Perry released her first gospel album with Red Hill Records, which was commercially unsuccessful. After selling only 200 copies of her album, the record company ceased operations and subsequently went out of business. Afterward, Perry switched gears to popular music, moving to Los Angeles to record with producer Glen Ballard.
In 2003 she was signed to Island Def Jam, which was also a contract that was terminated. In 2004 she signed with Columbia Records who sought to make her the lead vocalist in a band called The Matrix. However, that deal also fell through when Columbia Records shelved the project at about 80% completion.
After being dropped from three labels, you would think that Perry would have given up. She didn’t. She continued to pursue her career, working odd jobs and doing back-up vocals until she was signed to the newly-formed Capitol Music Group in 2006. It was there that she worked on her first huge hit single, I Kissed a Girl, which started her career as a commercial success.
So, can we agree that must people who do not want to accept his reality are probably those with the pride syndrome. Every man can admit to having committed adultery but not to pride. Pride is a killer disease which gradually destroys a man if not handled on time. The denial of present reality will only cost you more lost, pain and regret. Pride closes your outer and inner eyes, shut the doors of opportunity and the platform to learn. So kill pride before it kills you.
2. Understand why you fail and then adjust:
Since you’ve taken the responsibility for your failure, the next thing to do is to understand why you failed. I once had an experience with one of my mathematics lecturer back then in school. Though I attend his classes, listen and then do other required things, my performances refuse to improve. Upon deep consideration, I discovered that my mind didn’t accept him because while in secondary school, (high school) he was my math’s teacher and I never liked him because I considered him to be too slow to be a mathematics teacher. So with that mindset to the university (college), meeting him again, means that I won’t be able to excel in his course.
An adjustment had to be made mentally, which is accepting him as my mathematics teacher and as times goes by, I noticed an improvement.
This is a compulsory shift that we all must have to deal with, if we must boost our self-confidence.
Same goes with the lady that I am about to discuss right now.
Most of you probably know Arianna Huffington as the President and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, but she’s had her share of ups and downs along the way. She was the first foreign female president of Cambridge Union debating society, published her first bestseller The Female Woman at 23, she has been a prominent figure in US politics. Whether you are her fan or not, she’s a very successful woman with plenty of experiences and failures. Over at Success, Mary Vinnedge says Huffington will always remember two of her biggest failures:
…high on her list of failures are the 36 rejections of her second book, despite the success of her first. Then there’s her abysmal showing as an independent in California’s 2003 gubernatorial race: Although Huffington withdrew a week before the election, her name stayed on the ballot and she finished fifth with 0.55 percent of the vote.
Huffington’s approach to her own failures is positive. She recognizes the importance of failure and has her mother to thank for it:
“My mother instilled in me that failure was not something to be afraid of, that it was not the opposite of success. It was a stepping stone to success. So I had no fear of failure. Perseverance is everything. I don’t give up. Everybody has failures, but successful people keep on going…”
It’s not always as simple as just continuing onward, but when you keep moving forward—despite the failures and obstacles along the way—you’re already ahead of all of those people that just gave up. Sometimes the secret really is just showing up over and over again.
Understanding your failure gives you an edge and then equips you with the knowledge which you can use to your advancement.
3. Say no to sympathy:
Every crying eye wants a path at the back which is not a bad idea but wanting to have a path by everyone isn’t healthy. Life is progressive and we must respect that fact if we really want to be successful at what you do.
We all go through pain and success but how we handle it makes the difference. If you carefully read through this story, you will understand that failure has no name.
J.K Rowling is one of the most inspirational success stories of our time. Many people simply know her as the woman who created Harry Potter. But, what most people don’t know is what she went through prior to reaching stardom. Rowling’s life was not peaches and cream. She struggled tremendously.
In 1990, Rowling first had the idea for Harry Potter. She stated that the idea came “fully formed” into her mind one day while she was on a train from Manchester to London. She began writing furiously. However, later that year, her mother died after 10 years of complications from Multiple Sclerosis.
In 1992 she moved to Portugal to teach English where she met a man, married, and had a daughter. In 1993, her marriage ended in divorce and she moved to Edinburgh, Scotland to be closer to her sister. At that time, she had three chapters of Harry Potter in her suitcase.
Rowling saw herself as a failure at this time. She was jobless, divorced, penniless, and with a dependent child. She suffered through bouts of depression, eventually signing up for government-assisted welfare. It was a difficult time in her life, but she pushed through the failures.
In 1995 all 12 major publishers rejected the Harry Potter script. But, it was a year later when a small publishing house, Bloomsbury, accepted it and extended a very small £1500 advance. In 1997, the book was published with only 1000 copies, 500 of which were distributed to libraries.
In 1997 and 1998, the book won awards from Nestle Smarties Book Prize and the British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year. After that, it was one wild ride for Rowling. Today, Rowling has sold more than 400 million copies of her books, and is considered to be the most successful woman author in the United Kingdom.
4. Re- strategist:
A troop of battalion who are on the war front facing defeat can only survive through the battle if they have to go back and re-strategist for success.
It is always wise to check whatever you are doing and look out ways in which you can achieve more success.
Sir James Dyson knew what he wants that was why he has to re-strategist to make a name that we can relate to today.
The Dyson Vacuum Cleaner is known around the world as the vacuum that doesn’t lose suction. But the idea for it was born long ago. Dyson first had the idea in his early 30’s when he became frustrated with his Hoover vacuum and its loss of suction. At the time, the disposable bag replacement market for vacuums was valued somewhere around the £100 million per year.
His big idea was to use the concept of cyclonic separation to create the world’s first bag less vacuum cleaner. It took Dyson 5,126 failures to finally get it right. When he did, at the age of 36, he was faced with more resistance when no distributor in the UK would take on the revolutionary product. No one wanted to buck the trend.
So, Dyson hit the Japanese market in 1983, with a hot pink version of his vacuum cleaner. It won an industrial award in Japan, and in 1986, three years after its first introduction, he was awarded his first US Patent for it. However, manufacturers still didn’t want to take it on in other companies, so Dyson formed his own company, in 1993 at the age of 46, to market the product.
Today, Dyson is worth more than £3 billion all because of his refusal to give up. He struggled through times of failure, sorrow, and regret, but he persevered.
5. Move on:
The ant knows that for them to survive the raining day, they need to keep moving on. Nobody will be comfortable to sit in a car that is not on motion. Everybody loves to keep moving because it is only the dead that are known to be static in a particular place for ever.
He’s not a stranger because many people know Henry Ford for the Ford Motor Company, one of the most successful automotive companies of all time. However, what they don’t know is that Ford failed two times before that abruptly resulted in bankruptcies, prior to successfully launching the present incarnation of his company.
Ford is no stranger to failure, but he also didn’t give up. Yet, when we think about Ford, we don’t picture the failures because all it took was just succeeding one time. However, in 1899, at the age of 36 years old, Ford formed his first company, the Detroit Automobile Company with backing from the famed lumber baron, William H. Murphy. That company went bankrupt.
His second attempt was in 1901, when he formed the Henry Ford Company, which he ended up leaving with the rights to his name. That company was later renamed to the Cadillac Automobile Company. However, it was Ford’s third try, with the Ford Motor Company, that hit the proverbial nail on the head.
After that, we all know the story. Ford revolutionized the automobile industry, pioneering not only the Model T and the assembly line, but also the concept and notion of an automobile in every home. Driving became a “thing,” and subsequently, Ford’s Model T went on to sell over 17 million units.