Self-Confidence

Today I want o talk about self-confidence. What is self-confidence and how does it affect our lives?

One definition I found online states that,” Self-confidence is a feeling of trust in ones abilities, qualities and judgment”. To me that sounds accurate. But how does self-confidence or the lack of it influence our lives? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Being self-confident or not has a tremendous impact on our lives. I mentioned before that life unfolds based on our belief systems. Whatever we believe about ourselves will sooner or later become reality. To be self-confident, to trust in ones abilities, qualities and judgment means I know I am good at this, I know I am a good person and whatever I decide to do this will be a good way to do it. It means I believe in myself.

By saying this I am not talking about being an egomaniac and not to listen to other people at all. It is always good to listen to positive input.

I learned the hard way that nobody will believe in me until I believe in myself. I am still nervous before every shoot but I do not allow doubt to take over. I know that I am excellent at what I am doing. I understand that when I pick up a camera a great image already exists, all I have to do is to release it by releasing the shutter.

I used to be one of the most insecure human beings on the planet. I did not believe in myself at all. I credit most of that insecurity to my mother who once said, “All you are is because of me!” It took me a while to find out that all I wasn’t was because of her. Fact is I was a young, handsome, intelligent man and I did not see any of that. I was full of self-doubt.

The funny thing about self-confidence is that if we cannot see our abilities, our beauty and intelligence it does not help if other people tell us that we have these attributes. It makes no difference; we have to see it ourselves. We have to understand who we really are.

What happens next is that we miss out on life. We might get a great job offer and reject it because we feel we are not good enough. We might run into a beautiful girl or handsome guy that we really like but we are too scared to talk to her/ him because we do not feel that we are good looking. Or we have the opportunity to sleep with somebody we really like but we don’t because we feel we are not good in bed and are afraid to be rejected after we have sex.

I missed out on so much joy in the 37 years I have been around. Looking back it feels so stupid. But at the same time I know I had no choice. I was brainwashed to believe that I was weak an unworthy to be able to control me. And it worked. 

How did I turn it around? It took quite some work and time. Therapy uprooted the believes I had about myself. Then I made experiences that helped me to understand that things are different then what I believed them to be. Kung fu helped me to feel confident to be able to protect myself if somebody would try to hurt me.  But I also worked with visualizations. I wrote hundreds of pages about how I want to feel and re-brainwashed myself.

To me being self-confident is so much more fun. It feels so good to walk up to a girl feeling good enough about myself to say hi without being afraid to be rejected. When I get a call for a job today the first thing I think is “I can do that”. Most of my life I was afraid of people who are physically very aggressive. Kung fu has erased that fear.

A life with self-confidence is a life with much less fear and suffering. We make a decision and go for it. We do not doubt. We listen to what feels good for us and follow that path. It is a life with much more action since we are not afraid to act. Action is karma and karma is action. Self-confidence enables us to grow, to change and to experience life more fully. It is the key to a full life.

 

 

“Self-Confidence” Manhattan/ New York City 04-23-08 at 09:22 PM

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