When Napoleon said that the word impossible was found only in the dictionary of fools, he was not mouthing a mere platitude, he was giving expression to what goes by the name of splendid self-confidence. People who find life unbearable and boring, often fail and blunder. They find it difficult to take any lead. They should examine their own mental picture of themselves that they have nursed for years, and compare it with what they actually are in life. They will find that the two really correspond with each other. In other words, what you are inside, you show outside. For example, you may be good, capable, impressive and successful. This is not a chance. It means you have carved your mind accordingly. If you are bad, incapable, unimpressive and unsuccessful, you have moulded your mind in that frame.
The secret of successful living lies in your own vision of yourself, not what others think of you. Or you of them.
If you want to be outgoing, confident, capable of bracing career and life, look to your thought life. Change your thinking and stick to it. Negativity is the nightmare of many young people. You may have big aspiration for success but your efforts and thinking are hedged with 'ifs' and 'buts'. You cannot organise yourself nor give proper perspective to a long-range panoramic view. Your confidence is thus crippled. He naturally has a stalemate in his mind. "I am good but there is something fake in me. I think I should end it all." And he does give up. Lack of confidence gets the better of him.
This negativity often shows in depressive moods. A person is locked in himself. He is empty. He feels foul and chained. He is a goner! You feel beaten before you start something new. you either don't try at all or begin half-heartedly, expecting failure. This attitude invites the failure that is feared. Try to put aside the fear and take a chance. Break the chain of discouraging defeats which seem to prove your inadequacy. Give yourself an opportunity to prove you can achieve reasonable success. You often say or do the wrong thing.
Your awkwardness comes from a foregone conclusion that you will be awkward. instead of brooding over the bad impression you expect to make, plan to be cool and tactful. When you study a new subject or try to master a new skill, you keep your mind on how hard it is, how long it will take, and how little you will remember. If you give half your energy to your work and half to worry about your work, you will be fifty per cent efficient. Keep your mind on the work itself. This is a question of directing attention properly.
Even if you do a job well, you worry because it isn't perfect. If you get eight-five out of a hundred on an examination, you think of the fifteen you didn't get! This is negative. People with great self-doubt are simple perfectionists. They want too much. Acknowledge the fact that a perfect score every time would make you a museum piece instead of a human being. Otherwise, it is true that nothing you ever do will please you. You worry about being too tall, too short, too thin, too heavy, or the shape of some feature.
People who feel inferior magnify their own faults. Let the problem-solving attitude help. Try to obscure, or compensate for actual physical shortcomings. Remember that the other fellow is usually just as concerned about the impression he makes on you!
You haven't been to college, or university. you feel bad and take a back seat when others talk. It is not the lack of a diploma—it is the inferiority feeling! Here's another misdirection of attention. Instead of thinking, 'I have no degree', think of the subject under discussion, or the job to be done. If you know, speak up. If you don't know, read up!
You think you don't do as well as your friend. Comparison with those who seem more successful leaves you no sense of achievement. Do well for yourself! You are a success when you improve on your own record! When something goes badly, you think it is your own fault. If it rained and spoiled a picnic, you would feel responsible and apologetic. This is negativism at its best. It is confidence-shattering.
Lame excuses must be avoided. But there is such a thing as poor business conditions over which you have little or no control. Self-doubt causes you to absorb troubles and add to your sense of failure. Give them their due! But not over-due! Do not boast or act high, run everything down, even though you do not really enjoy it. You are acting a wind-bag. This is compensation game. A person who feels inferior, puffs himself up or pushes other people down. This does not bolster his ego, and it only serves to irritate those he meets. Put up a mental stop-sign when you estimate people and what they do.
Realise that the origin of vanity is in the insecurity feeling itself. You talk too quickly, answer questions too fast, and greet people with nervous haste. You are undignified. People who doubt themselves act as if they thought no one would wait for them to speak, and as if it was always they who must snap to attention and say it first.
Again, use that stop-deliberate! sign when with other people. It's a strain at first, but a relief to see that you can slow down and achieve a feeling of stability. You spend a lot of time telling people where they get off—in your imagination. In real life, you rarely express resentment and let people impose on you too much.
The cure is to find suitable expression in real life. Plan to express yourself firmly and calmly when you find it necessary. It will do you good to find that people soon accept your new image of yourself as a person who stands up for his rights. You cannot be over-ridden. When you have a big task, you think of the whole thing at once. You never feel you have done enough on any one day because there is always so much more to do.
You need a schedule for tackling a big job. Assign a day for each part of the job. Concentrate on one part at a time, on one day at a time. This lets you know when you say, "I've done my day's work!" You envy those with special skills and special funds of knowledge. You think you are not good enough at any one particular thing.
If you are not, then you have never tried to be. Consider your high points. Language? Photography?Music? Some aspect of business? Begin to build one or two of those high points by study and practice.
You put things off till the last minute, then find yourself terribly rushed, do a bad job, and prove again—as you see it—that you are not very good. Postponement always makes a job look harder. Plan when to do it. At that exact time jump to it, and do it. No procrastination.
When people criticise you, it makes you feel simply terrible for a long time. People who doubt themselves tend to dangle by the opinions of others. They lack stability.
Sometimes a critic is trying to make you feel low and make himself feel more secure. In that case, feel sorry for him. You have accepted yourself as an inferior person, who will play an inferior role in life. There's a world of difference between being inferior and feeling inferior. Yet, a person who feels inferior for years often comes to think he is inferior. Remember, that with proper effort, you can change the role you play in life.
Take a few moments every evening to note exactly how inferiority attitudes have caused trouble. Plan to handle similar situations more effectively. Don't expect to "snap out of it" overnight. Gradual improvement should cause you to congratulate yourself. It is satisfaction from reasonable progress that builds confidence.
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