The power of self-confidence

Self-confidence goes a long way when it comes to becoming successful and having a sense of balance in life. When it comes to appearances, first impressions count for a lot, along with having a certain aura of oneself. You will reap the benefits of having a singular focus and a nonchalant attitude, if you are more confident about your abilities.

Why be self-confident?

Confidence, judgment, and self-assessment, are considered to be a central pillar of metacognition. There are a lot of unintended benefits that come from being self-confident, which may appear more in the long-term. The counterintuitive idea of “low self-confidence”, doesn’t lead to success and isn’t backed by science. Quite often, you need to speak up and have a calm-energy to successfully get the project done. Also in times of the worst crises, CEOs and managers are calm and confident about their response and lead effectively through the challenges.

The ability to walk-away

There are multiple examples of startups that walk away from a buyout and building multi-billion-dollar brands. Is that because they were not knowledgeable? No, it was because they were confident that they were building something bigger. There are multiple employees that start their own ventures, and others who talk to the management directly about their ambitions. These confident ones have the ability to walk away, if the negotiation doesn’t go their way. If you don’t speak up however, or appear too desperate for what you need, you may not get what you want. That needy mentality gives away a lot of power, and you appear less valuable in general. The idea that you appear to be more valuable than you are is a sign of self-confidence, making you a more valuable asset in the organization and in life in general.

In Nature

Most animals present themselves as bigger than they are, along with showing classic signs of dominance and calmness, when in the face of danger. Lions have manes, gorillas puff-up their chest, and dogs sharpen their ears. Appearing more confident seems to be more natural than we previously thought. A classic study by professors Adam Kepecs and Zachary F. Mainen, showed that when there is uncertainty in the task ahead of humans and animals, “choice” is something that is triggered by how confident we are. In other words, we choose what we think we want, because of how confident we are in our abilities. This also concludes that the more we “choose to do”, the more successful we are in life.

Confidence in relationships

The idea of being ‘needy’or clingy fades away when you are self-confident. You have better relationships with friends and families, as you don’t expect anything from them that they can’t give you. Therefore, you stop changing things around you and instead focus on what you want from life. Girlfriends/Boyfriends can enjoy your company without any reason to suspect that you are hiding your feelings or emotions. You can navigate through life easily if you are confident, and the better relationships you develop over time, the more impact you can make on your own and other people’s lives.

Inherited & Nurtured

Behavioral geneticists Corina Greven, and Robert Plomin of the Institute of Psychiatry, argued that self-confidence may have genetic components, and that you may be born confident. They studied more than 3700 sets of twins, from age seven to age ten. What they found was that some twin-pairs had higher confidence, in contrast with other twin-pairs who both had lower. This indicates that there is a genetic component to self-confidence to some degree. However, what they also found out was that some students who didn’t have a stronger IQ performed better at schools than those who did, because of self-confidence. Children who were more self-confident actually did better at school, just because they were demonstrably more confident about their abilities. It is definitely something that, even if you’re not born with, you can easily take advantage of if you switch your mindset.

Focusing on the task

If you’re not self-confident, you’ll have a difficult time focusing on a task or subject, as you’ll constantly doubt your abilities. You’ll even be justifying the self-doubt, because it’s a part of critical thinking. However, all that extra noise in the system will cause trouble if it becomes a chronic problem. Thus, some people’s personality becomes apparent in their demeanour, leading them to lesser chances and opportunities in life. This restricted mentality must change, in order to accomplish something bigger than what you expected.

Self-esteem v/s self-confidence

It’s important to note the difference between self-esteem and self-confidence. Professor Baumeister, professor of psychology at Case Western Reserve, has been studying self-confidence throughout his career and he suggests that we not confuse self-esteem and confidence. Students with higher self-esteem did not have a higher performance academically. High self-esteem can lead to problems with ego, and challenges faced may not be seen favorably by the individual. “High self-esteem can mean confidence and security–but it can also mean conceited, arrogant, narcissistic, and egotistical.”, according to Prof Baumeister. However, the impact of high self-confidence is multifold. If we empower people to achieve something beyond their expectations, it’s a better skill to possess than to focus on building up their self-esteem.

Self-evaluation

In conclusion, it’s important to review your own skill-set as objectively as you can. As more than anything, your own abilities are something that you can measure to a certain degree. However, when you have a sense of self-confidence in your abilities, the unknown factors (out of your control) do not appear to be as challenging as you thought they would. Life’s general ups and downs, don’t affect you as much and you can focus on building your life, instead of regretting why you’re stuck or aren’t able to get out of the cycle of procrastination.