Self-confidence plays a vital role in the way you see yourself and how others perceive you. It also decides, to a high degree, if you are going to be successful in any activity you carry on, be it a school assignment, a candidature for class representative, a job interview or even a date. This is why self-confidence is so important: it builds the relationship with your own persona and with those around you, and helps you stay connected and stay strong in the face of any adversity. View it like this: self-confidence is most of the time self-constructive, while low self-confidence is always self-destructive. Failure is right around the corner when you doubt yourself. Self-reliability emanates and attracts positive energy, needed to accomplish any task, while low self-reliability attracts negativity in your life and bad outcomes. In short, the quality of your life depends, to a great extent, to your self-confidence or the lack of it.
When you want to pursue something, you have to believe with all of your heart that you will achieve it. And in doing so, you are self-reliant on your skills. If you don’t have the skills, you must be willing to invest time and effort and hard-work to develop them, nurture them and make them your strength. Self-confidence is, ideally, an intelligent, realistic type of confidence, with a solid foundation. This means that in order to be confident in yourself, you need something to rely on, something that you know you’re good at, something that you do and it is appreciated by others: maybe it’s your charisma, maybe you are good with words and have social skills, maybe you excel in artistic or technical drawing, maybe your are first in your class or maybe you finally understood how that machine works, ultimately it’s your own merit.
Why does self-confidence matter so much? Because when you come into contact with someone, the first thing your judgmental mind picks up is the first appearance of that person and what she/he emanates: was she nervous, fidgety, confused or with a shaky voice when speaking with you? Then she won’t inspire you too much trust. The same will happen with you: if you lack conviction in your own words and skills, it’s going to show in your behavior. The consequence of this is that you won’t be labeled as a trustworthy person, thus you won’t make a very good impression on others. And who wants to be surrounded by insecure people? If you do not have faith in yourself and don’t see yourself as a competent being, do you really believe that others will?
Let’s take the following examples, to see how much self-confidence counts in various aspects of your life:
- For academic achievements: If you haven’t properly studied or if you just browsed through some parts of the theory for your upcoming exam, you know that you may not do well on your test paper. Due to the uncertainty and negative thoughts, you may stay up late at night to cover some holes in your knowledge, you may not sleep well, be tired in the morning, not eat and in the end, your anxiety levels will be so high in the day of the exam that you’ll lose your focus and forget what you’ve previously studied and most probably fail. But if you allocated time for rigorous and throughout study, there will be no doubt, but the conviction that you’ll pass the test with flying colors. We are emotional beings, so the way we feel has immediate effects on how our brain works, on our memory and our performance. So if you are relaxed on the day of the exam, you can make use of the whole potential of your brain. Actually, if you’ve prepared beforehand and feel competent, the brain will agree and work in your favor.
- For making friends: Being confident in your abilities brings positivity in your life. This means, in a sense, that you are your own cheerleader. And optimism and confidence are contagious and reassuring to others. When you speak positively about yourself and your actions and achievements stand proof of your words, you transform yourself into a magnet which attracts people around you almost instantaneously. People like to be near someone who can inspire them, who infuses in them motivation and the belief that anything is possible, as long as you strive for it. No one likes whiny personalities, but people who are fun to be around, who feel good about themselves and who are ready to tackle any type of situation. With a confident mind, you will use the right approach to making new friends and developing your social skills.
- In pursuing a relationship: Yes, confidence is an integral part of any fulfilling relationship, especially a lovey dovey one. Making friends and searching for your lover are quite similar in the sense that both need positivity and self-esteem for satisfying outcomes. Confidence is the key strength of a discussion, and may be found to be very attractive, especially by the opposite gender. Your potential boyfriend/girlfriend needs to feel that he/ she can tackle any problem and cope better with stressful times with you by his/her side.
Confidence is also related to how you walk, to how you behave, to maintained eye-contact, to genuine smiles, to an optimistic atmosphere, all of which are important when wanting to connect and bond with someone in a romantic way. When radiating self-confidence, your date will be impressed in a charming way, and will gain a sense of security, stability and trust. This is essential for someone who is willing to pursue a relationship.
You may not consider yourself to be that good-looking, but know that you can have a different charm, a powerful one, if you manage to exhibit strong self-assurance around you. When you are self-confident, you have stopped comparing yourself to others, as you’ve experienced it and you’ve seen that it won’t do you any good. There will be always someone prettier, wealthier and more knowledgeable in one or more areas than you, in the same way you are better than others. But these characteristics are rather pointless, if one doesn’t have a sense of self-confidence. Without it, romantic relationships are doomed from the start, as they will transform into a personal disappointment, rather than a chance to happiness.
- For starting and advancing in your career: In the case of job interviews, self-confidence is what will set you aside from other competitors with the same competencies as you. Sometimes, when you have just one occasion to showcase your talents, it’s not so much about what you know, but more about what you give the impression to know. Do not understand that it is fine to be superficial when it comes to your skills and knowledge. Not at all! In order to land a job and to make sure you won’t be fired a few days later, you have to be competent in the company’s field of activity. But think of this: the first step you need to take in order to get a job is to pass the recruiting exam. And here it’s about your social skills, your psychological traits and your self-awareness. But even if you know you’re the best candidate for the position you’ve applied, if something in your behavior tells otherwise and you show some signs of doubt and uncertainty, for example you have sweaty hands, shaky voice, if you make long pauses between phrases or use lots of “uhh” or “umm”, these are perceived as negative aspects and you’ll not be considered a trustworthy employee. So the job will go to the one who was able to project self-confidence.
Therefore, true and complete self-confidence doesn’t rely only on the knowledge you acquire in a particular domain, but also on knowing how to put yourself in the best light, on how to show your qualities and on how to behave in order to convey your confidence and to make the best of your circumstances.
Your results at work and your level of satisfaction are proportional to your self-confidence levels. The more experienced you become, the greater your conviction to succeed and move forward in your career. Getting that sense of satisfaction from getting the job done increases your self-confidence, which allows you to engage in challenging projects, complete them successfully and ask for a substantial raise. So success leads to self-confidence, which leads again to an even bigger and impressive success.
Following a chain reaction, self-confidence gives one a sense of well-being, makes him/her more resilient to stress, keeps a person going forward and advancing to her dreams. As you may have realized until now, self-confidence is extremely important in almost any aspect of our life. It makes us more productive, willing to take action. Its great significance is that it enables you to be in charge of your own life and to be able to achieve what you passionately desire. Being in strong connection to your self-esteem, self-confidence has a positive effect on your way of thinking and on your emotions. Not to mention its great benefits on your body and mental health.
Know that you can cultivate and nourish your level of self-confidence. As any development occurs during a process, read further on “How to Build Self-Confidence”, an article organized in 10 steps for a clearer vision on what you need to work on to improve yourself and your attitude. Keep in mind that you’ll complete your task if you put your mind to it.
Lastly, we have one important tip for you: remember to stay grounded – don’t let your ego take control and become over-confident, when your capabilities that you’re so proud of are no longer realistic.