Have Confidence

No matter what you have chosen in your life, you need to always display a confidence in your decisions.  This is not just about your career.  It includes the choices that you make all day long.  It may be what you chose to wear, the way you styled your hair, what you made for dinner, how you led a meeting...the list goes on and on.  

A very famous tennis player, Arthur Ashe, has a quote that  happens to be one of my many favorites:  "Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory."  It is believing in yourself. Confidence is not walking into a room with your nose in the air and thinking that you are better than anyone else in the room.  It is walking in the room and not having to compare yourself to anyone else in the first place.  

My interpretation of this is if you dress the part, act the part --  you might just get the part.  It convinces others that we are capable of doing what we say we can do.  The trick here is convincing ourselves of our competence. Talk the talk and walk the walk with the right attitude; we can be as confident as we look and sound. Eleanor Roosevelt had the right idea when she said, "You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do."

Have you ever been told that someone loves your outfit, only to hear the next statement is that they wished they could carry that look off.  If you have no confidence in how you perceive yourself then your confidence is thrown right out the window. What you think of yourself is much more important than what other people think of you.  We all must believe in ourselves so that we can become the person that we desire to become.  

One thing that I have come to learn is that self-confidence can be developed.  It is a matter of having a talk with yourself daily. Perhaps even a mentor (friend or loved one) can help with showing you how to see the possibilities within your own self.  

For me, I have been surrounded most of the time with ones who helped me "go for it."  How many of you remember the USA Olympic Gold Medal Gymnast, Bart Conner?  He won the gold medal against all odds.  He now is a successful motivational speaker.  He tells the story that every night when he went to bed his father said to him that he was a success.  Bart said when he woke up each day, that he started his day knowing that he was a success. 

This is one way that confidence is built.

A positive way to help yourself develop a higher level of confidence (at least it has helped me in all of my endeavors) is the think of how Vincent Van Gogh looked at life.  He said, "If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint then by all means paint."