4 CHOICES | 2013 SPRING ISSUE
CONFIDENCE IS A CHOICE
BY JUDI MOREO
Why is having confidence in ourselves and our abilities so hard ? Why do many of us have the tendency to overestimate other people ’ s abilities and power and underestimate our own ? Why are many of us so concerned with what other people will think about us ?
f we are to understand these things , first we need to understand why we think , feel , and act the way we do . We need to understand why and how we have become who we are , as well as why we react or respond in certain ways . When we understand ourselves , we can either accept the way we are or make changes so we will be able to accept ourselves .
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What we believe and accept about ourselves determines our behavior and performance . These , in turn , create our results and our results affect our confidence levels .
If we have self-limiting beliefs , we will have self-limiting behaviors . If we have self-empowering beliefs , we will have self-empowering behaviors . In other words , if we think we can , we can . If we
If we have selflimiting beliefs , we will have self-limiting behaviors . If we have selfempowering beliefs , we will have self-empowering behaviors .
think we can ’ t , we can ’ t . If we think we can , we will find a way . We perform as well as we believe we are capable of performing .
Many of our beliefs about ourselves have come from outside sources : people , education , and experiences . Many of us have allowed the opinions of others to become our opinions of ourselves . We ’ ve listened to people tell us we are incompetent , inadequate , unworthy , bad , or stupid . We ’ ve internalized , processed , and often believed what others have told us .
There is a direct correlation between the quality of our relationships and our levels of self-esteem and selfconfidence . If we are like most people , how we feel about ourselves , good or bad , is largely dependent upon the degree of acceptance we have felt from the influential people in our lives .
If we were compared negatively to other children , especially children outside of our immediate family , we might have believed those children had more abilities and were “ more ” than we were . That is when feelings of inferiority started to set in . If we didn ’ t receive appreciation or recognition for our achievements then , we may believe others are smarter , stronger , or better than we are now .