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July 3rd, 2018, that was the day my first ever Good Men Project article was published. The topic of the article dealt with confidence (something I felt I lacked) and my quest to build up my self-esteem.
The key takeaway was that I would focus on becoming the person I wanted to be. Why? Because part of being confident is knowing you have value, and the more you push yourself to make self-improvements, the more confident you will become over time.
I identified a goal I would work towards — learn the skills (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP) necessary to become a web professional. I chose that goal because in the past I felt I wasn’t intelligent enough to understand and learn those skills. In other words, I didn’t have the confidence to pursue that goal in the past.
I am proud to let you know that I have accomplished that goal. If you take a look at the photo below, you will see that I completed four courses covering the topics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. Was it hard? HELL YES! But I told myself that failure wasn’t an option. Of course, I feared not achieving the goals I set, but I didn’t let it show. When I completed a course, I acted as if it was impossible for me not to be successful in the next course. Failure could only be an option if I let it be one.
Changing My Thinking
I used to be a harsh critic of the whole “you can change your life by shifting your mind frame” belief, but I’m here to let you know that it is true. Before learning these new skills having low confidence negatively affected my life. I was in a constant state of judging myself, I wasn’t fun to be around, and I only focused on the negative. Once I decided to let go of those thoughts and replace them with goals for self-improvement, I started to notice positive changes in multiple areas of my life.
Because changing my thinking helped me learn four new skills, I recently decided to make a list of other things I was afraid of trying in the past, so I could set goals for overcoming these insecurities. One of those goals (just like my previous goal of learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP) was related to information technology — I want to learn how to develop mobile apps.
Learning A New Skill
Direct you focus back to the above photo, in it you will notice the beginning of my first mobile app. I’m learning this skill because I’ve reached a point in my life where I want to continue becoming better. When I look at myself in the mirror, I no longer focus on the qualities I don’t like about myself. Instead, I see someone with potential. I see someone who can make it in the tech world. I see someone who has value. I see someone who feels CONFIDENT!
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Photo by Maria Fernanda Gonzalez on Unsplash
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