Self-confidence is seemingly one of the hardest things to develop as an adult.
In the new Disney film, Soul, they make a joke that souls can’t get crushed in the space before life, that’s what life on earth is for. Very witty.
There’s always hope, however. Hope in knowing where self-confidence comes from and how to cultivate it.
I have to admit. This is one of the hardest things for me. I continuously have to coach myself in self-confidence. That’s how I know it’s possible. It takes work, though, it doesn’t happen if you sit around and let any old thought drive you.
The root of the word ‘confidence’ comes from the Latin root “fidere’ — to trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment. Con-fidere, to be with trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgments.
Kids; little bundles of confidence.
Consider kids learning to talk, crawl, walk, learning anything. Do you see them giving up because it’s hard? That’s not supposed to sound critical, honestly, do you see them giving up?
In truth, it depends what it is, the drive to eat, talk and walk are more significant in those early years.
They must fall over many times and pick themselves up. Children get words wrong all the time; they don’t care. They take the updated version in and play with it.
So what’s different?
Well, it’s problematic to idolize this as something that adults can’t do. Between 0–2, the child is developing a sense of the world; they won’t even know that objects are permanent. Between 2–6, children use symbology and are very egocentric, because they haven’t developed the capacity to reason logically.
Children begin to organize objects by classes and subclasses. They can perform mathematical operations and understand transformations, such as addition is the opposite of subtraction and multiplication is the opposite of division. They still think in very linear ways and can only conceptualize ideas that can be observed directly — they have not yet mastered abstract thinking.
In this time, many limiting beliefs form, because abstract thinking isn’t available until passed twelve. The child thinks linearly, and those ideas shape our early brain.
Adults; learned social behavior.
There’s a moment in childhood, around seven, where children learn to be socially acceptable, and they start suppressing their needs and desires to fit in. They’ve learned to organize things by classes, and they begin to recognize power structures.
An idea around shame and society; defining what is acceptable and what is not. A good thing in moderation.
My opinion of western society is that we’re living in so much internalized shame, we can’t find our ways to the playful, curious environment that provides real peace.
We can do the happy dance, or pull on the happy mask; they look at lot like true peace and happiness, yet they’re not.
Self-confidence comes from trust in your abilities, qualities, and judgments. Therefore to suppress those things is to compromise your self-confidence — also a self-trust issue.
Solution
The dynamism of life comes from fluctuating between these two positions.
The kid within you wants to play indefinitely, enjoy the world in awe and wonder; laugh. The adult in you wants to knuckle down, provide security, and fit in with the society.
It seems that lasting peace and fulfilment come from the integration of these aspects. Finding a childlike, beginner’s, mind not childish egocentric resentments.
The stages of human development are interesting because they explain why some people cannot find self-confidence. Weighed down by a child’s beliefs that they once were, that still sits within their personality. Unexplored doubts, anxieties and fears.
I’m not saying that they will disappear if you take the journey, I still experience these things regularly, you’ll have more understanding of where they come from and be able to take more aligned action amongst them.
Initiation into adulthood is going through the process of examining and letting go of all the linearly formed beliefs of childhood, then reforming new beliefs that are appropriate for adulthood. Assimilating those early child parts into our adult story.
Integrating thoughts
The takeaways from this are:
- Self-confidence is a trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgments.
- Children act in the way they do because their brain is developing.
- Adults struggle with confidence when they don’t know themselves.
- Initiation into adulthood is to explore the limiting beliefs of the child, examine them and evolve them.
- It’s a part of life to feel doubt, anxiety and fear. The key is to know where they come from.
- To know yourself is to be confident.
It’s not surprising that many people struggle with confidence when you consider the amount of awareness you need. Western culture has let go of the initiation rituals into adulthood. Only the rational, intellectual, one remains — going off to university (college).
This isn’t enough to get to the point of integrated, centred, confidence.
We must find ourselves through our stories of hardship; our limiting beliefs and fears of childhood. We must own them to find our confidence, returning to ourselves in full.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Steve Halama on Unsplash