CONFIDENCE

I have heard people talk about the secret to life, secret to success, how to achieve your dreams and so forth. And as much as their thesis might be true I wish to state here on this blog post that I think there’s only one secret to success CONFIDENCE! Scientists relate confidence with the outcome of a hypothesis (Statistics), but in this post we are going to discuss what happens before the results of their hypothesis. In reference to the confidence discussed in this post I am talking about self-confidence mostly, one’s self-esteem. I cannot think of any plausible achievement without confidence, and I do not believe anybody in this world has achieved some form of success without some degree of confidence. Well if confidence is that important why do some of us lack it or shy away from it because we do not want to be label as being cocky, proud, offensive etc…? As I grow older I begin to see my past in a very naïve manner and I hope some of you keep reading my posts because I learn every day from your inputs and comments. Please feel free to join in every conversational topic on this blog. Let's talk!

My cousin is about to graduate from high school. I am so fond of her and love her a lot. We were discussing some of the colleges she may want to apply to and in her response to one of the colleges I suggested, she said "I'll never get in, do you know how hard it is to get into such colleges? I do not have what it takes" Granted that there are certain colleges that go through a rigorous admission process, I still felt so disappointed and confused. She is super smart, she went to a private engineering middle school, she is a natural leader, and she is caring and plays in her high school band among other accomplishments. So what happened to her? What has changed? Why the lack of self-confidence? Trying to understand my cousin’s problem led me to write this post. We all might have witness that person we all have the highest expectations for, see them look down on themselves or we might have gone through such periods ourselves. Whenever you doubt yourself you begin your first step to loosing your confidence. 

I had to look into myself first to understand my cousin. I know I am a confident person. Sometimes when I look at the way some of my friends and family depict their lack of confidence I begin to realize that I also express such symptoms too; You walk with your head down, can't make or sustain direct eye contact with others, do not accept compliments well, apologize and feel guilty, you will even get frustrated, impatient and often angry…..I do not think a confident person expresses themselves like this… always depressed, using negative and hopeless language, can’t engage with others and take things too personally, restless, violent….I will stop here because the list continues, the point is I am not saying if you have ever exhibited such symptoms like I have, you are less confident but staying with them will definitely make you more and more less confident and weak. Yes I think lack of confidence is a sign of weakness too! I just want to add something here talking about weaknesses as a lack of confidence. If you have ever witness a man that hits a woman (which is the most disgusting thing in the world), I want you to recognize that that person lacks self-confidence too and in most extent self-esteem. Yes men with low self-esteem always result into violence with women. Same goes to a woman who stays in a bad relationship. My thoughts on this topic will be discussed further in a later post.

In one of my earlier posts visions I wrote "Think of the universe as in the fable (story) of 'Aladdin and the Lamb'. Whatever your wish is, the Djinni (Genie) will grant it!" That is how confidence works like the universe. Declare your intent and go get it, because it has already been granted! I think no matter what your situation is in this world, we all have a story of triumph, a story of success, a story of victory or better yet a story of failure, but we are still here. And for those who have not gotten one yet it is just a matter of time. It is not optimism it is our birth right! Look deep into your story and draw confidence from that and if you are already a confident person then remind yourself of your uniqueness whenever you doubt yourself. Most of the things that stimulate doubts in our mind are probably things we should not be pursuing in the first place. That is to say "false confidence". I think going after something that is not yours will generate the mistake of thinking you are not good enough. This can be very damaging to your confidence and personal growth in general. I cannot be confident that I am going to be the president of the United States when I have no interest in becoming a politician. False confidence will generate doubts in most cases, so the caution is finding what your strength is and then start off like a train, with nothing on your way to stop you when you start. Finding your strength should not be that hard or complicated, in my earlier post careers we discussed earnestly about how you discover what it is you are really good at. Just like false confidence we can also talk about Overconfidence, well there is a thin line between being confident and overconfident. As much as confidence can generate the best outcomes, overconfidence can also generate the worst outcomes. I will think that staying within your confidence level is just appropriate. Everybody like heroes but overconfidence just like false confidence can be curbed by recognizing your ability before start off.

If you walk into any situation with the confidence that you can successfully overcome it, even when you fail you will still feel satisfied. That is what confidence brings out. Ask yourself what is the worst that can happen? Take calculated risks and keep at it. We are all unique in our own way, which means there is something about you that nobody has or share. Nothing/nobody can make you confident except yourself, it should come from within. I think your parents and friends can help and guide you but it is an inert quality. It's You! Confidence is like a religion, blind faith. Christians have not seen God but they believe in him. I want to believe that there are people who, may be due to their childhood conditions did not have the available support to nurture self-confidence but I think it will only be a matter of time, before they reach home, that is when they meet the right conditions. So there really isn't any excuse for lack of confidence! There is so much out there to be grateful for and too many opportunities given to us regardless of our situation. Humble people have confidence in themselves too! That is how they achieved all they have. Martin Luther King is a great example of somebody who was confident but very humble, he got slapped several times in public in his fight for civil rights but he stayed the course because he knew where and what he was trying to achieve. So let’s not confuse being confident as a vice to humility.

To my cousin, I think if I did not know her well I would have agreed with her assessment of the difficulty in getting into such colleges but I do know her and I can recall all she has been through. Growing up is hard and it is easy for teenagers to sway into different directions but that is why the adults are there. With all she has prepared for I believe she has the arsenal to go to any top tier university in the nation but sometimes instilling that belief into another person is hard. For now I can only hope she realizes it fast, and read this blog post. LOL……

Thanks for reading and please don’t forget to share your comments with me and other readers….

PRIDE

Am I proud? Yes.

It will also depend on what we are talking about. See when I think about pride, I remember my religion classes in the lower sixth science class of Bishop Rogan Minor Seminary. You see 'pride' is one of the seven deadly sins of the Roman Catholic Church. I remember all the arguments I had with my spiritual director, Fr. Basile Sede (I hope he is reading). To cut the whole argument short I concluded that depending on what you are viewed as pride can be a good thing or a very bad thing. Hence mathematically your reputation is directly proportional to the way your pride is viewed: (+ve/-ve). In this post based on which reputation of me you have then you might conclude either way. Now the humble approach is what society or people will expect from us. That is why Humility is the direct opposite to pride according to the Roman Catholic doctrine, while pride is a deadly sin; humility is one of the heavenly virtues. We all came from different backgrounds and based on inexplicable factors we are certainly different. I think character traits like arrogance, confidence, ego might get intertwined with being proud but for those who can single them out, being proud is unique and can occur independent of these other factors. Reputation is a very delicate subject and since it is an opinion it will differ from one point of view to the other, hence we cannot really talk about reputation as a standalone as it is more complex to me than pride.

Your pride should only come from your potential, your ability to conquer any circumstance and nothing else! not your parent's wealth, not your past accomplishments, nothing but your potential, knowing who you are, what you can achieve...when I talk about being proud am implying solely on what I know am worth and can achieve in my life, PERSONAL PRIDE, jay says “ put me anywhere in God’s green earth and I’ll triple my worth” and yes I get obsessed with myself when I can see my potentials and possibilities, and since I spent a lot of time crafting and thinking about them, my pride easily goes into arrogance, disrespect, or being rude. The truth is when my pride goes down this negative path I feel pathetic and I always make efforts to change lanes; Now that am a little older, (cause I cannot think of a time when I did not believe in my potentials) am a little more prudent and have learned to listen and make constructive criticisms and also accept them. Imagine that am in a small village in Africa thinking I can make it regardless of my surroundings, then how will I feel when placed in the motherland of opportunities USA! From that perspective.....come on now sky should be the limit.

We sometimes coadunate pride with stubbornness the reason being that most people who are proud rarely listen to advice. That might be true; see in my household my sisters consider me to be very stubborn sometimes because there are certain decisions I will not let my family make for me. my thinking at the time really comes from my pride, even though I know these people are telling me these things out of love, I have enough confidence on my ability to pull through this alone. My favorite rapper JAY-Z says and I quote;

"I ain't never ran, never will
I never asked for nothin I don't demand of myself
Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth
I tell you what else
I tighten my belt 'fore I beg for help
Foolish pride is what held me together through the years
I can't say I've never knelt before God and asked for better cards at times to no avail
But I never sat back feelin sorry for myself
If you don't give me heaven I'll raise hell'
Til it's heaven"

Look when you make your own decisions based on your potentials either way that decision goes it is a win-win for you. The worst thing that can happen is failure but if you fail because of a decision that you made, it would be way easier to pull yourself up and continue. If you doubt you potential and listen to some other person and you fail, you will somehow blame that person for your failure and your journey to recovery will be much harder.

Our reputations should be based on facts to me, like if you get into an argument about who is the best in the NBA, Kobe or Lebron? I think Kobe is the best based on facts/statistics but Kobe's reputation will make Lebron win that argument 6 out of 1o times. So if you think am proud in a negative way or pretentious, why don't you proof me otherwise? Like that is my take on all this reputation and pride argument. We can all be proud or claim to be what we are not, but if you’re running your car on empty gas soon it will stop and everybody will know you’re a fake, a poser. The pride you portrayed will turn into your demise! Let’s not get this twisted before I continue I want to make it absolutely clear that recognizing another person's accomplishment is one of my greatest joy. If I have ever been a 'hater' then I was probably misquoted or we don't see eye to eye in the first place. No apologies! So if I say am proud and based on the reputation you have of me, it bothers you then you will have to prove to me am not who I say I am. We all know reputation builds on gossip; I cannot control gossips, so I don't worry about gossipers, show me the facts and I will drop my pride.

It always becomes clear to me when I see a more successful person where my pride came from. To be honest with you the first thing that cross my mind is ' wow he/she is great or accomplished, now let see how he/she got there and do better' so I approach that person with all the respect that he/she deserves with the intention of learning how they did it and doing better. I think we must accept that no matter what you can accomplish somebody else might do the same or better, and there will be people who will always have something you cannot achieve. I live and believe this so it is a total waste of energy to envy a more successful person.

I know the jury out there will disagree with my take on pride and just like the church paint it as devilish trait. But am letting you know in this blog: please people live a proud life, please live a very proud life. See you do not understand how hard it is to live a proud life, it means you must be at the top of your ability at all times because everybody is waiting for you to fail, but see your pride will always keep you on top. wake up in the morning look yourself in the mirror and tell that figure in the mirror that " Am the best in what I do, I will be great today, I will be awesome' live your life like this and I guarantee you all those big obstacles you use to wonder how to deal with, they will reappear with solutions on how to deal with them and crush them. Live a proud life; yes you are from Africa so what? Show them that African values are the best by being the best! No matter your religion, race or circumstances am begging you to live a very very very PROUD LIFE. Those who are your doubters now will reconcile with you later when you are at the top you will see!

I am going to let it breathe for a little bit here, lol

THANKS FOR READING MY BLOG, I love y'all