I am someone who lacks self-confidence.
However, looking back at my life, I don’t think I’ve felt this way since the day I was born.
For instance, back in high school, my grades were good and I wasn’t too bad at sports, so I think I had a decent amount of self-esteem. Even in university, I was among the top of my class at times, had a girlfriend, and stayed busy with clubs and part-time jobs. I felt my life was quite fulfilling.
I think things changed when I started my career. Suddenly, I was surrounded by people much older than me whom I had little experience interacting with. Every day, my boss would point out my flaws. No matter how much I did, the work never ended, and I was rarely praised. I believe I lost my confidence when I couldn’t handle the pressure and things didn’t go well. That was likely the starting point of my struggle with self-doubt (though my natural personality probably played a part as well).
There was a time when I worked with confidence and enjoyed my hobbies. However, when my work environment changed and I had to relearn everything from scratch, my confidence vanished once again.
When you lack confidence, you become anxious. Anxiety then spreads within you, triggering even more worries.
Because I lacked confidence at work, I started feeling insecure in other areas too, especially when it came to communication. When you aren’t confident in your social skills, it’s hard to make friends. I didn’t mind being alone, so it wasn’t a huge problem for me personally, but as is commonly said, having no friends does lower one’s overall happiness. I feel this is a weakness or a shortcoming of mine.
I’ve rambled on a bit…
But to put it simply, the conclusion I’ve reached in my life so far is this: “When you lack confidence, anxiety dominates your mind, your relationships become thin, and it becomes harder to be happy.”
As for how to build that confidence, that is my challenge moving forward. After reading several books, what I feel right now is that the best approach is to “positively shrug it off.” Don’t worry too much about failing. Just think, “Oh well, I’ll just succeed next time.” For someone like me, who tends to take things too seriously and gets stuck, I think it’s necessary to live with a lighter, more casual attitude.
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