On Confidence: Two Sides of a Coin?
This week's writing prompt “Confidence and Self-esteem” is a loaded one. Perhaps I should do two posts with it. I'd like to start with confidence.
I think confidence is in two forms. When I served my country, there was this lady that was asked to teach English remedials alongside me. I was skeptical. I was of the opinion that the students were too far gone for us to be able to remediate their communication skills. This lady, let's call her DA, told me not to worry, we'll see results.
“Corper Tayo,” she said in her usual solid, calm voice. “We can do this if we put our mind to it. That's all that's needed.”
“But I've never taught English before now,” I complained, “How am I going to teach a 14 year old to say ‘the teacher will beat me’ instead of ‘the teacher she's beat me’?”
DA told me that she'd helped people who were worse and that if we collaborated, we'll get the job done. Now, that is confidence!
Corper me Tayo
Confidence is self-assurance. It is faith in oneself that all things being equal one will not be far from the expected outcome.
Very often, there's a thin line between being confident in one's abilities and being proudful. I think the difference is in the intention. The negative side of confidence is pride, and so if your self-assurance is to show how you're better
than others, or worse still to make people around you feel like they're not enough, then it is pride rather than confidence.
Need I mention that by the end of our remedial term, DA’s students were far better than mine? I was skeptical. She was confident! And that made the difference.
Shot this on a hot Sunday afternoon
The other form of confidence is the feeling of belief, faith or reliance on someone other than oneself.
Back in the university, a course mate once got an F in a course. Everyone around him advised him to challenge the result (ask for his script to be re-marked). Rather than go through the official channel, I accompanied this guy met the lecturer one evening in the office and asked to know what he didn't do right as that will help him to study when he retakes the course the following semester.
The lecturer looked for his script and started reading. For a few minutes, the lecturer looked flustered. He flipped open his laptop computer and fired it up. He checked for something, the result I guess. And looked up at my friend, ghastly. He asked if my friend prayed, because on paper, he scored the highest, how it turned to F on the result portal was something he didn't understand.
Now, everybody was confident in my friend's ability to pass the course, not one person thought he truly failed. It is why they advised him to challenge the result. It was the wisdom of a few of us that made him go through a more polite route.
Giving all exceptional people their flowers. I shot it.
Confidence in others is a good thing. It keeps them on their toes to continue to do well, but sometimes it may be a bad thing. As humans, we sometimes need to take a break. This however becomes almost impossible for people who have the respect of other people. They press on when they need to take a break in order not to break people's trust and confidence in them. In most cases, they end up breaking down (body and mental). The solution to this, I think, is to always remind people to take a break when the need arises. Remind them that they are human, after all.
Tomorrow, I'll talk about self-esteem.
Self confidence is just all we need in life, when we doubt ourselves we already fail at what we are doing
There is no greater hindrance to a man's purpose than self-doubt. I love people who don't second-guess themselves. This kind go far in life, provided they know how to negotiate the distinction between confidence and pride.
While confidence is a good thing, there's a tin line between confidence and pride, I love your illustrations man. Looking forward to the second part bro.
Btw, I love your style of images @tayo6
And people who negotiate that thing line between confidence and pride really go far in life. It is one very important recipe for a successful life.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I learnt better with illustrations, and so I try to make it a part of my everyday life. Stories move the world. These images also, are my stories within stories.
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STOPconfidence is a good thing.You don't lose if you have a positive confidence.Thank you for