I’d watch totally amazed at their ability to speak up and out, at their lack of self-consciousness about what they were wearing or whether their hair looked good. I especially was in awe of their easy way of saying exactly what they were thinking without pre-thinking it–apparently not caring that their words might offend or disappoint someone or be disagreed with.
Maybe I lacked self confidence because I grew up with a super critical mother who herself lacked self confidence. Maybe it’s because I was often the tallest person in my grade, inches taller than the boys till high school, and always assigned a desk in the back of the room and asked to stand in the back row for group pictures. Maybe it was because of the severe acne that scarred my face when I was a teen or the weight that began to pack my frame in my thirties.
Whatever the cause(s) of my lack of self-confidence, the odd thing is that because I’m tall and had learned to carry myself well, most people over my lifetime would have described me as self- confident! That made it worse. I felt that few people really knew the real me. I feared if they knew the real me they would shun me and even be angry that I thought differently from them and that my not speaking up may be perceived as a kind of lying.
Yet I understood they thought I was self-confident because I was good at being who I thought I ought to be. I learned early to “fake it till I make it” and stuffed my hurt and fear. As I grew into my professional life and read self-help books and the chapter on “Charisma” in Napoleon Hill’s THINK AND GROW RICH, I learned even more techniques. I’d “put on” my strong confident persona and charisma like a robe covering me before entering a classroom to teach, or meeting strangers in a business networking meeting, or hosting TV and radio shows.
But I have continued to long for true self-confidence and seek it because it’s exhausting to compensate for not having it. That’s why a few lines in the Blueprint Builder we started reading aloud daily in our Master Key Experience really caught my attention back when the we started.
I know through the principle of auto-suggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it, therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of SELF-CONFIDENCE.
I have clearly written down a description of my DEFINITE CHIEF AIM in life, and I will never stop trying, until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment.
An excerpt from THINK AND GROW RICH by Napoleon Hill
I’d read those lines enthusiastically daily, trusting the process and so trusting that eventually self-confidence would come. But working on a statement of my DMP (Definite Major Purpose) that I was supposed to build self-confidence for actually lowered it when week after week after week I got it back for revision. There was always a compliment at the top–but there were many more things to revise each week. I’d spend hours and still it was not acceptable. As I heard others had had theirs approved I got super discouraged and anxious for a tough several months.
Ironically the habits of a lifetime I put in place to substitute for self-confidence got in the way of excavating my real burning desire from the protective barriers that covered it and my real self. My guide patiently wrote suggestions, kindly shared helps in Marco Polo video messages, and assured me in group zooms that everyone’s timeline was unique and not to worry and to keep on keeping on. So I did.
And finally there came breakthrough after breaktrough. The “Discover your Life’s Purpose” workshop got me asking myself and 6 significant people in my life to share adjectives and nouns they thought described me. What a confidence builder that feedback was! I felt seen! More cement fell away as I incorporated their input and a more confident me stopped hiding from what others might think. I was finally able to revise my DMP, speaking truth straight out, taking things off the back burner of my life and bringing them forward, expressing what I truly feel called to. No wonder my DMP was finally released!
At the same time we were given an assignment to fill out hundreds of index cards with our lifetime of accomplishments and put them in two piles along with cards with helpful affirmations on them. We are to “flash” the decks multiple times daily, shuffling them so they remain fresh and different combos come up to impress on the subconcious that we have a habit of being successful. We’re told that “Subby” can’t tell if these accomplishments are big or small, present or past. We also add 3 gratitude cards daily to the decks and begin to see things to be deeply grateful for all around us.
All of this is building enormous and genuine self-confidence! Each of my cards brings loved faces to mind, forgotten accomplishments, life-changing fun, successful projects, educational travels, hard things overcome, and so much more. The sheer volume of them is building up real self-confidence for the first time in my life. We combine the index cards activity with reading amazing confidence-building scrolls from Og Mandino’s THE GREATEST SALESMAN IN THE WORLD and saying “I can be what I will to be” daily, multiple times. We read our service cards with tasks we’ve promised to do week by week, completed, and celebrate that “I always keep my promises.”
As a result I read my DMP with its huge vision excitedly and with the confidence growing stronger daily that I truly am developing “sufficient self-confidence for its attainment.” I am so very grateful!
Wow Shirley, what a fantastic blog. I enjoyed every minute reading it. I truly respect the courage you have while expressing very deep thoughts about some of the negative thoughts and experiences you encountered while growing up and still carried with you as an adult! Many of the things you described happened to me also. Kudos for you. You are a true hero😀
Shirley, good for you for starting to build real self-confidence. You are so ready to do so. From your blog rover friend John.
John, self-confidence is a powerful propellant! Thanks!
Allen, one of the things we’ve learned in MKE is that if we can recognize something in someone else, it’s in us as well. So kudos back to YOU. You are also a true hero!