Many people have great potential and can work really efficiently, they are brilliant in terms of talent and dedication, but still cannot succeed much in life, people around them in the workplace, their competitors, who might be less talented and are still able to make a niche for themselves at a level higher than the others. What is it that makes them achieve this? Why is it so, that one individual even after being able cannot achieve what the other can even after having lesser ability? The answer you are looking for is “self confidence”. Self confidence is a very vital tool in one’s personality, but a majority of people lack in it. Developing Self Confidence is in fact the hardest personality attributes to develop. Some people suffer from it permanently and others at particular stages.
The first thing we should look into is how does lack of self confidence come inside one’s mind? Sometimes it is due to constant discouragement or excess criticism. For example, a child tries to sing and her parents who think he should concentrate on his studies more, discourage him and constantly keep telling him that he cannot sing. Or his teacher thinks he can do better and keeps criticising him that he takes in a negative sense, even discouragement from the peer group can have a very lasting impact. These factors will turn him into an individual who may be gifted with exceptional musical talent but who is never confident about it. No matter how old he grows, that discouragement and the consequent under confidence it has embedded in him will stay for long, until something is done about it. Developing self confidence is very important.
Now let us look into the signs of under confidence, the first signs would be that the person would be a loner, he would not be very social and would prefer solidarity, often this is misunderstood to be aloofness but it actually is under confidence. Some people might try to veil their under confidence be feigning indifference. They would behave as if they don’t care what people think of them and if they have company or not but the real thing maybe they are just not confident if they will be liked or not. Another sign is that they are too much of an opinion seeker. Asking a senior expert person his or her opinion on a work done is one thing and asking every Tom Dick and Harry is another thing, these people tend to live for others and always seek everybody’s approval for they are never sure of themselves.
Another sign inherent of under confidence is being self critical beyond limits, every one who seeks to improve will be a bit self critical of himself, but an under confident person would be too self critical. He would always find one or the other fault in himself and find the other person perfect at all times. At all times he would insist that he is inferior and someone else is superior. Inferiority complex is just another form of under confidence. It is important to spot it in yourself in order to deal with it. Then it is important stay the path in developing self confidence.