Developing Confidence Without Becoming Arrogant

“What you think of yourself is much more important than what people think of you.” ~Seneca

I used to labor under the gross illusion that confidence was elusive, like a Sasquatch.

Or fleeting, like a shooting star.

It’s there for a moment, then poof!—gone.

Did I dream it? 

To deepen this illusion, I believed that only a select few were anointed with confidence by an unseen hand upon their birth (this same mysterious hand also granted natural athletic ability), leaving the rest of us to muddle through, solely reliant on glancing blows of confidence that would hopefully show up when desperately necessary.

Time to do an oral report on The Louisiana Purchase? Let’s hope confidence decides to make a rare appearance—or I’m doomed behind that faux-wood podium!                 

To further confuse matters, I believed that any acquired confidence was the result of validation and admiration from others.

Perhaps this seed was planted when I heard the phrase: “Insert appropriate term heregave me/her/him confidence.”

The idea that confidence is “given” I apparently took somewhat literally, because I spent years looking for it outside of myself.

I know now that this is a fairly ridiculous passel of assumptions and just about as opposite of legitimate confidence as one can get.

I also used to think that it took arrogance to be confident and that confidence and arrogance were just about one and the same.

I didn’t have the first clue about how to be confident, and then as an added complication, I had a hang up around not even wanting to take confidence for a spin for fear of seeming arrogant.

Who does she think she is?!

My first big wake-up call to true confidence occurred twenty years ago in a small downtown bar in New York City.

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