Throughout life, you may have heard that you need to be more confident in yourself, or you have been told you need to be less confident. Well, which is it? If you are confident, people label you as arrogant or sometimes call you a showoff. If you aren’t confident, people keep telling you that you need to be confident and people take advantage of the fact you have no confidence. So, are people supposed to be confident or not?
The answer is absolutely yes, you should be confident. Obviously you have to be careful you aren’t arrogant, but there is nothing wrong with confidence. I was a person who wasn’t very confident and felt like if I showed my confidence, people would think I was a bad person. Growing up I was a performer; I did choir, band, and acting. It was interesting how many people I worked with were so self-conscious of everything they did. When someone actually talked positively about their abilities, the others would automatically call them arrogant. I have been able to work with so many talented people who would always have a negative comment for their performance. When you are good at something, it’s important to recognize that. When you aren’t confident in your craft, it hinders you from being good to being great. In our society, we are constantly being judged on everything. So when you are, for example, a performer, it’s hard to concentrate on what you need to do when all you can think about is do they like me or am I good enough.
Now, as a senior in college, I have decided not to care about what others think. This is in most part thanks to dance. I found that I was pretty good, especially for someone with not a lot of training. People would tell me I was an amazing dancer and I couldn’t get myself to agree with them. I had it in my head that because I have only had dance classes for four years that I couldn’t possibly be very good. I did a solo called “Confident,” and it ended up being more than a solo. It was an eye-opener. When people told me how much they loved my solo, I finally was able to just accept their praises and be like, you know what, I am pretty good. My confidence in my dance abilities started translating into confidence outside the dance studio. We all have something we do really well. You don’t have to be the best at everything you do. Focus on what you can versus what you can’t. I personally have always admired people who are confident. I used to wish that I could be half as confident as some people that I knew who were confident in themselves. Now I am just as confident as those people, and it feels so great and freeing. For some people, it does take time to realize they are amazing and have even a little confidence, and that’s OK. It’s important that we encourage people to be confident and not judge people on their level of confidence. Confidence can also be contagious. If you surround yourself with people who are comfortable in their skin and confident, that can help your friends who aren’t as confident in themselves be more confident.
The next time you feel good about yourself, don’t be afraid to say something. If I think I look fabulous, I will say to my friends that I look fabulous. Why do we need to wait for someone else to tell us we are great? Why do we feel only some people can be confident and it’s OK, but you can’t be? I want everyone to know you are special and you are a great person. It’s OK to let that awesomeness show. We are able to quickly compliment someone or our friends, but when it comes to ourselves we are quick to correct and point out all flaws. Enough with this self hate. In order to truly love others you need to love yourself. Go out there and just be the best you that you can be.
