Confidence, who know it could be so hard? For the longest time I thought I was confident about who I was and what I was doing, but now after this semester I can tell I really didn’t have much confidence in myself at all and I really didn’t know what true confidence felt like.
I worked hard and everyone who read my speech said it was great. I saw what I looked like when I stood in front of my class mattes for the first time and I didn’t look at all like I felt. I had practiced and practiced. So why did my mind go completely blank and my body start shaking as soon as I opened my mouth to start my speech? I looked out over my audience. There is a girl sitting to the side with the biggest smile, the guy always giving me encouraging feedback, and my teacher sitting up front listening intensely to what I have to say. At this moment my head is in complete panic as my mouth reads the words I wrote on the paper in front of me. What if I make a complete foul of myself? What if I read my speech to fast and I end to soon? My mind was racing and my hands were shaking as my mouth said the words I didn’t right on my paper. My mouth said “I. am. confident.” and my head cried LIER! I was not confident. I was shaking and could barely read the words I wrote, but as I looked out at my class mattes I could see they truly didn’t see it as a lie and the feedback I read later confirmed it. They saw me as confident.
My confidence at that point was all just a acted. I wanted to be as confident as the girl sitting in front of me every day in class. The confidence I had was only the confidence I had taught myself to pretend that I had ever sense I was a child, but deep down I know my confidence was fake. Where does true confidence come from?
Confidence is what draws people to each other. If you look or act confident people will be drawn to you. I had lead myself to believe I was one of those confident people, not that that’s really a bad thing. Believing in your self has a lot to do with being confident with who you are. I believed in myself and I pretended to be confident, but every time it came time to open my mouth I would second guess myself. Confidence can lead us to do amazing things even if it is pretend, yet it’s so hard to be confident at times. Especially when you are standing up in front of a crowd.
It takes courage to stand in front of a crowd and speak your mind. Courage seems to boosts confidence, yet failure seems to kill it. It takes courage to fail and it takes confidence to be okey with failing. When I walked up in front of my class and told them about myself, I took a chance and I wouldn’t change for the world. The high I had when I walked out of that class room that day, I felt like I could do anything. I have said so many things I wish I could take back. I have done so much I wish I could undo. But the times I took a deep breath and wasn’t afraid of failing were times I wish I had more of. Confidence is built with success, but you can’t succeed without failing. Courage is going after something you believe in even if it might fail.
I took so many chances this semester and I don’t regret any. I failed so many time I don’t care if I fail again. At the beginning of the semester I wrote that I wanted to became more confident and now looking back I see how much my confidence has grown. My confidence grow the more chances I took and the more times I failed. I was never confident in what I was saying because I was to scared what others would think. Why pretend to be confident when you can be truly confident with who you are? You can care about people and care a little about what they think but don’t let them define who you are. Don’t give up, take a deep breath and go for it. It will be the best thing you have ever done. Be confident, be courageous, and don’t be afraid to make a mistake.
Big City Dreamer 