The three levels of Confidence | My story

Confidence is the ineluctable desire of any human. Confidence is walking down the hall and not giving a damn about what people see in you and how they judge you. A person’s level of confidence is not driven by what other people think of the him, it’s affected by his own judgments about him or when his judgments about him is highly dependent on the judgments of others. 

Why to give that liberty to anyone, why to let any other person decide your level of confidence.

We know that this entire concept  has three levels, namely;

1. Over-confidence
2. Confidence
3. Under confidence or lack of confidence.

 People have gone through each of the three levels and so have I. Here are three instances of my life that display the three levels of confidence.

Over Confidence

It was summer of 2009; I went to a resort with my family for vacation. It was a beautiful hill view resort with a prodigious garden area, a beguiling dinner hall, swimming pool, lush luxurious greenery, chic interior, everything was just heavenly.

It was around seven in the evening when we reached there, so we directly went to our rooms got freshen up and went straight to the beautiful dinner hall. The food was delectable and satisfying and on our way back I saw the swimming pool area which had two different swimming pools, one was 6 ft deep and the other was 3 ft which was the baby swimming pool. I got so excited as that was my first time seeing a swimming pool which I had seen only on screen before. And therefore, even at the age of 14 I didn’t know how to swim. However, just a week before I had watched a reality television show where the contestants had to do a task  inside the swimming pool  and about 40 % of the contestants were non swimmers but still they did the task and this fact was embedded distinctly in my mind. What I missed was the life jackets that they wore, the guards around the water and the scene when each contestant made jump in the water they were quickly tied to the guards inside the water.

So next morning around six we all went to the swimming pool and I was ready to make my enthusiastic jump in the swimming pool, so confident and in the most stylish way I stepped inside the swimming area and my father asked me in an even stylish way to go in the baby swimming pool first. I was so bummed about it, I went inside the baby swimming pool but it didn’t have much water for me to swim in like a fish as I had imagined. I looked at my family in the grownups pool and yelled let me be there and hence I was given the chance to be there. I got in slowly and there was the time for me to beat the swimming skills of every fish in the world. I lift up my legs and as I stretched my arms  wide to use them as fish fins, I started drowning to my surprise my legs were up and my face inside the water struggling to get out of  it and the amount of pressure water had on me was very disturbing. I couldn’t hear a thing inside, I was wondering why isn’t anyone helping me  and then  my father pulled me out of water. I was in my senses I didn’t  get unconscious but that was terrifying. When I saw the video recording of that moment which was accidentally left “on” I realized it was just 12 seconds of me battling for life in water due to my overconfidence but it really felt much more than that.

That day I realized how menacing Over Confidence can be.

Confidence

It was the final semester of my college and I had to represent my team on stage. It was a big presentation as we were informed the head of the tourist department was going to judge the various presentations that day and we were going to get marks out of 50 based on our project and presentation.

A month before, the teams were given the topic  and the minute we got the topic I turned to my team members and told them we have to be the best of all teams, there is no way we were going to be the second best.  However out of the 10 members in our team only two of us were serious about the project.

Others were pretty sure that there will be a generalized marking scheme and no team will be awarded any less than 40 marks out of 50 as informed by the seniors.

 I was quite determined so I decided to prepare the ppt and give the presentation alone and the other determined member of my team decided to work hard on the entire written work of the project.

I went to college each day, then office and after coming back home I used to dedicate the time on the project. I made the entire ppt and I was proud about my work however I never found the time to stand in front of the mirror and practice my presentation because of the hectic schedule.

All I knew was I had put my heart on this project and I remembered enough because of the numerous research while preparing the ppt. I woke up on the day of the presentation and went to the college . 

Right before our turn my laptop stopped working.My team member’s heart sank and so did mine because the set up that day in the auditorium had made it clear to everyone that this wasn’t an ordinary presentation. Head of our Department, our Principal, Tourist department judges and entire commerce department were there.I calmed myself and remembered that I had shared my project with other working teammate on email. We quickly asked for a laptop from one of our friends who was in a different team and downloaded it. We all felt relieved and then came my turn to give the presentation, I walked to the podium without a fear or hesitation, nervousness or lack of confidence these terms didn’t struck my mind even for once maybe I believed my work more than anything that day not only I completed my presentation but every other person in the room applauded after my presentation. Also, the head of the forest department called me and said," good work".

When you work on something not necessarily hard and you believe it to be good and portray the same to the world, I guess, that day you will impart confidence effortlessly.

Lack of confidence

 

Okay this incident is so lame to confess.

A few months ago I was asked to represent a brand in an MBA college during an event. So my work basically was to go on stage and tell all about this brand.

The day before, I talked to the managers of that brand and learnt all about it and two other girls were selected to represent the brand.

On the day my main focus was looking presentable and my speech. The moment I entered the college I somehow got so intimated by the crowd and got worried about what will they think about the brand once I narrate all about it. I was quite alert about every move I made while I was there and my mind was captivated by how my performance was going to be. The biggest mistake was that I was judging myself that day constantly through the eyes of a bunch of strangers who probably weren’t judging me at all. Validation from others is the ultimate murderer of confidence.

The brand name was called and we had to go on stage to tell about the brand. I went up there and for a second I looked at the entire crowd and judged myself really bad. However, I gathered myself together and gave my speech. Even though I said the entire speech I didn’t feel very good delivery the speech and the disappointment on my face was evident.

When I came back home I ponder upon every little detail of the day and why was I so unfair to myself. I concluded no matter where I reach in life if I try to look for validation from others to feel good about myself I will be disappointed and lack confidence undoubtedly.