Confidence
There was something about 2020 that changed everything and no I am not talking about the deadly virus sweeping the world even though that tiny no good doer did change the world drastically. I am talking about a small scale change. I am talking about a little something known as the end of the awkward teenage years.
Frankly, I am not entirely sure if it was the start of the lockdowns, the end of secondary school or the prospect of going to university that made a change or a complex combination of all three. All I know is something changed and it is significantly different than before. I am talking about confidence. A slight change in personality and behaviour.
Let´s begin with the definition of confidence because I find it awfully hard to discuss something when I don’t even know what that something is. According to the dictionary, confidence is “a belief in your own ability to do things and be successful and the feeling that you are certain about something.”
To fully be able to understand the sudden change one needs to go back to those awkward teenage years which I was writing about and figure out if the change was sudden or actually gradual. Luckily those teenage years ended for me but sometimes looking back at it won’t hurt too much either… I hope.
Anyways I was and always have been an awkward shy person during my teenage years. Never truly stood up for myself and whatever I believed in at that time. I did have my opinions and thoughts, but I was never brave enough to share them. There was always something holding me back from being the kind of person who I wanted to be.
Whether it was my peers or my very own mind, something was always holding me back whether I liked it or not. It just felt like living a life that was not worth living. Just constantly going around without feeling truly worthy or happy.
It was not even as if my hands were tied, and I was completely powerless to change anything because I could change anything I desired I just need to make the change and my world could have changed at the tip of my fingers.
The courses I wanted to take, the experience I wanted to make, the places I wanted to go to are all accessible at my disposal and it is not even that I don’t have the resources to make it happen, I just needed to do a little convincing and a lot of arguing.
Maybe there was a part of me that was scared to go and do the things I wanted to do. Maybe I was scared of being judged for not being able to settle on one hobby but trying out everything when I was given the chance.
Maybe I was just discouraged by the prospect of being judged for simply expressing myself and being the way I am because the people who did were severely bullied for it and I, at that time, could not take any more of the bullying.
Maybe I was just a bit tired and exhausted by just simply living. At the end of each day, I was beat and maybe that is the reason why I never did anything outside of my comfort zone. As a teenager I could barely go to sleep, wake up and go through the day without feeling sleepy all day.
Maybe I never tried anything else simply because I never knew anything else. I guess, I thought I already knew everything which was a fatal mistake to make at a young age. It was not as if I didn’t have internet access when I was a teenager, I just didn´t know how to use the internet to its fullest potential and discover the things I never thought existed.
Maybe I thought that the opportunities to change my life would just come knocking at my door. I never thought that I had to be the change I wanted to see. I always thought the right opportunities would come when the time is right. I never thought I would have to chase those opportunities.
There were many things holding me back at that time and each reason was worse than the other. However, when those awkward years ended, I felt a sense of relief wash over me as if the door of opportunity opened just for me.
There were no threats of being bullied anymore. There were no peers to judge me anymore. There was no lack of knowledge limiting my opportunities anymore. There was no mind of mine that could hold me back and discourage me from simply doing the things I wanted to try.
During those teenage years, I can confidently say that I did not have a belief in my own abilities and neither did I have a feeling of certainty. This lack of confidence led to a whole bunch of missed opportunities and that is quite frankly a shame.
To be fair, I can´t say that all too much has changed since those teenage years have ended because I am still being perceived as that shy, stiff and stumbling person by many people around me. However, some others would describe me as intimidating, intended and informed. I guess, perception is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone can have a different opinion.
The point I am trying to make is that deep down I know that nothing has changed at all. I am still the old self I always was. From my point of view, I don’t see any changes whether physical or mental. Therefore, I found it awfully strange when people would suddenly feel intimidated by little shy old me.
Nevertheless, when I took a step back and thought about it as a whole, I figured that confidence is not a physical change that one can see but rather a mindset that one can control. Confidence does not come with age or experience; it comes with the right mindset and the willingness to pursue it.
Whenever I am out and about nowadays, I make sure have the right body language, expressing confidence and not intimidation. Because from a psychological standpoint having the right body language can really boost your confidence.
I make sure to walk with my head up high and a fitting stride. It would be unhelpful to have a confident mindset without the right posture to accompany it since impressions are not made by your opinions shared but rather by your images and stories perceived.
Then I make sure to have my voice heard whenever I have an opinion but since it is me I don’t have opinions I want to share. To a certain extent, I am just sick and tired of trying to explain and argue my opinion. I have my opinion, other people have theirs. I don’t need to agree with them, and they don’t have to agree with me. I am just tired of trying to convince anyone of anything because at the end of the day one can´t change anyone´s deep-rooted opinions and it is a waste of time trying.
Whenever I am not sharing anything, I try to be as observant as possible. It can really come as a huge surprise and rock my confidence if something or someone pops out of the blue and I don’t feel prepared enough to deal with that specific situation.
Nevertheless, that is just my way of feeling confident in what I do and the way I do it. Others can have a completely different way to achieve confidence. To be fair, it doesn’t quite matter as much how you get to achieve that goal of being more confident as long as you achieve it.
Since being confident in one´s own skin and what one is doing just feels great. It feels freeing as if nothing and nobody can hold oneself down anymore. It feels as if one can conquer the world if one puts their mind to it and that is a feeling everyone is entitled to and deserves to feel.
Ever since that confidence boost, I found myself being more open-minded and sharing more opinions. Being able to stand for what I believed in and stood my ground when challenged. Believing in my own abilities and feeling.
Trying out things I was always interested in trying ever since I was little and meeting the people I always wanted to meet. Getting to know the people in my immediate surrounding who I see every day. Turns out everyone has a fascinating story to tell, and it only takes a little confidence to discover them.
It just feels great to go out and about, with no one (not even yourself) knowing what you are going to do next. That makes life a little more exciting and a lot more worth living. It also makes the little girl still living inside me proud of the person I have become because I am doing all the things she always wanted to do. A chance to live out her dream of being the person she wanted to be.
Being a person everyone and yourself can count on just also make the world a tad bit nicer. Being your unapologetically bold, self-assured and daring self just makes the bland routine life I live just a little more fun.
And isn’t that what living is all about? Trying everything. Meeting everyone and being the person you wanted to be just so you can live your life to the fullest?
Recently, in preparation for writing this article, I challenged myself to explain confidence and what it entails. It did take some time to think about the definition of confidence because I felt the dictionary definition was a bit lacking, but I couldn’t think of anything better.
At first, I thought explaining confidence should be easy since I have been on both sides of the aisle by being shy and by being confident, I should be able to pinpoint exactly where the one differentiates from the other but as everything is in life, it was harder than I first anticipated but I did eventually manage.
For me, confidence is the ability to do the things one puts their mind to. The ability to walk into a room without feeling completely overwhelmed, unworthy or insecure. The ability to just be oneself or the person one wants to be without giving a crap about others' opinions. The ability to be proud of the person one is and the person one has become.
It can be that someone would completely disagree with my definition of it but to be frank, everyone´s definition of confidence is different because we all have a different way approach it and we all have different ways we go about it. There is no right or wrong.
It does not take experience, wealth or age to do the thing one wanted to do, it just takes courage.