Self Confidence deficit leads to life skills teachings

                                                   

Self Confidence deficit leads to Life skills teachings

Mornings are the time when I have a Buddha awakening about what should be my next blog, next video or next post. So, here is what I thought today: I spend days and hours in content creation for my soft skills presentations, but realized that CONFIDENCE BUILDING is the root of everything. Our body image and self-image constitutes to our self-esteem and self-confidence thereafter.

Self-belief is formed at impressionable age

I want you to try and remember your childhood. During the impressionable age,  do you recall your aunt or uncle said something that had affected your self-esteem. Something as generic as showing disbelief in your potential. For instance, “you are not good enough”, “tum kitne mote ho or choti ho, kaise ladka milega”, “an average achiever” etc. I can go on & on to give you the right phrase, but that’s beside the point. The point is, we all strive to add educational qualifications,  soft skills, creative learning, health and fitness. But everything, literally everything we do is to cover that shattered confidence during childhood.

80’s and 90’s Generation 

I am addressing to the generation 25 years to 40 years here. Didn’t we had some brainy, know it all type uncle in our extended family, who never hesitated to give demeaning remarks. For example “your son studies a lot but can never score above 85%”, “your son or daughter isn’t engineer material”, etc. The parents fed on such remarks to create an argument with their children, saying “dekho so and so uncle ko bhi aisa lagta hai ki tum padh nahin rahe ho”. Only a few fighter and survivor type personalities took it as a kickass motivation but the rest of them were bait to such confidence shattering remarks. Not only they have taken the possibility of one achieving their dream, they have also tarnished your confidence to chase future endeavors.

William James theory of Self confidence

It is inevitable to mention William James theory of self-confidence. How we feel or believe about ourselves (our self-belief) defies how well we actually perform (our success). This entails every life skill that we wish to acquire is based on self-belief deficit from our impressionable age. Supposedly, a person wishes to take interview skills training, with a professional trainer, if he doesn’t possess self-belief he can’t perform despite the training he got. This analogy works pretty well as an initial understanding for the parents. One must have confidence and acceptability for new learnings

Childhood is dependent on validations and affirmations

Now don’t you wonder that why are you, the way you are? You started to slog and acquire more and more degrees. May be you thought punishing yourself will get you results or prove that brainy uncle wrong…did it help? Don’t answer that yet, first read with an open mind. As a child we all are vulnerable and look up to grown-ups for validation or affirmations. We believe that what they are saying is correct, coming out of experience. Right from the stage when a child is told “you are good, “you are wrong” he gets affirmations by his family. This creates our self-belief and ultimately self-esteem and self-confidence.

Building self-confidence in children

Let’s rewind the scenario, what if “our parents disregarded such statements about their children there and then”, “what if children were told don’t worry son I know how hard you are working and whatever you choose to do with your life, it will make us happy”. How do you think it would have impacted the children minds? As parents our job is to make our children believe in endless achievable possibilities and not telling them that “you are not good enough”. Parents mustn’t tame their children, rather inspire them. The results will be surprising, ultimately it is the confidence that will enable them to learn perseverance.

A confident child is emotionally intelligent child

Parents might want to argue, a little discipline is no harm’s way, creating pressure/ warned environment will act as good stress, enabling them to perform better. I won’t argue parenting methods but let me state this: A confident child needs no insight on life skills, emotional intelligence or pep talk. He is confident enough to catch or dodge lemons of tough life, they won’t even budge. Children with self-belief can do this all because they believe in themselves, they have high self-esteem. Their confidence won’t stop them in pursuing their goals even if it involves initial failure. Parents are training their children to perform for known challenges only, but a confident child can survive an unknown challenges.

Simple tip to inbuilt confidence among children

Last year during my virtual personality development workshop for children, I gained this insight that children living with their supportive parents or grandparents were non hesitant and confident in the sessions in comparison to children who were. This happens because over ambitious parents critically analyze their child’s performance however grandparents nurture and appreciate child’s performance no matter how it is. May be we should imbibe this trait and cherish our children’s glorious days.