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INCREASING YOUR COMPETENCE levels helps you to deal with more and to do it in a much more relaxed manner. You have the potential but you may not have worked out how to get further than you are with your given choices in life. If you want to become more confident, there’s nothing to stop you learning. For example, if you find that someone is more confident than you in the workplace, ask them how they achieve that and never be closed to learning. You can also learn from using others as an example. Often we find that role models really do give us ideas and we try to emulate them.
If you have the potential to take classes in something that you want to get better at, then go for it. It may be that you want to learn how to be more confident when it comes to public speaking. There are classes in all kinds of things that can help you to gain more confidence in the workplace and if you are offered a chance to take courses to improve your career, stop being afraid of failure and go for it! You have more to lose by not trying and although your fear has always held you back in the past, you may find that an open attitude will get you a lot further than your stick in the mud attitude of not wanting to learn. There’s no excuse in the world. When you go to any kind of class, you will be mixing with all kinds of people who are also trying to improve their lot in life. This means that there’s every possibility there are others who have confidence problems. Try to use these lessons to build your confidence and if you have a great teacher, they are able to impart knowledge and make you really want to excel in your chosen craft.
If you want something of a less academic level, try to enroll in yoga classes because these are wonderful for self-esteem and confidence. What they teach you is mind body control and if you pick a good teacher, you will learn in no time and be able to see the purpose of your life much more clearly. When I started yoga, I must admit that I didn’t really take it seriously. I thought that the moves were impossible. I laughed at the idea of meditating and thinking of nothing but at that stage I was like you. I lacked confidence in my own ability and fought new things because I was afraid of failure. When I started to see that there were others like me who were looking for answers and seemed to be finding them with yoga, I began to take it much more seriously. It slowed down my heart rate. It made me more flexible and more important than all of that, it made me get to know myself and my own limitations so that I worked within parameters that I was happy with. I got to know who I was morally and liked who I found. This self-discovery is so essential when you are trying to gain confidence.
You also learn to do meditation which is extremely good for you because it allows you to see answers to all of your problems with more clarity. If you don’t know how to do something, ask a class mate or ask the teacher. The more I found out, the better I became at it and yoga is a wonderful way to gain a sense of balance between mind and body that gives you a real sense of confidence. You are taught the importance of posture and the before and after photographs that I took of myself showed that I was learning how to hold myself in a way where my body language didn’t let me down. I didn’t slouch any more. I held my head up and was greeted by people in a totally different way because of it. When you approach relationships and your body language is negative, expect to get negative responses. When you do yoga you learn the importance of all of the chakras or energy centers throughout the body and respect their need for fluidity.
I think that most people I know that kept to yoga actually excelled both in their personal lives and in their home lives because they came over as being much more genuine people than they seemed to be before they started doing yoga. In fact, “doing” yoga is a bit of a bad description. You don’t do it, you live it. There’s a huge difference between simply going to classes and actually taking it into your life.
I hope that the chapters within this book have enthused you and that you will try out the different ideas to help you to gain confidence. It is within your capabilities. It is very possible and very likely that you will see changes in the way that you approach your life if you take up these ideas and allow them to become part of the life that you are living.
