Chapter 7

The Confidence Key

Stand up for what you believe in, even when it means you are standing alone. —Nira, age 16

The first two sections of this book dealt with exploring your dreams, establishing goals, and building connections. Next, it’s time to focus on developing a healthy and positive outlook on life, as well as the habits needed to complete the journey toward your unique self. And it all starts with developing a healthy confidence in your abilities, one that is realistic and positively oriented.

As you read over the next scenario, think about your own sense of confidence and begin to listen to the messages you give yourself regarding your abilities. That little voice inside has a lot more influence on your performance than you may realize.

What Would You Do?

You have always been a strong athlete. Whether it’s soccer or softball, you excel in sports and you always have. So it’s no surprise that you made the varsity soccer team as a freshman. There’s only one problem—your grades are horrible. As much as you excel in sports, you struggle in class. And now your grades endanger your ability to play competitive sports at school. Your mom has offered to get a tutor, but the idea of spending more time working on your studies, something you hate, is enough to make you physically ill.

What do you do? Give up your position on the team? Try the tutor and see if it will work? Just try harder on your own? Give up completely? Pretend the problem will go away and just stay focused on playing soccer?

Take a moment and write down what you would do to deal with this difficult situation.

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The Gratitude Connection

Developing confidence in your abilities starts with an optimistic point of view. But sometimes developing a positive outlook is difficult. Maybe you are dealing with some very difficult things in your life. There may be health or economic issues that you have to deal with every day. Or maybe there are issues of abuse and neglect. Sometimes your problems feel serious even though they are really just the smaller day-to-day difficulties of growing up, like girl drama and dating problems.

Whatever obstacles you face, these hard times can eat away at your confidence little by little until you find yourself struggling to believe anything positive about yourself. When this happens, staying the course on the journey inward is the last thing you’ll be thinking about. These are the times when giving up sure seems a lot easier, when conforming to the masses and losing yourself may seem like attractive choices.

But giving in to what’s hard and letting go of your dreams completely is never a good idea in the long run.

Fortunately, there are a few small things you can do that will boost your confidence and help you refocus your attention to the positive aspects of your life.

Maya Angelou, one of the most inspirational writers of the 20th century, speaks often of gratitude. In her writings, she links gratitude and a positive attitude to building an internal confidence and developing the strength to push through the hard times. And I couldn’t agree more. Optimism and confidence go hand in hand, and both are enhanced through the development of a grateful heart.

Being grateful is a tricky thing at times, especially when it feels like the world is conspiring against you. This is when a gratitude journal can make all the difference.

Have you ever noticed that once you start focusing on bad things, all you see are bad things? And when you focus on the positive, you feel better and your confidence soars? The same is true with gratitude. If you focus on what is lacking in your life, all you see, all you feel, is that lack. But, if you make a shift and begin to focus on what you have, you open your heart and mind to embracing a more confident point of view.

Developing mindful gratitude, as I call it, requires a daily commitment to seeking and acknowledging what you are grateful for. This can include little things like being grateful for your kitten’s soft fur that feels so nice when you stroke her back, as well as bigger things like being thankful for your mom who worked all day, came home and made a healthy dinner, and still managed to find time to curl your hair for the Homecoming dance. What you are grateful for is not important. Finding things to be grateful for every day—that’s the focus.

Take a moment and start your own gratitude journal. Make a goal to find five things every day that you are sincerely thankful for. As you begin to deliberately seek out the positive, your mind will reward you with increased confidence and a more positive outlook.

Developing a positive perspective will be discussed again later in the book. For now, thinking about the things you’re grateful for is the ideal first step toward developing the confidence necessary to pursue your dreams, even when it is hard (and trust me, there are times when it will be very hard!).

The Girl Guide Activity #11

My Gratitude Journal

Directions: Follow the steps below to create your own gratitude journal.

1.  Make a special section in your journal for your gratitude journal.

2.  Every night before bed, write 5–10 things you are thankful for. These don’t have to be big things. They can be as simple as being thankful that it didn’t rain. Anything, really.

3.  Do this every night until you’ve developed the habit of looking for things that bring out your grateful heart.

Confidence and Pride

Have you ever met those people who are always confident about every single thing in life? They never seem to doubt themselves or get worried, even when it seems like they should be. Being confident in your abilities is important. But being realistic is also important. The trick is learning to take a positive outlook that’s rooted in what’s true and real for you.

As you start learning to discern between authentic confidence and false pride, it’s important to understand the difference between the two. Confidence is defined as having the belief that you can accomplish what you set out to do. It means that you have a fervent belief in your ability to prosper in certain roles and perform at a high level.

Pride is a similar construct and, in this case, means having respect for your own accomplishments or a high level of esteem regarding your performance. Pride and confidence are two sides of a coin, really. Confidence is the feeling before the task, whereas pride is the feeling after. Pride can increase confidence for future tasks, which canresult in stronger pride. And so on and so on.

But both confidence and pride can be misguided, driven by the illusion of competence and success. Such overconfidence and false pride can have disastrous results. Take, for example, the girl who has extreme confidence in her abilities to sing. In her mind, she is certain to be the next American Idol. Every time she sings in front of the mirror, her vision of herself grows, as does her pride, until she is certain she is the best thing to ever happen to music.

Until she tries out for a singing competition.

Having had no training and no performance experience, her opinions may not be the most accurate in terms of her talent compared to global talent within the field of song. But she doesn’t have this perspective. She can’t. Her opinion is skewed, based on her limited experiences. She goes to the audition and is mortified when she not only doesn’t make it into the competition, but her peers are less than complimentary about her abilities. Thrown into internal chaos, she decides to quit singing all together, despite how happy it made her feel.

This is a horrible situation. But one that can be avoided with a little guidance.

The truth of her situation is that her confidence and pride, although good and a source of strength, were somewhat misguided. They were not rooted in the truth of her situation. And when she experienced a lack of success, the false pride and confidence ultimately failed.

So what could she have done?

First, she could broaden her experiences so as to better judge her strengthens and weaknesses. Second, she should stop dealing in absolutes. Much of the time, false pride is developed as a byproduct of black-and-white thinking, or absolutes. The girl in the story thought she was “the best” at singing, failing to recognize that such statements are inherently false. There are always people who are better than we imagine. No one is ever the best, really.

So instead of dealing in absolutes, it’s important to develop a true sense of confidence and pride, firmly rooted in an accurate reflection of your own strengths and accomplishments.

I hate it when people say “great job” when I haven’t done anything. It feels fake. But, tell me why I’ve done a good job on something and yes … I love hearing that! —MacKenzie, age 14

In the previous section, you developed a gratitude journal that will help you remember to focus on the positive. Now, you will use that positive outlook to begin to acknowledge your strengths and accomplishments. Start a new journal section in which to track your accomplishments, no matter how small. Try to find three things every day that you accomplished that you can be proud of. As with the gratitude journal, these can be small accomplishments, like making your bed without being told, or bigger ones, like striking out a batter during softball practice. The important thing is to begin to cultivate the habit of acknowledging your successes.

The Girl Guide Activity #12

My Accomplishments Journal

Directions: Use the steps that follow to recognize all of your accomplishments in life.

1.  Similar to the gratitude journal, set up a special section in your journal in which you highlight your accomplishments.

2.  Every day, find at least one thing you accomplished. It could be something small, like doing your chores without being told, or bigger, like making the swim team.

3.  Decorate the pages with positive words, and be your own best cheerleader.

Now that you have begun to both cultivate a positive attitude and acknowledge your true successes, it’s time to use your accomplishments to propel you toward your dreams. The first step is seeing the connection between your accomplishments and the skills needed to excel in those areas. Later, I will show you how to use those skills in areas you struggle with. But first, create a bank of your skills. This bank will help you overcome some of the hurdles you may face on the journey inward.

The Girl Guide

Worksheet #10: Skills Bank

Directions: Using the accomplishment journal you’ve created, write down different accomplishments and what part of your life they relate to (domain). Then figure out what skills you needed and used in order to achieve your accomplishments.

Accomplishment Domain Skills needed
Got a good grade on my math test

School

– Organizational skills

– Math skills

– Memory skills

– Dedication and commitment




   



   



   



   



   



   



   

Note to Self: Just Be You

Stay strong! Don’t let all those people who don’t understand you make you change who you are. It’ll take a long time to recover if you lose yourself now. Don’t compare yourself to others. Listen to the people who build you up, not those who tear you apart. Keep an honest perspective on yourself and keep growing. Keep learning.

Keep expanding who you are and what you are capable of doing. You can do anything you put your mind to, but remember to give yourself a break when things don’t go exactly as planned. Find your dream and live it! —Rev. Mona Chicks

Throughout this chapter, you learned about maintaining a positive attitude and developing confidence. You also learned the difference between real confidence and false pride. As we move into the next chapter and look at overcoming life’s difficulties, I want you to reflect on your own confidence and the things that lead to false pride, as well as low confidence, for you.

My Voice

Keeping in mind the authentic you inside, answer the following:

images  What are some areas where you tend to have little confidence? What can you do to raise your confidence in these areas?

images  What are some areas where you tend to be overconfident? (Maybe these are areas where you typically excel.) Is it wrong to be overly confident? Why or why not?

images  What is the connection between a positive attitude and confidence in yourself?