I was having a conversation with someone today about confidence, and they were asking me essentially what allows me to be confident in most situations. Now like most people I don’t enjoy appearing over confident, or conceited in any way. However unlike most people, I’m extremely confident in almost everything I do. In general, I feel like I can do just about anything I want to at any time (an incredibly conceited sounding sentence)…. but when you break it down, is feeling like you can do anything bad? If you stop to think about it for a few minutes, its really not bad at all. I’m not sure where this confidence comes from (surely growing up as a white male I’ve naturally absorbed this view through all the subtle and not so subtle advantages society has given me). But still, there are plenty of other white males I know that don’t feel confident in doing many activities (most) activities…..
Now one big thing I should mention is that if I don’t understand something or don’t feel like I know enough about something I want to do then I have no problem admitting that or asking for help, even in a very public way like in a meeting or in a group of people (having the confidence to admit you don’t know is such an important part of life, it really frees you up to be yourself). I really am not 100% sure why I’m confident with most activities though, I’ve been that way as long as I can remember. I’d love to figure it out though (preferably before I have kids so I can help try to instill good confidence in them). If I were to guess right now in this moment I’d say:
-playing sports/competing against other people. This has contributed a great deal to my confidence over the years (I’ve touched on benefits of contacts sports before)
-great/confident parents. Both of my parents are very assertive and handle themselves very confidently
-being born a male (this has to be on there unfortunately, I think in so many ways being born a male makes it easier to be confident, although hopefully this can continue to change/evolve in a positive direction)
-taking self defense/karate classes + sparring/fighting people regularly. This is a huge one, possible the biggest one in my mind right now. Having a game plan to defend yourself and your loved ones is a very comforting feeling. Never feeling “afraid”, simply thinking “oh yea I would do xyz” is a very re-assuring feeling.
-supportive friends. This is a real wild card, I’ve had excellent friends growing up though. Some of this was due to my good choices, dropping friends who were questionable and keeping good people around me. But there has also been some great luck in this department….
-good role models (my hockey coach growing up, my kempo instructor now, some of my dads’s close friends + my parents, my sisters ect…)
I’m sure there are many more reasons (probably thousands) but someday I’d like to hopefully come up with what I feel are the biggest/most influential reasons so I can hopefully pass that onto younger people in my family (aka Harv and any other little ones that we may have)