Saturday, May 15, 2010

How do you develop confidence?

Confidence is something you cannot fake. I see many books telling you about power dressing, power talking. Many people practising looking confident, talking confident, acting confident etc.

You see, you may be able to fool someone for a while but you cannot fool yourself.

Real confidence can only come when you have mastered yourself. When you set a goal and you achieve it. When it becomes self evident to yourself, when the evidence to yourself becomes irrefutable, that you can achieve results.

And until you know that; convice yourself that you can achieve results, your confidence will only be skin deep.

The biggest stumbling block is your feelings. Your feelings of laziness, of anger, of fear. The answer is not to deny your feelings, for you need feelings to navigate in this world. The answer is to do the right thing with courage despite your feelings. Think on this.

6 comments:

  1. Raymond,
    Success breeds confidence?

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  2. Yes but maybe not success according to others. Success on your own terms. Success based on your own personal goal and success based on your own efforts. Then no one can ever rob you of your confidence. You now know yourself better. What you can or cannot do. What you want or do not want. The answer is in the journey not the destination for as you journey you leave self doubt behind.

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  3. R,
    What I mean;
    In Chess, Winning games breeds confidence to study more, to analyse more, to preservere, to gain more info especially the latest trend/lines, until one get the GM title?

    In the 80s, Anand was in KL. He lost some of the games he played, but he was relaxed. When asked, he answered , "I try to enjoy the game and not let it (stress) get to me."
    Maybe his method worked? (of course, there are lots of ways leading to the Top)

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  4. I think I know what you mean. But here's my point. The technical part is important but look at the part where he says, " I try to enjoy the game...." Also look at what susan said in your comment to the previous article. My point is that there is a lot there too. Personally I think we have the technical knowledge already in Malaysia although it may be carefully hidden in silos. What we dont have is the emotional intelligence to use that knowledge. To become GM we need to take an immense amount of stress. Fear shuts down the thinking, anxiety makes us behave impulsively. We have yet to master that. To do that we first have to acknowledge that this aspect of the game is just as important as the technical aspect. If we are serious about results this cant be ignored.

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  5. R,
    Okay, now you are being a bit more specific. And easier to understand.
    Unlike previously, where your comments were vague, just like a Taoist priest.. :)

    ReplyDelete