So, what I find interesting is the difference between people who seem to have natural confidence and those that do not. Confidence often, albeit not always, seems to correlate with some history or strong anticipation of "success." Some people have this natural confidence that is not based necessarily in their actual capabilities or history. In fact their confidence likely has a large part in influencing their success--that is the success stems partially from the pure non empirical confidence, and their confidence is not necessarily a reaction from their success. If there's anything I've learned in my many (many) years in post secondary education it is pure effort that is a bigger predictor of success, than any necessarily suspected intelligence level or previous success in primary education.
Now, that isn't to say that individual capabilities don't play a role in success. In fact knowing what you naturally excel at and what you don't-- and being able to accept that-- is a big role in building confidence. If I measured success by my natural mathematical abilities or visual-spatial intelligence I would largely consider myself on the far left end of the bell curve overall. But I accept that I suck at those things--honestly I am far below average in those areas, and in a noticeable way--but in these areas I simply put in enough effort, studied twice as hard, asked for as much help as I could and I passed on average or slightly above. Pushed myself into smack into the middle of the bell of aforementioned bell curve, in other words.
But I made sure that I picked a field that played to my natural strengths--which are hard to specify but lend themselves more to qualitative fields than quantitative--calculating a t-score in statistics is my Kryptonite, but writing a 25 page persuasive paper, or being able to have natural skills at making people feel comfortable to speak about awful things from their lives, or validated in doing so are right up my alley.
I think insecure people--speaking from experience--worry that if they feel confident then they will slip up, or be unprepared for the inevitable time when life pulls the rug out from under them. That just when they feel comfortable enough to take a deep breath and think "maybe I do have it together, or maybe it will be okay" chaos will walk into their life and they will be thinking about how foolish they were that they things would be okay. Or that they actually understood the assignment.
I know anyhow this has been my thought process, as well as subsequently many of my clients. I've been of the mind, especially back in college and grad school, that I had to keep my wildly intense fear of failure intake, in order to push myself to success. Had to be so terrified I would fail that I'd try twice as hard. The problem is is that it kind of worked. My fear didn't stop me, it pushed me. Which is the good that can come from fear. If you know Michael Myers has escaped from Smith's Grove and you hear a noise downstairs as you're getting ready for bed that sense of fear can get you ready to run or to fight. You can pick up the fire poker (or uncoiled coat hanger--nice improv Laurie) to buy yourself some time to run from the Shape. Fear is a great thing to have. When it becomes terror and it freezes you instead of readying you for fight or flight that is the problem.
But what is the line? My fear didn't freeze me, and I feel it helped me with my success. But perhaps I would have succeeded without the fear? Perhaps I am wrong. Looking back I certainly could have distinguished the difference of healthy fear from catastrophizing.
Ultimately I think it's okay if you don't feel confident all the time. I think it's okay if that lack of confidence creates fear that pushes you a little more. I think it's not okay to confuse healthy fear from terror and catastrophizing. And it's imperative to note that your lack of confidence in your abilities is likely an unreliable predictor of your potential success. There's a difference between knowing you objectively struggle with something (such as math for me) and letting that guide you, and simply "feeling" like you can't do something when there is no evidence you can't. I'm not a great shining example, but I will say that nearly everything I've succeeded at I initially didn't think I would. Now I know when I simply feel overwhelmed or fear failure that that doesn't predict success. I try my best to let only objective fact and history guide me. Not to beat the example to death here, but for example I'd be terrified to go back and try to get a degree in engineering, and I'd likely actually fail. And I actually likely would because I struggle with math and visual-spatial intelligence. I'm also pretty scared at going back to school and getting my PhD in Psychology. And I might fail. No guarantees of success. But in this field I've succeeded at it all so far. That's the fact, and the difference between letting fear decide and letting fear guide.
*hops off soap box*
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