Self-Confidence - have a go...just like you used to

RocheMartin defines Emotional Intelligence by a set of 10 competencies and this is one in a series of blogs covering each one: Why develop Self-Confidence and what is it exactly?

Why develop Self-Confidence?

RocheMartin (experts in measuring and developing emotional intelligence) put it nicely:

Self-Confidence is the most important factor in determining how you think, feel and behave. Your level of self-confidence largely determines what you make happen in life.

I think of Self-Confidence as that beautiful feeling when you just feel sure. You know that whatever happens, you’ll be ok, you'll handle it, you'll cope. Even if things don’t go to plan.

...and that means you have a go...just like you used to as a child.

As a child, when you decided to take control of feeding yourself, you probably missed your mouth a lot. Ending up with food in your ear, up your nose, on the floor - mostly anywhere other than in your mouth.

• You weren't hampered by feeling unconfident about your ability to feed yourself.

• You didn’t stop having a go just because you didn’t succeed the first, second…or 50th time.

• You didn’t stop having a go because you thought you’d

• look stupid

• be judged badly

• be rejected

• You didn’t stop having a go because you didn’t think you were enough in some way.

You just had another go...and how liberating is that?!

The difference then was that you were in blissful ignorance of any potential negative consequences or feedback from others or yourself!

...and it's that awareness that starts to erode confidence over time.