How My Low Self-Confidence Drove Me To My Greatest Potential
When life gives you lemons, plant the seeds and grow a damn lemon farm!
When I was 13 years old, at my school’s freshman orientation camp, I overheard a group of guys discussing who to team up with for the games organised for us. They scanned the room, looked straight at me, laughed and said:
Let’s not team up with her, she’s too fat and ugly. There’s no way we will win the games with her in it!
It hurt. A lot. It took a huge blow to my confidence levels and self-esteem. There were many similar occasions in the years thereafter. These events, accompanied with other experiences of personal failure, snowballed into a huge bubble of self-doubt.
Fortunately, I’m surrounded by wonderful individuals today who truly believe in me and would never put me down. Here comes the bigger problem… Whenever a new challenge pops up, the voice inside my head keeps saying:
I don’t think I can do this.
And this voice is strong.
The Missing Word
It took me a whole lot of effort to get out of that negative mindset. But I realised I was only missing one word:
I don’t think I can do this now.
See what this does? Previously, I eliminated the possibility of success completely. However, with just one more word, I made space and gave myself time to figure out how I want to achieve the goal. This one word turned a pessimistic statement into one with potential.
The same concept was conveyed in Jessica Wildfire’s article where she wrote:
Negative thoughts are just incomplete thoughts.
I invested my time into drilling this concept into the core of my beliefs so that I would truly understand and apply it to whatever challenges I faced in life. This changed everything for me.
Infinite Potential
You’re alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you can change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you’re dead, it’s gone. Over. You’ve made what you’ve made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished. — Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
With this change in mindset, I started doing things I thought were impossible for me to do and I slowly got better at them.
I learnt how to code, figured out abstract technical concepts and learnt how to be financially independent. The initial lack of confidence in these areas definitely triggered a little sense of panic, and this feeling, in turn, spurred me to keep pushing my limits to discover my potential.
Here’s the takeaway:
Be aware of your weaknesses and use them to your advantage.
It’s okay to be bad at something. It’s okay to be imperfect. We all start somewhere. We just need to know where our starting points are and be aware of our weaknesses. Doing so allows us to focus on exactly how we want to grow as a person and what actions we need to take to make that growth happen. Remember, human potential is limitless!
Thank you for reading this short story. I hope it helps to provide some motivation for those who have faced similar challenges. Cheers to better days ahead!
