Six Hacks That Help Me Stay Confident In Every Situation

My cousin sister has come of age, and rishtas have started pouring in.

Rishta basically means, ‘relationship’. In the Indian context of arranged marriages, it is a proposal of marriage put forward by one family, to another family that matches their background in terms of caste, religion, ethnicity and social status. In India, the family decides who the life partner of their son/daughter is going to be, as it is believed that marriage is not just the union of two people, but that of two families.

Coming back to the story, one such prospect of a groom had come to visit the house of my cousin sister. After the elder echelons of the two families had talked among themselves, the girl was presented to the family of the potential groom. In the traditional wear of suit-salwar, and covering the head with a dupatta (a kind of long scarf), my sister approached a throng of men in the drawing room, their solemn eyes scrutinizing her in minute detail — her walk, her gaze, and most importantly, her face. She was asked to sit, and then asked a few questions by the elder stock of the family. Timidly, she answered, as if a knife were impinged on her neck. Then, the boy and the girl were sent to a separate room, to discuss things out in private as per their wish.

Photo by Mahdi Bafande on Unsplash

Later on, she described how skittish the whole affair had been. She could feel her heart palpating against the chest wall, and her voice chickened out exactly when it was required to present itself. “It was so scary”, she commented.

This whole ordeal let me into thinking how people embark on a voyage of worry for no real reason. Sure, the event was a big deal and her whole life rested upon the decision. But how difficult could it be to present yourself the way you are? Certainly, nobody would want to leave an impression much higher and refined than what they usually emanate, and risk being measured against it for their whole life? Then, why the hesitation?

Wasting no time, I shall quickly mention some points which have always helped me stay confident in the face of anxiety-provoking events.

1. I’m Only Human After All: Rag’n’Bone Man dropped pearls of truth in his deep, baritone voice. Everybody is a human, and by that reason, everybody is bound by the same fundamental principles of psychology that govern every behavior. There has been no man on earth who hasn’t experienced shame, embarrassment, and anxiety. They are all part of the paraphernalia of emotions deeply embedded in the fabric of our lives. You see the interviewer out there? He too picks his nose when alone, when nobody is judging him. And your crush? She too takes a dump every morning (and picks her nose, if that makes you comfortable).

Photo by tabitha turner on Unsplash

My point is, every one is prone to the faux pas. The real beauty lies in the humanness of your character, and not some robotic, Mr. Perfect personality. People relate more with you when they notice you have the same quirks as them. Similarity drives bonding. The idea is to impress others by who you are, and not by who you want others to think you are.

2. Cross That Bridge When You Come To It: Or shall I say, don’t cross a bridge till you come to it. This idiom is a metaphor for the most obvious and cliched advice you keep on finding on the internet. But as they say, “it has become cliche for a reason”, because, it is the truth. Your worries don’t change anything. When your hunter-gatherer ancestors worried in the wild, it helped them avoid being a dinner to the tiger. Today, the response only gives you useless anxiety.
Your worry won’t impress the interviewer into selecting you for the job. The moment they say, “Please calm down. You want water?”, no matter how reassuring it seems, your interview is over then and there. Nobody wants a nervous wreck. Instead, I learnt to nip the anxiety in the bud, and ask myself “Will my worry change anything?” Everytime the answer would be a ‘No’. And then, I would put into action what I had been reading on the internet for all these years. Confidence is the baby of Fearlessness.

3. Make A Difference: No matter how many times you recall the above two points, it won’t come from within until you make the first cut. You don’t need to jump through hoops or crack a mountain, however. Refusing to snooze the alarm and running one extra mile will have a similar effect. When you achieve something, no matter how small, it instills confidence. It tells you “Hey! you can do it. Everything will be under control”.

I once attended a talk by an Indian paralympic athlete Deepa Malik, who narrated how she dealt with the blows that life bestowed on her. A disease in her spinal cord had rendered her unable to walk, and hold faeces and urine. “When you plan things to overcome your situation, your stress levels go down”, she said, while describing how she fixed her time-table, her washroom-visits etc. to deal with her condition.

Every big journey starts with one single step. When you put in efforts and they bring results, the serotonin rush is off the roof. There is no feeling better than that, not even sex. That’s what keeps the nerdy scientists within the laboratory walls for lifetime.

Growing up, I wasn’t a scholar. Just an average kid who studied till it was sufficient to pass the exam, and spent the rest of his time in playing video games. The day I achieved third position in a state-level painting competition, I never looked back. That one small leap led to even greater climbs, subsequently. The wooden trophy painted in shiny gold was one hell of a booster for a kid who was never recognized until then. I went on grabbing more such awards, scored the highest in my class XII boards, cracked the medical entrance, and got selected into Armed Forces Medical College — the envy of every medico in India — with rank 1.

Measuring progress is a great way to keep the spirits high. If the body-builders had not the ability to visually affirm their gains and to measure the girth of their biceps and quads, there would remain no joy in lifting the iron.

Little things go a long way.

4. Nobody Is Going To Remember You: Everything fades away with time. This is what I recall whenever I feel dejected. Hundred years henceforth, people won’t talk about you, except one or two incidents modified by chinese whispers. One more generation later, you would just be a name in the directory. This is the most likely fate of 99.99% of humans walking on the Earth. Not everybody becomes Shakespeare or Alexander The Great.
Thinking on these lines, nobody would remember your faults too. The embarrassing memory of that one incident, which makes you wince and speak loudly to mask the shame, gets consolidated in your mind only. Because none of the other are bothered to recall it that often. Perhaps they don’t even remember it.

Living the way we are, the human civilization may not even see the dawn of the next century. Anxiety, then, becomes meaningless when we think about it. The key is to get all your guns blazing and set upon the task, because, even if you miss the shots, nothing in the world changes, and nobody remembers for long.

5. Rise Above The Visuals: Social media is the great liar. That girl with the hourglass-body has an eating disorder. She throws up whatever she eats. She is smart enough to hide the fact, and her followers are naive enough to believe in what they see.

That guy with muscles bulging like a ploughed field, has testosterone pumped up within. His heart may seem to have a strength of a bull, but it has a life of an octopus. It stops working soon, owing to the damage caused by the anabolic steroids. Such deaths in young body-builders are not uncommon, and are hard to digest by the common public who fail to reason how a fitness freak could sustain a cardiac arrest like that. Do not set ideals based on what you see on the screen. The whole set up is rigged. You would be surprised to know what the right camera angle and lightning can do to your bland pics.

I refuse to set my goals according to what I see. Pragmatism is a much needed quality.

6. Don’t Be The Smallest Fish: When we surround ourselves only with the giants, inferiority complex is bound to seep in. Instead, when there are even smaller fishes around to be beheld, confidence stays intact. Though, it is necessary to hang out with the ones you would like to stand on the level with, it is also important not to forget how far you have come. There’s always someone better than you. But that doesn’t mean you dive into a chasm of despair everytime you find one.

I have a limited social circle, but I interact with 80% people who are better off than me (in order to learn from them), 10% people who are on the same pedestal as me (mostly, my friends and colleagues), and the rest 10% people who are doing worse than me (keeps me confident). As amusing as it may seem, a little bit of complacency is essential for the recipe of self-confidence. A tiny amount of spice is what adds life to your dish.

I hope this article adds some value to your life, and helps you radiate such an aura of confidence that it enlightens every other person in the room. I hope you always remain optimistic, no matter what. Positivity is an attractive trait. It begets confidence, and vice versa. Also, remember that nothing worth having comes easy.

“The hard is what makes it great.”

— Tom Hanks, in ‘A League Of Their Own’

Rise and shine. Step out, and win the world.

The Unknown Doctor