Today is Monday, so this post is on self confidence.
As I’ve mentioned previously, fear is the enemy of self confidence. Fear of failure is the most common self confidence destroyer. However, fear of success can also hinder self confidence. Marianne Williamson is very eloquent on this topic.
Read on...
Our Deepest Fear Marianne Williamson
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
I like what Ms. Williamson has to say. She is very affirming. She tells us to be proud of our successes, to bask in the light of our achievements. When I was growing up in the 1950’s, anytime I bragged a little about something I had accomplished, an adult was sure to say “self praise stinks”. After a while, I learned to keep my accomplishments to myself.
I don’t think this is a phenomenon of just the 50’s, and of what adults tell children. When I enrolled as a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the fall of 1980, I was 30 years old. I had successfully completed an undergraduate degree and had earned an MA while I was working full time. I had a spent a successful year as a VISTA Volunteer, and I had been successful in couple of jobs. I was pretty confident that I was going to succeed at Harvard.
However, a funny thing happened at the beginning of my time there. During orientation week and for the first few weeks of class, both the faculty and staff would say “everyone here things that he or she was an admission department error”. I was dumbfounded the first time I heard that. What a bizarre thing for educators to say. Saying that we felt as if we were admissions mistakes, implied that we were – and that we were doomed to fail. As I heard it over and over, I started to get mad. When I discussed it with a few of my student colleagues, I found that about half of them actually believed that they were an admission department mistake. The other half felt like me.
I confronted it one day in class. One of the faculty members who used the admissions error comment more than any other, said it again. I raised my hand and said, “I don’t feel like an admissions mistake. I know that several other people here don’t either. Besides that, I think that the admissions process is pretty rigorous and doesn’t make a lot of – if any – mistakes. I think we are all well qualified to be here.”
You can imagine the silence and tension that engulfed the room. The old cliché, “you could hear a pin drop” doesn’t even come close to describing it. My comment didn’t endear me to the instructor, but I did have few people offer to buy me a beer after class.
I bring up these stories from my childhood and early days at Harvard to point out how difficult it can be to feeling as if you are “meant to shine”. There are forces out there that undermine our self confidence. These forces try -- often unwittingly -- to instill a fear of success in us.
Here’s the common sense news folks: it’s OK to succeed -- and to believe that you will succeed. To paraphrase Ms. Williamson, let your light shine. Help others to let their lights shine too. Don’t be afraid to succeed. You’ll be surprised at how much you accomplish.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense. Check out my other blog: www.CommonSenseGuy.com for common sense advice on leading people and running a small business.
I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS: Speaking of Alex’s Lemonade Stand – my fundraising page is still open. Please go to www.FirstGiving.com/TheCommonSenseGuy to read Alex’s inspiring story and to donate if you can.
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