Recovering from a Self-Confidence Crisis
By: Jill Mazza, MABC, CPC
Self-confidence is a necessary life skill. The best thing about self-confidence is that it is always there for us to step into when we need it. Self-confidence is not pompousness, narcissism, or unrealistic self-inflation. Authentic self-confidence is grounded and balanced by humility.
Being truly self-confident is a challenging choice. Maintaining self-confidence is even more difficult. It is common to find ourselves in the throes of a self-confidence crisis when we are faced with demanding and unpleasant situations that test our character, patience, and perseverance. We experience a self-confidence crisis when we get knocked off balance emotionally and fall away from confidence. Subsequently, we weaken our position within specific relationship dynamics or circumstances.
Things do not always work out exactly as we planned or wanted them to happen. Business deals fall through, personal relationships end. People fail to keep agreements or to meet the expectations we set for them. We fail to meet the expectations we set for ourselves. The situation simply does not look like we wanted it to look. We feel deeply disappointed, let down, disrespected, insulted, devalued, embarrassed, ashamed, and victimized. Our self-confidence plummets as we begin to question our self-worth and why this is happening to us. Negative self-talk and self-defeating emotional habits kick in. We feel angry, hurt, and sorry for ourselves. This is a self-confidence crisis – at the root of which is fear – that little voice saying, “I’m not good enough.”
Regaining Your Balance
There is nothing right or wrong about having a self-confidence crisis. Your crisis is happening for some reason. You are off-balance in some way. You require some mental and emotional strength training. You may need to learn a valuable lesson in the present moment so that you can be better prepared to deal with a similar situation or relationship dynamic in the future. You may need a self-confidence reality check. Are you grounded and positioning yourself powerfully and productively? Are you overly self-confident and misrepresenting the depth of your own abilities and accomplishments? Whatever your particular circumstance, your success lies in how gracefully you can regain your emotional balance and how powerfully you can step forward again into your authentic self-confidence. And, only you know what is truly authentic for you.
Regaining emotional balance during a self-confidence crisis is challenging. Just like strength training and physical balancing exercises, balancing emotions and maintaining self-confidence take time, dedication, and practice. We need to actively and consistently work on building our mental and emotional muscles so that we are healthy, happy, and productive from the inside out.
© 2012 Jill Mazza. All Rights Reserved.