Confidence in confidence?

Recently I was reading the book “Nice Guys Can Win” by Wesley Harris. (The book can still be purchased online) It is one of my many self-help/motivational books! There was a short chapter which I really wanted to blog. So here is a slightly summarized version just for you…

It is said that in a battle between the imagination and the will, imagination is likely to come off best. To illustrate, if a plank of wood was placed on the ground most of us could probably walk along it without difficulty. We can imagine ourselves doing it easily. But if that same piece of wood were placed between two high rise buildings, the thought of walking along the plank would then be enough to scare us stiff. We would picture ourselves losing our balance and falling. Although we might summon our courage and our nervousness could easily cause us to fall and fulfil our worse fears.
We are unlikely to be walking planks anyway, but there is a principle here which may apply to many other things we might want to do. Instead of summoning up our courage and saying ‘I will be successful’ we should relax and say ‘I can do this thing’ then picture ourselves doing so. We should reverse the words, ‘Can I?’ and say ‘I can!’
Henry Ford once said: ‘If you believe you can do a thing or if you believe you cannot – you are right’.
In the musical ‘The Sound of Music’ there is a song which speaks of ‘having confidence in confidence’. But in the real world confidence needs some support and there are three things which help to provide this.

Willa Frayser: www.willafrayserstudio.com

First there is competence. Sometimes competence without confidence may not be sufficient, but confidence without competence could be disastrous. Just imagine putting yourself into the hands of a person who fancied himself as a surgeon though had no real experience. We would run a mile!
If we want to feel confident then we had better make sure that in our chosen field we know what we are talking about.
So, confidence may be based on experience. One of the advantages of getting older is often when faced with life’s difficulties, it is possible to recall similar problems in the past and how they were solved. Experience may be dearly brought but it is invaluable. We can learn a lot by talking with others who have been there and done that before us. If they are willing to share their hard won experience they are confidence builders that are worth their weight in gold! In fact one way of being a winner in this world is to help others to win and pass on knowledge and experience to those who follow.
Confidence may also be based on faith and many have found a tremendous boost of confidence through personal faith.
Winner must maintain confidence in themselves but self-doubt attacks us at all times. We wonder if we can really make a difference in our situation. The short answer is that we can, and we should!