My wife and I noticed that our oldest daughter, at an early age, was extremely shy around people she didn’t know. Not uncommon for kids. When she was at school her teachers would say that she was often softspoken. She would shrink and hide with her friends.
My daughter is not a quiet person. At home she’s as extroverted as they come. But at school she was having a hard time with being in her own voice. I could relate to this. Growing up I was usually making an effort to not be seen or recognized. Out of fear of embarrassment or possibly upsetting someone.
Fast forward to today. Our oldest daughter is 13 now, she’s the same one who struggled raising her hand or talking in front of the class. Now she’s taking the stage in her community theater performance. She’s got a supporting role and has a solo. She’s practiced hard for the last couple months. She’s excited. She nails the solo. She’s in her moment. It’s her job to perform in those few minutes and she kills it. She takes after her mom who is an incredible vocalist.
Obviously, I’m proud. After the show I see her and tell her how well she did. She smiles and says “I know I did.”
Not “It was ok”. Not “I could’ve done better.”
She owned her reality. She owned her moment. She knows she did really well.
I agreed with her. But, wasn’t she supposed to downplay her performance just a little bit? That’s what we do, right? It’s polite and doesn’t portray ourselves as arrogant.
It hit me that I’ve spent most of my life downplaying my own reality. What’s wrong with acknowledging a success? Can I do that without attaching meaning of who I am to it?
Most people are not confident in themselves. And if they say they are, they are mostly confident in what they do. Not with who they are. We undervalue ourselves. We tie in our self concept with what we do. We overvalue ourselves. We tie in our self concept with what the outcome to our efforts are.
Most of us have no idea of what we are capable of. We’ve been running on an operating system of conditioned thoughts for decades. We are firmly tied into a sense of self concept that is action and performance based. We’ve been conditioned into “human doings” different than our true nature as “human beings.”
We are so focused on what we should be doing as attached to what that doing will bring us. We’re sucked into this state of consciousness that is completely dissatisfied with the present moment and rejecting where we are. Just like the “junk DNA” theory. The perceived negatives, or setbacks, we experience aren’t worth our attention and curiosity. These shortcomings and negative aspects of self do have a purpose. They are pointers and teachers for us in our lives.
We’ve developed into a society that is looking for the next outcome. We’re trying so hard to change our lives that we can’t accept where we are. We’ve become so sensitive to criticism that we can’t seem to acknowledge our shortcomings. We’re buried in shame and guilt. We live in the past. We’re constantly trying to play catch up with the mistakes we’ve made over the years.
It’s like we’re living in a movie with us as the main character. We’re desperate to change the story line, but too caught up in the movie that we don’t realize we’re also directing narrative of our own suffering.
What is a healthy self concept or true confidence? How can we accept ourselves without judgement in the present moment? Living outside that story we’ve created for ourselves.
We can’t not have shortcomings. But when we hide those deficiencies, because we’re embarrassed or shameful, we can’t improve. We’re locked into a perpetual cycle of stagnation. Too afraid to fail, too comfortable in what we think we do well to be something new.
A true sense of confidence isn’t about ignoring our shortcomings or inflating our successes, but embracing both with equal honesty. When my daughter said “I know I did,” she wasn’t being arrogant—she was simply acknowledging her reality without shame or false modesty.
This is the balance I’m learning to strike: acknowledging my strengths without attaching my entire identity to them, recognizing my weaknesses without letting them define me.
Life isn’t about becoming perfect but stepping out of our narrative to see ourselves clearly—as works in progress worthy of both celebration and improvement. By practicing this kind of authentic self-awareness, we can begin to shift from “human doings” back to “human beings,” being in the moment, while still holding awareness of the potential of who we will become.
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