Trifecta

1. Hello World

Magazines, movie stars, moms, and students claim to have discovered the key to unlocking all hopes and dreams in life: self-confidence. Does this simple solution sound too good to be true? Or, on the other extreme, is it too impossible to pursue?

Self-confidence has become one of the most popular buzzwords in modern society, thanks to how frequently it comes up in interviews, articles, and advice columns. Cosmopolitan, Shape, Sports Illustrated, and almost every other publication tout confidence as the secret to capturing a man, losing that extra weight, achieving success, and basically getting everything you could possibly want out of life, but they stop there, forgetting to share with their audience exactly how to emulate it in their own lives.

Self-confidence has almost become a specific “X-factor” that people are either born with, or discover accidentally somewhere along the way. Because of this, we now have a fabulous abstract idea, with guaranteed positive results, but no idea how to make it a tangible reality in our own lives.

I am a student at student at the University of Southern California, where I am majoring in Broadcast Journalism. Through this discussion, I hope to find a way to share with students (and the rest of us) how to win confidence, and, by doing so, develop positive character traits and pursue life goals.

As a spokesperson for Character Counts! in high school, I showed organizations the need for character education in school systems. I strongly believe that positive character traits, such as honesty and responsibility and perseverance, are crucial to the development and success of children and young adults. While I was traveling and installing these programs, though, I asked thousands of students about their opinion on the matter. I discovered that the root of the problem is not necessarily a lack of morality, or even positive role models, but a lack of sincere self-confidence.

In my opinion, if a child has confidence in himself or herself, he or she will be able to stand strong in their convictions. Confident children will not be afraid to resist peer pressure or to prevent bullying, and they will be more likely to be leaders. They will want to make goals because they are confident in their abilities, and their independence will help them achieve those goals. The media has already instilled a positive connotation with the word “confidence” in society, but I want to take it a step further.

I hope to first sort out the contradictions of confidence in society, help define the term in an “easy-to-understand” way, discuss its challenges, and, finally, to confirm its results.

I believe that if students find a way to be confident in themselves and their abilities, then many of the magazines’ enormous promises can be possible. Not only will they hopefully grow as leaders and upstanding citizens in the community, but they will start achieving high goals, whether those goals are to get in shape or to get into college, because they believe in their ability to do so.

2. Profile Post

Confidence carries a lot of weight in today’s culture. Many people attribute success, positive character traits, and happiness to having confidence in yourself and your abilities. While searching Google blogs for an applicable site, I found a great post that not only speaks on the importance of self-confidence, but also gives a few easy ways to help a person develop it.

The Web site, called “Great Content Pages,” organizes different blogs into categories and most recent posts, which makes it easy to find posts on any topic. An anonymous blogger posted an article under the “personal development” section called “The Importance of Self Confidence” that shared many of my opinions. Since it was the first post (that happened to be uploaded only nine hours ago), no one has responded, but I liked it the most out of all the blogs I read.

In all honesty, the author gives no information about himself or herself in the article, but, since I have a wild imagination, I am going to infer a few things on my own. The blogger seems to be an emphatic communicator because he or she uses definitive statements such as “confidence is not just another asset. In today’s world, self confidence is a basis of your survival.”

I also find a very optimistic outlook in the way the author writes because he or she consistently hints that everyone can be successful if they learn to be confident. According to the blogger, “even a single self-confident person can change the attitudes of everyone in a room. Sometimes it seems as if the world itself decided to help such man. A confident person attracts friendships, but commands respect, too.”
Considering this is the first post, I hope to see several follow-ups in this site, especially more thought-provoking posts. Some of the statements, such as “your self confidence forms the basis of everything else in your world,” made me look a little differently at the way I view confidence.

I have always thought that a person’s worldview, or religion, defines the way the person makes decisions and constructs opinions, but this blog makes a good point. It says that if a person has high self-confidence, he or she will find a way to hold himself or herself together and will stand for something.

Basically, this blog believes that confidence causes a person to form opinions and ultimately to make decisions simply because it prevents them from being spineless.
I think this post would be interesting for anyone to read because everyone has goals in life, even if they are little, short-term goals. Its charismatic language helps illustrate the power of confidence in a really inspiring way.

“Self confidence gets all the attention. This in turn brings acceptance love, peace and energy. The energy makes you a good worker and even better human. And this, in turn, causes your confidence to grow even more. Get to this upward spiral and watch how you entire life changes!” (That definitely makes me want some confidence!)

I can tell by reading the article that the writer is confident in his or her own opinions, which is something I find attractive about the blog. He or she does not apologize for the direct statements, but rather backs those statements up with familiar adages. (“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”…etc)

On the other hand, I did feel like the author hastily posted the article and was a little scatter-brained in the way he or she wrote it. It appears to be more of a journal entry of thoughts rather than a scholarly article. (But, then again, I might be the only one who wants to be scholarly about self-confidence!) It just bothers me that there are several grammatical errors that could easily have been fixed.

My favorite part of the post is that the author attempts to tell readers how to gain confidence. It says that “self confidence is neither genetic nor hereditary. Confidence has to be gained or learned, improved or practiced. It won’t come to you al by itself, but you can easily rise it in your self.” I’d like my blog to have a level of practicality comparable to the “Great Content Pages” site.

Last, but not least, the post left me feeling hopeful because it gave me enough detailed opinions. I want my readers to have that same sense of self-worth and optimism when they read what I have to say about confidence, character, and goal-setting.

3. Open Post

Before we begin this quest for confidence, we must first understand exactly what confidence is…and, of course, what it is not. Some people, namely cynics, misconstrue the meaning of the word, leaving them unable to understand its potential.

Princeton defines the term as the “belief in yourself and your abilities.” I like this definition the most because it divides self-confidence into bite-sized pieces: belief in who you are as a person and belief in what you can do.

The first part of being confident is believing in yourself. Your background, faith, family, friends, education, morals, values, dreams and all the other parts of your life that are important to you make you who you are - a special (and unique) person with limitless possibilities.

Knowing that there is no one else in this entire world like you should help you realize how fabulous you are! If that doesn’t help, think of three things that you like about yourself as a person. Are you a leader? Do you enjoy serving people? Are you a role model for somebody special?
Sometimes when I feel the worst about myself, I list a few things I like about me because I know, since there isn’t anyone else like me, I can’t compare myself to anyone else.

My roommate practices this all the time. Whenever someone pokes fun at her she always says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about; I am the definition of cool. I am the only me in the world, and that’s all that matters.” (We laugh, but we’re all secretly jealous of her attitude.)

The second part of being confident is believing in your abilities. Whether or not you admit it to other people, you know that there are specific things you do well…or least do better than most. These talents are important, so be proud of them! You have something to contribute to the world, and that’s a really cool thing.

So here’s the second part of the exercise. Once you’ve pumped yourself up with three things you like about you the person, start thinking of your gifts. Do you sing like an angel? How about that photographic memory? Or are you forgetting about your fabulous fashion sense?

By the way, it doesn’t matter how dumb your gift feels! I have a friend who can fit her whole fist into her mouth, which I know that doesn’t seem like much, but whenever I’m down, just watching her do that silly trick makes me laugh- every time.

(If all else fails… fake it ‘til you make it! If you keep pretending to be the most attractive, intelligent, confident person in the room, then everyone else will believe you- and, pretty soon, you will believe yourself.)

Now that we know what confidence is, let’s discuss what confidence is not. Never confuse self-confidence with cockiness. Remember how self-confidence is “believing in yourself and your abilities?” Well, Princeton defines cockiness as “overly self-confident or self-assertive” (key word being overly).

Fun fact: the term cocky originated with the cockatoo because when you train them you have to keep their cages at eye level. If you place their cages too high, they look down on you, and, believe it or not, these birds start to think they are more important!

To boil this down to plain English, confident people appreciate themselves and their potential, cocky people think they are better than everyone else. Confident people don’t compare themselves to anyone else…which is precisely what makes them confident in the first place.