Before I go on to talk about what I have learnt about self-confidence, I thought I would share a bit about the experiences that started me on the journey towards being able to call myself a giraffe.
I was always quiet throughout my childhood, however, it wasn’t until the first two years of secondary school that this and my lack of self-confidence really started to bother me. During those two years, when faced with talking to anyone who was not one of my best friends or a family member, even if it was just to say hi, I would freeze up and struggle to say a word. Yes, I had a few loyal friends and I was never really bullied apart from the odd unhelpful comment from those who didn’t appreciate my quietness but what made me come upset from school pretty much every day was the fact that I did not know what the rest of my life would look like if I did not do anything about this.
I very much felt like a baby giraffe as it felt like a whole new experience of learning how to interact with people. Looking back, I regretfully mistook what being ‘confident’ actually meant and pushed myself too hard by putting an unhealthy amount of pressure on myself to talk to a certain number of people every day because I really didn’t want to go back to the way I was and I was trying to act in ways that would make me seem less boring and weak. I eventually came to the realisation that I was always going to be the ‘quiet one’ no matter how much I didn’t like that at times and the actions that I took to prove otherwise but towards the end of school, I was starting to feel that my lack of confidence was not going to be as much of a barrier anymore. I often wish that I had had that realisation earlier so that I could have got more out of my school years apart from my academic achievements.
I was fairly steadily growing in my giraffeness apart from the odd dip now and again until within the last year where I have experienced a lot more social anxiety and my confidence felt a lot more up and down than ever before. I have found that it wasn’t due to anything that anyone said or did to me but that pressure that was coming back from when I was at school and being around a lot of talented and extraordinary people which caused me to worry more that I didn’t have anything interesting to say, what to say and what other people were thinking about me. I was also often surprised when someone had a nice thing to say about me perhaps because until fairly recently, I often thought I didn’t make much of an impact as a quiet person.
Fortunately, the worst of that has passed now and on the whole, I am back on a high and I have found ways to deal with those hard times and I look forward to sharing these with you in future posts.
Again, if you have any thoughts/feedback based on anything I have said, feel free to get in touch with me.
Until next time
Kathryn