I want to talk with you today about a serious subject that is often taken too lightly. I want to talk about self confidence and personal empowerment. You know with this being a blog about Combatives and Scientific Fighting some would ask why are you talking about self confidence and what does this have to do with Combatives. The answer is simple...it has everything.Now i'm aware that around a year ago i posted an article called The Thin Veil of Empowerment.
I don't want people to take that out of context. That article was about the dangers of teaching women's self defense with just muscular techniques and leaving out the most important part which is education. Empowerment and self confidence is paramount and important to us all. It affects every facet of our lives. It affects our families,friends,business contacts,and how we deal with issues. Today I want to give you some examples of what low self confidence destroys and what you can do about it and maybe fix a few other life problems and throw in some education on other things too.
Bad Choices and the quest for validation(aka why do women date shitty guys and pass on good ones)
This is an easy answer believe it or not. It's all about validation. It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like we all got something about us we don't like. When we let that thing control us we become consumed with proving to ourselves that it isn't there. Tell me how redundant this scenario has become. You see a good girl dating this guy. He may be a good looking guy or very successful but he treats his girlfriend like crap. Maybe he talks to her ugly in front of people or takes her for granted privately. Maybe he cheats on her but for what ever reason she's not being treated right. Oh but she's steadfast and sticks with him. Why? Here comes the broken record. I know he's bad but he swears he can change for me. Heard it right? On the inside it's more like if i can get him to change just for me then it will prove my own self worth to myself because i was good enough to get him to change. Well there's several issues there. The first one being he's never gonna change. As long as she takes that shit he will continue to treat her that way. In the end when he doesn't change she will feel even worse and her confidence will fall even lower which leads to more mistakes.So why does she pass on good guys? Because she can already have them and it won't prove anything to her. It's all about confidence and self esteem and without it lives can be destroyed. The problem with this whole thing is that true strength comes from within. No one can give you self esteem you can only give it to yourself. It doesn't directly matter who she dates. This is a problem only you can fix and no one can fix it for you even if they wanted to do so. Until self worth is gained this cycle will constantly repeat itself in your life. I will give ideas on how to deal with this later in the article but the short term answer is if your partner isn't treating you right then dump that ass like a hot brick and find one that will. On a side note this is also why men chase women they know they can't get. This is not just a problem that women have men do the same things.
Resignation and Career Destruction
Now I run my own business. If i didn't want to talk to people I'd be bankrupt in about a week. When your marketing yourself your going to get told no alot. Your gonna have more doors slammed in your face than you will ever have opened. Success takes tenacity and tenacity and low self confidence will not work together. A person with ambition will look at a closed door and either kick it open(which I've been known to do) or say screw it there's another door over there anyway(which I've also done). You know it's really a constant struggle. I suffered from low self esteem for many years and even took medication for it but nothing worked until i took responsibility for it myself. I've been the introvert and I know how it feels. You get rejected so much that you get used to it. You even get comfortable with it to the point that when you do have some success you don't know how to deal with it so subconsciously you sabotage yourself to get back to the bad things your comfortable with I've been there and done it. Don't resign yourself to a life not worth living you've got to be strong to fight for what you want. There's been times i felt down and didn't want to talk to anyone over the years so in those times i'd force myself to get out and talk to people anyway. I'd go to a restaurant for example and sit at the end of the bar and talk to servers just to be doing it or talk to other patrons. When your at your lowest is when you have to fight the hardest. It is a battle you can win but you have to commit to it. Without defeating this you will get passed over for jobs. You will not bid on jobs you maybe could've gotten. You won't dump a crappy job to move on to a better one out of fear. Even outside of work you'll stay in a bad relationship because your afraid no one else will want you. This is another example of how low self confidence can destroy a life. Don't resign yourself to a life that is less than you deserve.
Dating Problems
Once again as i mentioned earlier we all have things about us that we don't like but we can't let them control us. Everyone gets rejected at some point it's going to happen. People with low self confidence tend to obsess over fear of rejection. You know years ago when I was in college and had a professor that said something really odd in class one day. At the time i thought it was kinda jacked up but when i thought about it later it made perfect sense. He was talking about ego for some unknown reason. I say unknown reason because it was an electronics class. He said people with big egos aren't the problems it's the people with small egos. He said a big ego was a good thing. Then came the part that made sense. He said people with small egos flip out if that ego gets chipped because they don't have that much anyway. Little things mean alot to someone that believes they have nothing. But a person with a big ego won't care about a little chip. Now I agree with this but only in the context that he said it because having a big ego can also make you a complete asshole which isn't a good thing especially when most people are dicks(ie f$%k that guy he's an asshole). I believe it would be more accurate to replace ego with confidence in that equation then it makes even more sense. The point is who cares if you get rejected because it happens to everyone. I promise there will be someone else you'll want later. This falls right into the previous paragraph on resignation. You gotta persevere and believe that you can do this and don't let anyone or someone else's bad choice steal your happiness. Even when in a relationship low self esteem can breed mistrust and start arguments and getting back to sabotaging yourself. The responsibility is yours and yours alone. This may sound like a bad thing but it's actually a good thing. If the root of all your problems in your life are because of others your screwed you just need to pack your crap and move somewhere else. But that isn't really reality. If it's in your control then you can change it. This is just another example of how this thing can ruin a life.
Creepy Old Guys
This one for the old guy with the open shirts showing off the hairy beer gut inviting young girls to lay out on his boat. In this case using those girls to project a virility to others to boost his own lack of confidence in himself. When the fact is he probably has less semen in his balls than those girls do right now as I'm writing this article. In the end they just end up mutually using each other. Lack of confidence can tend to kick this off but it won't destroy his life, mainly it just irritates me so stop it you look like a douche.
Now I've given a few examples of how low self esteem and confidence can affect our lives in negative ways. Some of the paragraphs were serious and some dealt with the issues in more of a humorous tone but that can be good too.
So now what? The answer is personal empowerment but how do you get it if you don't have it.
Well first of all you have to want it because it isn't going to be easy but it doesn't have to cost you a dime. The main thing to kick off this journey is honesty. Without complete honesty nothing will work. You have to be able to look in the mirror and be completely honest with yourself about who you really are no matter how much it hurts. Ask yourself do you like who you are and if so then great! If not then identify the things you don't like and work on changing them into things that you do. You see you will never find a solution for a problem that you don't understand and you will never understand the problem without looking at it honestly and subjectively. Then you need to do the work by working on those things. Set goals for yourself that are attainable and use them to build. By setting small goals for yourself that you can easily meet may not sound like much but all those little things added together can turn into some very big things later. Don't be afraid to step out of the box and try something new. You'll be surprised that you can accomplish things that you never though about. I haven't always liked who i was but i worked at it over time and I'm still working but I'm alot better off than where i used to be. A few years ago i was watching a movie called "The Hunted". It was about this guy who was a tracker and he could track anything. He was rugged and looked cool and I wanted to be like that guy. I found out watching the extras that the movie was based on a real guy named Tom Brown Jr. He ran a wilderness survival and tracking school and taught these week long classes around the country. I thought wow this could really help me out these acts could be metaphors for something bigger. I saw it as a huge opportunity to better myself. The first trip I flew up to the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. I grew up in the suburbs i didn't know squat about any of that stuff but i told myself before i went that i was gonna do it no matter what even if i had to eat a bug(which i didn't). I slept in those woods for a week and learned alot about Southern Lipan Apache and survival and all that stuff. Did everything go smooth? Hell no! I got rained on one night when the tent collapsed and a few other things but that's alright. The following year I went for two weeks to the Redwood Forest in northern California. Almost lost a toe the first week to stage 1 hypothermia but made it anyway. It rained for 14 days straight. I did an exercise the second week called the blind drum stalk. I was blindfolded in the woods and stripped down to a pair of shorts barefoot in the mud. I had to listen to a drum beat a half mile away and find it through thick brush without being able to see. Did it in 21 minutes. Now do you have to do this kinda stuff. Of course not! The point is I pushed my boundaries and after that nobody can ever tell me i ain't shit because most wouldn't have the guts to even attempt it. Now you don't have to be anywhere near as drastic as I was but you can't win the game if your not in it. You have got to be honest with yourself and identify the problems and push yourself to change them. Don't slip into that resignation and give up. Because of the new confidence I found I was able to walk away from a job as a technician for canon and focus on my own company because I believe in myself and you need to believe in yourself too. We can make the world a better place one person at a time but you need to start with yourself first. We can do this together and win the battle. Low self esteem is a thief that steals everything. Don't let it rob you anymore.
You know alot of my friends don't know it but I've been a musician since I was 14. I write my own music and lyrics as well. Recently I wrote a song called "Tomorrow" The chorus goes like this:
Lately I've been thinkin about tomorrow
About the life that I've been living for
When your dreams become bigger than your memories
Yesterday don't matter anymore
If you can see it then you can be it if your willing to try hard enough. Yesterday is gone and whoever done you wrong and made you feel the way you do is gone with it. Let's look at ourselves today for who we are flaws and all and work on building a better tomorrow. One person at a time.
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