The Power of Confidence

By Lev Novak

The best people I know don’t know they’re the best.

It’s a problem in every generation, amongst everyone I know. Ego and self-esteem, for all our generation’s selfie-loving press, is still a vague quality to possess. Either someone has too much of it (Kanye) or not enough of it (People who are not Kanye.)

The problem is very few of us are Kanye West; in a recently made-up study, fewer than one in two-thousand people is Kanye West.

But maybe we should be.

It’s only natural to doubt yourself, and especially in college, when your world is so open, it can be hard to know where you rank. Comparing yourself to classmates, siblings, celebrities, people with more followers on Twitter than you, and all the rest can make it difficult to gauge your own skill level accurately.

Still, I remember vividly playing baseball in high-school. I wasn’t very good, and I was deeply aware of it. I was nervous, and I remember the trash talk of another kid- let’s call him Ari- who had profound confidence in his abilities. Ari got the starting job, and I got the bench, as I expected I would. I wasn’t unhappy with either circumstance, and we both got what we expected.

But something funny happened.

Gradually- through many games and practices- I noticed something very strange. Ari wasn’t actually very good. He’d strike out, but each time he’d seem surprised and outraged. He’d throw a ball wide and blame the first-baseman. Simply put, he was so confident in himself that mere facts couldn’t shake him from this core belief.

I’m not saying that story to mock him, but to share the admirable peace it brought him. He was happier playing the game than I was, less nervous, and, ultimately, better rewarded. Ultimately, he got better. Maybe it was practice, maybe it was the time he got from being a starter, or maybe it was the gravity of his own self-esteem, but gradually, success started following him like he kept insisting it would. When you reach a level of confidence in yourself that can’t be shaken, the world finds it easier to go along with it.

What does this mean for you? It means you should stop apologizing and second-guessing your talent. The world is going to challenge you; don’t make it easier for the world by doubting yourself before hand. Don’t self-sabotage: failure seems less scary when you prepare for it, but curb that instinct. Don’t set yourself up to fail.

Nobody really knows how good they are or aren’t, but a lot of life is about perception. If you tell yourself that you can do things, you’re more likely to be able to, if only because the inverse is equally true: if you doubt yourself, those things are harder. So today, don’t be reasonable. Be like Ari. Because when you have unshakable confidence, that leads to dedication, which leads to practice, which leads to improvement, which leads to success. And it may not be a straight-forward road, but it works.

My favorite people doubt themselves and their abilities. They don’t submit their poems, their songs, or follow through with half the challenges they set for themselves in their self doubt. Well, I’m telling you to believe in yourself. I do. You might as well, too.

Go forth, and stumble into success.

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