The Myth of Confidence - part 3

This article is a sequel to earlier two articles Myth of confidence -1 & 2
It is important that you read the previous two before you read the third part.
(see below)

In the first part we talked about the difference between self confidence and social confidence and how we often confuse one with another.
In the second part we talked about that "self belief" is far more important - specially because it is the starting point of building self confidence.

In this third part we question why, in spite of having self confidence, we "fail" sometimes. Is there something more fundamental, something that needs to be taken care irrespective of high or low confidence?

The scene is football world cup finals. The two teams are tied even after the extra time and the winner will now be decided on the basis of penalty shootout. Now in such a scenario - why is that one player hits the perfect penalty while the other just fails. Remember, each of these are world class players and have possibly practiced and shot penalties a thousand times. There is no dearth of ability. Beyond luck - is there something else that shakes the confidence of a player and he misses?

Let me take another scenario, lets say there is an emergency, say a fire - now all of us adults know what we need to do. Again ability is not the issue! Then why some of us panic or get frozen in our place - while others act appropriately. Before the panic situation - each one of us were equally confident of handling a fire. But when the emergency button went off - we reacted differently.

What is now obvious is that in both the above scenarios emotions are the underlying factor - the successful managed the emotions or the stress better while the unsuccessful let the pressure play on them. Which means its not just enough to develop my ability, to develop my confidence, for the best of the confidence can go down the drain, if we are not emotionally mature enough to handle it.

Now we have either experienced this ourselves or we have seen people with the best of abilities give in to emotions rather then being able to manage or regulate them. So if I were to prepare myself logically - I plan and set everything right. But one emotional stimuli, and my thinking goes haywire and my decision become impulsive, my behaviour turns counterproductive - all this while I was cool and confident about it when I started of!

The conclusion - having the ability to manage emotions is more fundamental and it directly effects our confidence. And surprisingly this ability to manage our emotions does not come by repetitive experience. So while my confidence increases on a task by repetitive exposure, learning to manage emotions is a completely different ball game which some of us never learn in a life time. No wonder some of us continue to be short tempered, or escapist or undependable or hurtful all our lives.

Hence, to me its very important that we "teach" our children to manage their emotions, to be emotionally intelligent. To me that is the base on which the child will operate through confidence.

I remember an incident that happened to an excellent speaker, whom I had high regard for. In one of his presentations, somebody made an unreasonable remark which enraged the speaker and it let to an altercation which made the matters worse and the whole event went for a toss. For that one emotional event, he let the whole gathering and his reputation suffer. All he needed was to manage the emotionally disturbing remark better - and ensured that it did not effect his confidence.

So an important aspect of education and child development is the training to manage our emotions and to bring the kind of stability required to be able to make more effective and successful decisions in life. How do we do that? Remember Emotional development starts with self awareness which leads to self regulation. While we write about each of these in future articles ~

Do join us in this Saturday's (9-sep) parenting workshop where we will together explore Emotional intelligence, self awareness, and self regulation and how do we start the child's journey in developing them. We promise this experiential workshop will lead you to practical strategies that you can use on a day to day basis to enhance your child's emotional development. (Details of the workshop and fee below)

Do email us also, your views about confidence, emotional intelligence and the above set of thoughts.
Do forward this article to friends who would benefit from the insights.

with regards,
Ratnesh & Aditi Mathur