The Mind of A Less Than Confident Teenager

I'm not a confident person (even if few people may disagree).

And my life consists of a routine of constant self reassurance that I am going to survive whatever the world decides to dump on me.

That said, confidence never did really come to me easily.

I am shy and I tend to talk too much to hide my discomfort.

And I know that while I talk or give speeches, I am this completely new person.

A person I want to be 24/7. 

Sadly, fate has a brain of it's own.

Any person who is less than confident of their abilities will be able to relate to this feeling.

The feeling when you know the correct answer to something and you don't open your mouth.

You are hyperventilating just before an exam starts about how you forgot everything.

You constantly doubt about yourself and whether you'll be good enough.

You send a text to someone and when they don't reply, you constantly worry if they thought of you badly.

I have a name for these type of people (me, included). 

Less than confident people...

 

They need others to have confidence in them more than themselves.

And if they ever learn that someone lost their confidence in them, it reduces their self worth even more below from where it was.

Sadly, no one knows the internal dilemma these people face. 

They do come across as being extremely needy, someone who just has to get the approval of everyone else.

What others don't realize is, for these people the approval of others matter the most.

Only if they get that do they approve of themselves.

And this is harmful, to them.

These people constantly find themselves reassuring others that the others are great, in the hope that the kind words will get reciprocated.

But it doesn't get reciprocated most of the time and this does lead them to re-evaluate themselves and the re-evaluation results are much worse than before.

For them, everything is a test. 

Everything that happens in their life is a test to find out their true qualities, their true nature, their true capabilities, a test to let them prove themselves worthy of where they are stationed in life.

Everything happens for a reason and everything they do reflects the complex nature of their hearts.

They believe in equality and recognition for hard work.

And because of their less confident nature, find themselves not recognized.

But they'll take the blame on themselves saying that they didn't work hard enough.

They just did not have the confidence.

These people dream of a day when someone will come along and look at them for them and recognize their efforts.

For them, each day is a new day to wait for that knight in shining armour. Knight being both female and male, no gender disparity there.

They constantly have a new person to get approval from, it could be a teacher, a family member, a school mate, a close friend, or anybody. 

Sometimes it can also be from someone they just met while travelling or while they went to some place.

The life of a less than confident teenager is complex.

A person who is naturally confident and has the brains, looks and self- belief can never understand the simple struggle of deciding whether what they did was right or wrong.

Self doubt forms an integral part of the life of these less than confident people. 

Less than confident teenager was just a phrase I made up.

Shy would have been the correct name, but the type of people I am talking about rarely come up as shy. 

They are confident but not confident.

They are sure yet unsure.

They are needy yet independent.

They want approval yet they don't care (or so they make you think).

They are the very essence of contradictory thoughts. 

Some might even go as far to say, they have split personality disorder.

You know in all those cartoons, say T&J (Tom and Jerry, in case you didn't know), Tom has these two mini toms coming on his shoulder now and then. 

The calm, shy one and the reckless, confident one. 

These two personalities make up the character of a less than confident person.

The calm, shy one is there most of the time but the confident one comes up in the most worst of times, thereby resulting in humiliation and thereby pushing the person back to their calm shy personality. 

Well, it's not like this is a disease or something, but it can sometimes seriously hamper your productivity.

And this is where the routine I mentioned first, comes into the picture.

Reassuring yourself everyday that you're worth it and that you're a survivor is not going to magically increase your confidence.

No, not happening.

But it will slowly make you less doubtful about yourself.

Yeah, granted you're not going to become fully confident, but hey, this is your personality.

You are maintaining your own personality, you are just ensuring that it doesn't affect you, productivity wise.

Take a few minutes everyday after you wake up to tell yourself that this day is going to be great.

That you survived the previous day, why not today too?

That you are worth it and that the decisions you took the day before are perfectly fine, not something to be ashamed of.

Convince yourself that everything that's happened in your life have made you a better person.

Granted, a week down the lane, you might not feel that much of a difference, but a month later, you will.

I tell this because I've done it, I am doing it and I'll continue to do it.

Who doesn't like to give themselves a pat on the shoulder? 

Have a great life amigos!