Tap your Potentials to gain confidence
“I believe fervently in our species and have no patience with the current fashion of running down with the human being as a useful part of nature. On the contrary, we are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life.”
- Lewis Thomas, M.D.
People succeed because they reject to concentrate on their limitations, but instead decide to concentrate on their strengths and on their capacities. Therefore, one of the steps for building self-confidence is to: Concentrate On Your Strengths Rather Than On Your Weaknesses.
In this book I do not like to offer the type of Pollyanna advice or support the kind of thoughtless ideas that one hears from lots of inspirational speakers. They often inform us that we are magnificent, that our opportunities are infinite, and that if we only believe in ourselves we can achieve anything. We are not magnificent in every way, we do not function without some restrictions, and simply believing ourselves as all-powerful will not make ourselves so. When we say to our children that they can achieve anything they desire, we sometimes destroy their self-confidence instead of increasing it, because when their wishes do not come true, they think that there is something wrong with them. It is harsh to tell a tone-deaf boy that he can become a great tenor, or a girl with a below-average IQ that she can become a doctor.
However it is not unrealistic to tell our children that God created them and thus they are very important, that within them lay unused and powerful resources, that they are far more potentially than they are really. The positive thoughts are for the most part correct: we do carry within us the opportunity of changing the world by changing our viewpoints, and they are right to talk of the unbelievable capability of the human being. In the last book Einstein wrote, he criticized the fact that only a small part of his potentials had been used. And Admiral Byrd, who was the first person to fly over the North and South Poles, once said: “Few people come anywhere near exhausting the resources within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.”
The Inner Filter
However, if God has actually created humans with such beauty and honor, what holds so many people from using their capacities? It is often because we become obsessed with our imperfections instead of viewing at the entire picture. A beautiful girl is getting ready to go out on a date. It happens that she has a pimple on her face this week. Does she see all the good traits that would make most objective spectators (such as her date) to look at her and say that she is pretty? No, she notices only the pimple. And if the guy she goes out with tries to praise her, she tends to take it as simple flattery, or worse, as a lie.
One of the oddest things I notice is that people who doubt themselves frequently cannot accept praises or accolades. One would assume that if people have low self-confidence, they would be willing to accept great compliments. But if it is the other way around: if their self-perception is off and they hate the way they are, they will not be talked out of that self-view, regardless of what people try to say. When someone criticizes, they hear every single word, but praises drift over them.
Here is the way it goes. We seem to have an internal filter that accepts only selected information in. You hear only the compliments that fit to your belief system. For example, you believe the following things about yourself:
• I’m pretty good at math.
• I’m poor at sports.
• My IQ is about average.
• I see myself as fat and pimply.
• I’ve got a beautiful face but a terrible figure.
When new information comes towards you, it is run through this filter. If it conforms what you believe you are, then the filter allows it in. If someone says: “You’re very good at Geometry,” that’s allowed in, and you acknowledge the person for the remark, since the compliment fits to your view of yourself (I’m pretty good at math). However if someone says: “You’re sure looking nice and trim,” that is screened out, since your internal picture is of someone with a terrible figure.
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