Please stand up

Lately, one of Reading's cousins has been hanging her head.

Not because the 2021 holidays are all over. In her senior year, she failed to get the admission ticket of BaoYan, and she perked up her spirit to embark on the road of job hunting, but she was repeatedly frustrated in the interview field of the gods fighting.

She said to me, sister, I'm really useless. I have been studying hard for four years, and I have done a lot of student work and participated in many volunteer activities, but in the end, no school or company is willing to take me in.

Pictured: "Escape is shameful but useful"

For an instant, Reading felt that such a mood was familiar.

The words "I'm so useless" lingered like a spell on top of my head and many people around me.

We fall in love with self-blame, learn to please, and are more accustomed to avoiding because we feel useless to others and to the world.

But in fact, our value is not determined by these numbers, or by others.

Perfect people do not exist in themselves, we all have our own advantages and disadvantages, and people who love us will never abandon us because of the existence of these shortcomings.

For the sake of herself, for the sake of my cousin, and for the sake of the millions of people who are constantly denying themselves, Reading decided to discuss this matter.

Of course, the first thing to emphasize when reading is that self-confidence is not the more the better, and conceit will even be more dangerous.

But if your brain also often emits the exclamation of "I am so useless", then, I hope that today's article will make you look at yourself correctly and stand up!

Photo: The Princess Diaries

Why don't we believe in ourselves anymore?

Maybe we think that confidence comes from strength. What reason do people who grow up to be at the top of their careers, or are born good-looking, or have a great skill, are not confident?

However, after getting along with them, you will find that there are many people who are "chased and fed by God" and feel that they are full of bugs.

Psychologist Justin Krueger found in his research that when faced with difficult tasks, people often feel inferior to others when measuring their performance.

However, he also points out an important fact — people know they can't do it, but they don't know what other people are capable of. That is, we feel inferior to others and often lack tangible evidence.

As a result of all this, even people with sufficient ability will feel that they are not worthy of their name because of such self-denial tendencies.

Pictured: "Husband suffers from depression"

There are many reasons for not being confident, and everyone who has grown up in a different family, has been exposed to different people, and has experienced different things can cause a person to lack confidence in himself.

But we can still find some common reasons in a lot of people who are not confident.

For example, we always strive under the gaze of others to adapt ourselves to the invisible "yardstick" from society.

When I was a child, this yardstick was called "achievement"; when I grew up, it became wealth, beauty, figure, and so on. People who grow up like this can easily feel that they are below the average score.

In modern society, the popularity of social media has sprinkled another handful of salt on the wound.

To make matters worse, most of the photos we see have protagonists with young, beautiful, and healthy bodies, and they dispose of all imperfections with retouching software.

—Don Moore, "Confidence is the Answer to All Questions"

It is as if each of us is a mirror that is not very honest, only willing to show all our beauty to others, but at the same time we see the brilliance of others.

In such an illusory comparison, it is increasingly easy for us to fall into the obsession that we are indiscriminately charged in this world.

The feeling of not being confident, really sucks

Reading also found an interesting phenomenon. Some people deliberately put themselves in a state of insecurity, as if they are "addicted" to it.

The reason is that when Reading advised a friend to stop comparing with his peers, he said after a moment of silence, "I deliberately compare myself with others, and only when I feel that I am inferior to others can I be forced to work hard." ”

As Nietzsche once said, "Whoever kills me will make me stronger." ”

So what if it really "kills" us?

You can recall how many scars have been drawn on you without self-confidence.

When something hasn't even started, do you worry that you're going to fail, and even imagine yourself failing?

When there is a little difference in the things you are responsible for, even if it is the result of multiple links, will you feel that it is all your fault, and you have made the whole world collapse?

When you want to meet a new person, seize a new opportunity, and express your new ideas, will you turn to the corner after a moment of hesitation, because you are afraid that you will be hated by others?

Do these moments feel terrible?

What's even more frightening is that it's not just these little "moments" that are bad, but the long dormancy of our lives.

Don Moore calls "lack of confidence" a "quicksand trap." We can't extricate ourselves from it and will sink to the ground unconsciously.

In this way, we do not believe that we can do a good job, so we want to withdraw, which leads to real failure, which confirms our illusory "failure hypothesis" at the beginning.

In this way, we will continue to construct in our minds the imagination that we are being denied by others, so we are always pleasing others, but we never know how to get the affirmation of others, and at the same time do not know why others deny themselves.

The vicious circle of insecurity thus intensifies, developing into a high degree of inferiority, which then evolves into a mental crisis until we are slowly "killed" by it.

Picture: "Supermarket Sleepless"

Can I still be confident?

In "Confidence is the Answer to All Questions", Moore mainly tells decision-makers how to adjust the "confidence value" from the perspective of entrepreneurship and financial management.

But in fact, in all aspects of life, we can use these strategies to find real self-confidence.

The first step we have to do is to be "clear" – to think carefully about whether your judgment of yourself is biased.

In this regard, psychologist Frederick Fangger introduced a practical method in his 2016 monograph "Healing Wounded Confidence" - try to record every "I am useless" moment with "situation", "emotion" and "thought".

For example:

Situation: Something went wrong in the work you were involved in;

Emotions: nervousness, anxiety, sadness, fear;

Thoughts: It's all my fault, I'm really useless to the company; my boss is disappointed and may fire me.

When written down in this way, we may find ourselves somewhat ridiculous, neither supported by actual evidence nor necessarily connected to the situation.

Through this "clarity", we can see that the uneasiness of "I am useless" often comes from our imagination, so that we can re-examine the authenticity of our self-evaluation.

Pictured: Son of a Monster

In addition, we can also try to consider other people's points of view.

Imagine how someone you know who respects and supports you would describe you, and do they really keep denying you? Try talking to people you trust and remembering what they say may shake your mind about yourself.

Here, Don Moore gives a little trick – when other people are more optimistic about something than you, you can make a bet with them and hedge some risk.

Next time, when you don't think a project you're responsible for will be successfully completed, but your friend thinks it can, then invite your friend to place a bet on his optimism. If the project is successful, then you will be more than happy to invite him to a meal. And even if you do fail, at least get some spiritual comfort by winning a friend.

Photo: Forrest Gump

Finally, and most importantly, you have to believe that you can be confident.

Believe in yourself, believe in the truth. In many cases, you can only believe the truth if you overcome your fears.

Of course, for people who are not confident, learning to believe in themselves requires a long process and also requires considerable effort. But it's a goal worth striving for.

Many people are teaching us how to improve our self-confidence, often in order to achieve better career development, build better relationships, and thus build a better family and society.

Of course, these are very important topics, but in addition, there may be a more basic purpose for improving self-confidence, that is, confident people are likely to accept themselves, allow themselves to be imperfect, and allow themselves to make mistakes.

When you give yourself this "permission", you will find that your life is far stronger and broader than you think.

As Goethe said, "Once you trust yourself, you know how to live." ”

Seeing the people here, may you have the courage to give yourself this permission and trust.