Who we are and how we view ourselves and the world all begins from the moment of birth and this includes developing self-confidence. Yes, everything about us has its foundation in childhood.
In fact it’s believed that at the moment of birth there is no need for developing self confidence because we’re totally confident in ourselves and the world around us.
We have no reason to fear, mistrust or not believe in ourselves. It’s only through our negative encounters within the environment that surrounds us after birth that we tend to lose our confidence and begin to mistrust the world.
Our first encounters determine whether we will view life as a great adventure or misadventure. This is the stage by which we learn that living is a mixture of things that we understand or don’t understand… that we fear or don’t fear… that we believe we can accomplish or not accomplish.
This is also the phase of life where we become accustomed to the systems of living and the innate possibilities that we face including the complexities and the simplicities of it all. Everything about us and our view of the world with us in it stems from childhood.
Like most people, you have probably noticed that young children aren’t fearful of most things. They have no fear of touching something hot even when warned by caring adults until they find out for themselves by touching something hot. And once they have experienced several of these kinds of things they develop fear and caution.
Many of these fears and mistrusts are necessary to survive and help to keep us safe. But many of the ones children pick up along the way aren’t based on reality and begin to prevent them from moving forward and accomplishing great things with the talents they possess.
When this occurs the confidence of the child gets damaged or even shattered and prevents them from even trying new things. That’s when the lack of confidence becomes a tragedy and the need for developing self confidence comes into play.
So, our fears and mistrusts in ourselves and the world were developed through these negative encounters of childhood. But prior to that was our own innate self-confidence.
People would say that you were confident as a child only because you knew nothing of being hurt or of becoming a failure and therefore it wasn’t true confidence to begin with. That’s a possibility but this still doesn’t negate the fact that we all have an innate confidence that was somehow lost during our misadventures with life.
So, if that sense of confidence is actually buried somewhere inside each and everyone of us, then the possibility exists for us to regain it by developing self confidence once again. This is a starting point for each of us and it provides hope and encouragement to us all. For if we had it once at our very beginning of life, developing self confidence now must be there for the taking and well within our reach.