Your self-confidence is how you feel about yourself and is mostly shaped by your personal experiences (for example, your relationships with your parents and siblings; how you relate to peers and how you compare yourself to others).
Low self-confidence affects other areas in your life, mainly your career and your studies, in several ways:
On the other hand when you have a healthy self-image:
This starts with small, practical actions. As you get feedback about your actions, take note of those things that are positive and those things that you need to spend time developing. Spend time each day writing down things you did yesterday that you can be proud of and things you would want to do differently.
It’s time to take risks and test what you can do so that you see the results of your actions. For example, if you want information about your career, send an e-mail to your lecturer with questions and see what the response is.
As you take risks, you will notice a change in your attitude about how you view challenges and yourself. You will start realising that challenges are not linked to failure, but are there to allow you to learn and discover new things about yourself.
You need to be able to embrace failure as part of the process to succeed. Your failures do not define you as a person. Even when you fail, you do not internalise the experience that you are a failure. You learn from the experience and you try again. We want you to keep in mind your three circles (career, studies and personal life) and make sure that you use one of the circles where you have more positive experiences to influence others.
For example, in your studies, you are getting good results and you are capable. However, you feel demotivated every time you think about your family situation. Think about how the fact that you are succeeding with your studies could impact your career – could it make you hopeful that you will be able to find a good job and could then change your family’s situation in the future?
Thinking more about the things you can control (for example, your studies and how this will impact positively on your career), enables you to minimise the sense of helplessness in terms of your family situation. When you focus on things you can control, you create a positive outlook for yourself, your life and others.
Self-confidence (MP3) | A lack of self-confidence affects your career, your studies and your relationships with others. In this interview, we chat about ways you could consider building your self-confidence. This interview was originally broadcast on Unisa Radio. |
Learn more about the support services offered by the Unisa Directorate for Counselling and Career Development and how to contact a counsellor to have a conversation.
Last modified: 2023/08/10