Here you will learn Boost Self Confidence, Confidence Self Help, Improve Self Confidence
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83.
Let it be said here, without attempt to moralize, that wrongdoing
will contribute its share to self-consciousness. It may be an injury done
another, an unfair advantage in business, or a secret habit; but whatever it be,
its mark is seared upon the conscience, and sooner or later finds expression in
embarrassment. What should one do who comes under this classification? Repair
the injury, stop every undesirable habit, and resolve hereafter to deal justly
with all men.
Constantly hold in your mind a high estimate of yourself, but be sure you have
reasons for doing so. It is of little use to say you are well if you are ill. Do
not deceive yourself. You are no greater than the sum of your thoughts and
habits. Have you good and sufficient reasons for your self-approbation. Are you
a man of noble impulses? Is your ambition lofty? Have you high ideals and do
you work persistently to realize them? Are you doing the best you can? Have you
an uncompromising love for truth?
A business man recently wrote to a teacher, saying: "I lose control and become
embarrassed when I speak even to my own employees, and can not keep a straight
face at any time when meeting strangers. I feel embarrassed, turn red in the
face, and otherwise feel uncomfortable when talking to a single individual. If
I were called upon to address an audience, I believe I should drop dead." This
is an illustration of the extremes to which self-consciousness may carry its
victim. The mind is a prolific field for the growth of all kinds of thought. If
false and negative ideas are allowed to take root, they, like weeds of an
ordinary field, spread with wonderful rapidity, and may easily discourage and
overwhelm the owner. The man to whom we have referred has long neglected his
mental field and now finds himself in a bad way. The remedy for him, and for
others so situated, is patiently to root out every obnoxious habit and to
substitute strong, healthy, positive thoughts in its place. He must at first be
content with small victories, since he has permitted his mental field and garden
to be overrun with these objectionable thought habits, but he can comfort
himself with the assurance that in this way he can and will attain success.
Timid people concern themselves too much about what others will think and say.
They are constantly studying the impression they are making upon people who
probably are not even thinking of them. Their super sensitiveness causes them to
imagine themselves being criticized, slighted, and unfairly condemned by those
who all the while are absorbed in their own affairs.
A man may be on the road to success when a single act of timidity may annul all
his chances. People lose confidence in him if he lacks faith in himself. Courage
is admired, fear never is. Courage is dignified, fear is repulsive. The man of
courage is welcomed everywhere, while fear invites itself to a seat in the rear.
The following incident actually occurred in a second-hand bookshop. The
salesman had been talking for some time to a customer, when another man who had
selected a book for himself mustered up enough courage to say: "Don't let me
interrupt you, sir, if you are busy with that gentlemanI wanted to getthis
book--but I can just as well call in on my way back--I would have to trouble you
anyway--to change--a five-dollar bill--and perhaps--you haven't--the change-so
I'll come back--in a little while--don't trouble, sir--and then I'll have the
right change with me."
This sounds exaggerated, but it can be vouched for. What chance, think you, has
such a man as that for advancement or distinction in the world? He is foredoomed
to failure unless he changes his entire mental attitude.
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