Self-Confidence Is the Key to Success - Research Paper Example

Self-confidence is the key to success Self-confidence, as the implies, is one’s own confidence in one’s abilities. (Brown et al explained professional confidence as something that is inherently associated with self-confidence, professional identity, self-concept, self-esteem, competent clinical confidence, professional self-concept, self-efficacy, and critical thinking. In this world, people tend to downplay others, make fun of others, and criticize others for different reasons all the time. In many cases, this behavior is grounded in the personal insecurity of the offender. The offender is deprived of the confidence in his/her own abilities. Therefore, in order to maintain a high status despite this perceived lack of abilities and qualities, the individual tends to offend and oppress others because no one else is able to showcase his/her qualities as well. In such circumstances, it is the self-confidence of an individual that gives him/her the ability to live through the challenges without being affected by the negative influences. Self-confidence develops an individual’s personality. An individual who does not have any self-confidence easily gets convinced that he/she does not have any qualities after hearing so much criticism from others. This deters his/her personality from developing. Such a person cannot achieve his/her optimal potential in anything. On the other hand, an individual who is self-confident shows courage and bravery when he/she confronts challenges. He/she knows that he/she has certain qualities and that making appropriate use of them would help him/her deal successfully with those challenges. This courage lays the foundation on which an impressive personality is built. Some people think that one essentially needs to be smart in order to be successful. However, this is not the reality; “The Smartest man alive (Chris Lagan) is not successful [as he] cannot even finish college [and] works on a farm…” (Gladwell). In spite of the advances in women empowerment over the last century, gender bias still reflects in the workplace to date. Men have a greater tendency to be at higher positions and get executive jobs as compared to women. One of the main reasons for this disparity in the tendency to be successful is the difference of attitude grounded in gender. Men are more bossy, assertive, dominating, and most importantly self-confident compared to women. Women have a tendency to frequently apologize and become nervous for things even for which they are not responsible. In spite of the fact that females make the majority of the nursing workforce, female students of nursing reflect lack of confidence which is not displayed by their male counterparts (Neal et al. 46). This essentially reflects lack of self-confidence and is what saps women’s chances to gain leadership at the workplace. The gendered nature of self-confidence has been proven by a vast body of research. Many researchers (Lips, Valian) have noted that women tend to engage in work-related activities with less self-confidence as compared to men and women also have lower self-concept compared to men. According to (Haffer and Raingruber), ways of development of self-confidence and threats to confidence surfaced as considerable elements in the experiences of students related to clinical reasoning and development of critical thinking. Self-confidence is like a tube-light. A room can be full of beautiful artifacts and excellent pieces of art. However, their beauty is worth nothing if they cannot be seen by anyone. If there is no light in the room, audience would come and go without even noticing such wonderful pieces of art. But if a tube-light is provided, everything becomes visible to the audience, and the decoration pieces can be sold for thousands of dollars. These pieces of art serve as the examples for the myriad of qualities, capabilities, and talents hidden in every individual. Different people are born with different qualities that are important in their own ways. No individual can be deemed useless or deprived of wonderful capabilities. However, to bring those qualities into the lime-light, it is imperative that an individual possesses self-confidence. Works Cited: Brown, B., O’Mara, L., Hunsberger, M., Love, B., Black, M., Carpio, B., Crooks, D., and Noesgaard, C. Professional confidence in baccalaureate nursing students, Nurse Education in Practice. 3.3 (2003): 163–170. Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. 1st ed. 2008. Lips, HM. Sex & gender – An introduction (3rd ed.). Mountain View, California: Mayfield, 1997. Print. Neal, Geraldine et al. “By the way … self-confidence – the key to success?” Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development 5.1 (2008): 46-58. Valian, V. Why so slow? The advancement of women. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT press, 1998. Print. Read More