Always do your best……shift your confidence away from your knowledge and back to yourself. Self-confidence and self-esteem come from knowing yourself; from being true to yourself by living authentically, and from being the kind of person who can look in the mirror everyday and say “I love myself and I love that I always do my best.” While academic degrees, certifications, and associations can recognize your knowledge acquisition……they do not give you self-confidence, that is up to you. How we define ourselves is critical……we are not one dimensional.
We are many things and if we place to much emphasis on one aspect of ourselves then we can lose the other dimensions. Our jobs, relationships, and responsibilities in life will change and if we are too attached to defining ourselves with those things then we will be lost when they change. Ultimately our self-confidence needs to be focused on our core……then as we travel the maturity continuum we will be open to learning and acquiring new knowledge and experiences while we nurture our inner being.
Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. said “Many people believe that self-confidence means standing behind your beliefs one hundred percent. If you fail to listen to what else is going on in the world and only rely on what you know and believe, you’ve attached yourself to an idea that blinds. This is not confidence; it is stubbornness. We are conditioned to behave in such a way that whenever we encounter a truth that contradicts something we already know, we are quick to either reject it or create a story that protects our belief and further weaves a web of distortion.