Hello everyone,
I personally think it is difficult to keep up your self confidence when others are telling you that you are not able to complete certain tasks in their opinion. When others make verbal remarks to you that hurt and sadden you could negatively impact your self confidence. If the comments are focused on your disability; these comments may even hurt worse since nobody in my opinion ever chooses to be disabled.
I believe we can expand on our discussion we started in my post, SELF-CONFIDENCE: How to Improve to help us further. I am sure others have additional examples of how your self confidence could be negatively impacted with examples of resolutions.
I would like to know how you keep negative comments or inaccurate assumptions from diminishing your self confidence. How do you keep the anger and frustrations you feel deep down inside from negatively impacting the people you care about in your personal or professional life? How do you proceed ahead and keep positively focused on what is important so these negative attitudes do not impact the great work you may be doing? Do you have any possible solutions to help minimize the destructive feelings you may feel when your self confidence is in jeopardy.
What I try to focus on when these destructive feelings come up for me are the following:
• Don't allow your first thoughts be negative. If they are; take a breath before you speak or act. Maybe the comments are constructive to enhance your skills or talents and just may sound negative in the way they were presented to you.
• Gauge how much time you spend defending yourself. Fighting the battles to prove you are correct might take too long and use up too much of your valuable energy and resources. You will have to gauge how much time you should spend defending yourself and how much of an impact losing the battle will truly have on your life. If you let these negative feelings fester inside you, this negativity will show through in the other work you are doing in your personal and professional life.
• Think of overcoming this negativity or misunderstanding; look for the learning in the experience. I think that most leaders have to learn to deal with negative comments and you should think of your circumstances as good practice, no matter how painful they are.
• The obstacles you are facing might be a clue that one door is closing and another one is about to open for you. If this is true this is the time that is most critical for you to not let negativity cloud your mind, actions and visions.
• Maybe the work you are doing is pioneering work and has never been accomplished and is very technical and organizationally challenging. In these situations you will run into obstacles and more critical and negative comments than you would if you worked on more standard work. I would think that most leaders doing pioneering work have these same challenges before they can succeed in their dreams and goals.
If negative attitudes or misunderstandings are in your life; I hope they will not impact your self confidence. We are all valuable people in our own unique and different way and we should minimize the impact others have on our self confidence. I know this is extremely hard to achieve for sure. In the midst of your hurt and anger it is not easy to keep focused and continue to think clearly and rationally! If you want to successfully proceed ahead on your important life’s path; you will need to walk alone at times and leave the negative words and thoughts behind you.
We all look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions on this very essential topic. We are all too valuable and life is too short to let others extinguish the fire within us before we have a chance to light the torch of our passions!
Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
Hi Bill,
I have been negatively affected by other people's comments and I have found that the delivery made a world of difference. It should be clear to anybody that if one is destructive, there can't be any other outcome than ruins, not only in the work, but also in future cooperation.
Some people have a destructive approach and if they don't like something they will tell you as if they held universal knowledge. Often they don't, and my suggestion is to be prepared. When you're bringing up the results of your work, try to see its vulnerability, and try to assess those risks. This way, when the negative comment comes, you can say, well I thought of that and it turns out not to be that important, or something like that.
Another way is to empathize with the person by saying you understand his frustration, and explaining how you came to your conclusion. Negotiate their frustration down to accepting what you have now and working towards a new goal.
I am very sensitive to negative comments, and it traces back to childhood. I can be hurt very easily. I must take a deep breath, close my eyes, and tell myself that the other person has some kind of problem that I can't solve. It is best to just end the interaction at that moment. Maybe the day after, I will have a new solution that is bullet and bully-proof, while that person will not have thought of anything.
Posted by: Guy Tiphane | June 23, 2008 at 10:55 PM
Hello Guy and all,
Thanks so much for sharing your valuable comments and insights Guy.
I agree the delivery makes a world of difference. Even in my written and verbal communications I still have to remember delivery technique is very important for a successful outcome.
I like your idea of negotiating the frustrations down from accepting what I have now and working towards a new mutually beneficial goal. Especially if this outcome is in the direction you want for your final outcome or will handle most of your initial goals.
I am also sensitive to negative comments. I think mine could be traced back to when I lost my eyesight. I know how hard I have worked and continue to do so to overcome my challenges to allow myself the ability to get to do what I currently do. When someone makes negative comments towards me; I feel that the comments are my fault and I need to work even harder.
I know that is not physically possible; but in the back of my mind; even when I try to sleep at night these haunting negative comments disturb me. If I do not overact at that given point in time and wait a day the comments might not feel so personal to me.
Does anyone else have anything to help us keep up our self confidence? I believe self confidence is critical for lasting peace of mind and personal health.
We all look forward to hearing from you.
Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
Posted by: Bill Tipton - Life and Work with a Disability BLOG | June 27, 2008 at 07:19 PM