Self Confidence - Don't let anyone take it away from you!

Friends, It took me almost an year to get to blogging again but I am sure no one really missed it :)

The topic I want to write about today is about one of the key characteristics that we all need to have to be successful both professionally and personally - SELF CONFIDENCE

As I advanced in my career, I have seen many high points and low points that I traversed through and I was trying to reflect back on some of the low points to see what could have helped me avoid them.  In all instances, it became clear to me all points in time where I really felt like I hit a low point was where I lost confidence in myself.  

Most of you that know me will say that I am a very confident person and I know I used to argue with some of my friends in my childhood about self confidence vs. over confidence.  Some of the feedback I received when I was growing up was that I tend to sometimes be over confident.  I was conscious about that feedback and tried to be very careful not to be over confident as I advanced in my career.  

However, I learned through experience that loosing confidence in your own self could have as much negative impact on your progress or even worse than being over confident.  The temporary loss of self confidence could be because of multiple things.  It could be because the problem you are trying to deal with is simply bigger than what you can solve.  It could be because of the people around you may have a hidden agenda and they may be trying to instill a lack of confidence in  your own self to get you off course.  It could be because you are just stretched too thin and don't have the time to do proper homework to handle a problem or a situation and hence causing undesirable results causing less than optimal outcomes.  Whatever may be the reasons, once you loose your confidence, you will not be able to be your own self and you will be afraid to make any forward progress.  Best thing in this type of a situation is to take a time out and just diagnose what is contributing to the loss of confidence, regroup, surround yourself with the right people that imparts positive energy, and go at it strong with clarity, conviction, and purpose.  Once you are able to attain that clarity, you will automatically regain your self confidence and you will be a positive contributing individual again.  

So my message is simply to not let anything or anybody take away your SELF CONFIDENCE.  It is one of the most important characteristic if not the most important one to be successful.