Swami Vivekananda in his iconic addresses decoded the secret of Self-Confidence many a times. In one of his lectures on KarmaYoga, he roars making this clarion call - “Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance, we must have faith in ourselves first and then on God. He, who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God” (Karma Yoga by Swami Vivekananda, Pg-17). Here, Swamiji is emphasising to cultivate ‘Atma-Shraddha’, the unflinching faith in one-self as a priority. Further, referring it as one’s duty signifies that we would need to put efforts in that direction often, even if we may not always like it. No quick-fixes please.
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This is fundamental because if we don’t have faith in ourselves, we shall start blaming God when things go wrong. This would mean that God’s subtly beginning to lose trustworthiness and we would now rely on our personal energy & luck - despite the fragile self-confidence - to produce results. And, as life would have it for anybody, we would experience failures many a times -no matter what, while we’ll succeed at a few times when we put our best efforts. The key to Great Men & Women’s success has been their ability to respond & stay on course even when they fail despite efforts; their successes have been journeys fretted with failures in between, as well. However, what happens to most people - like us - is that we quit after failing couple of times. This implies that an overwhelming majority - in fact, at the subconscious level -can’t keep complete faith in God and now they also begin to make weak judgments about their own luck as well as ability. Here is why, so many people suffer from the Imposter Syndrome (‘I am not enough’, ‘I don’t have it in me’), because deep within they begin to hate themselves. This is exactly what Swamiji is cautioning us against, because if we lose self-compassion - while being unconscious of it - that would inevitably open the gate of degeneration for us enlivening a pretty average life to follow.
Therefore, before we keep faith in any external cosmic force we must find complete conviction in our own luck (i.e., trusting ‘Apnaa Time Ayegaa’). Our navigation through life must be purposefully led to gather a palpable sense of the infinite cosmic energy within. We must mentally train to quickly arrive at the realisation as Apple’s founder Steve Jobs expressed he had. “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people who were no smarter than you and you can change it..” -Steve Jobs. When that happens, it’s called Atma-Shraddha as emphasised by Swami Vivekananda about 130 years back. Modern Scientists call it Self Efficacy (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997).
Such unflinching faith in our own self can only happen when we come to terms with one universal reality of life, which is this- ‘The path to achievement from the current reality is not a straight line. It’s rather a journey with ups and downs, challenges, and unexpected turns.’ (Figure 1). Distinguished Psychologist, Prof Karol Dweck from Stanford in her research found that it’s a rare mental paradigm worn mostly by the Champions, be it in business, sport, art or academics. She named the paradigm as Growth Mindset & asserted that it can be cultivated by each of us through deliberate practices.
Research in the area of High Performance Psychology found the following mental conditioning rituals being adopted by Industry Titans & Elite Athletes to build unflinching self-confidence.
- Reading the lives & works of role models as an early morning ritual for a few minutes, daily. This will ease our Limbic Brain to embrace failures / setbacks / unfair obstacles, like every role-model does, as an integral part of the achievement journey.
- Practicing Visual Imagery immediately after physical workout, daily. A short physical workout chemically primes the brain to focus deep & long, helping in visualising oneself journeying through the inevitable obstacles onto the dream-achievement. Visual Imagery allows the brain to rewire itself to stay intense while facing slumps in the process.
- Practice giving more than we wish to take, daily. This helps create a natural community of ardent appreciators & followers around who help re-gather courage at difficult times.
(The author is Brain Based Coach, an associate certified coach, ICF. All views and opinions expressed in the article are the author’s own)