Thougths about self-confidence

On a Sunday (The day off of the week), I came home after doing all the "compulsory" day-off activities (including an afternoon nap, nice dinner, the gym class I forced myself to go, and also some housekeeping tasks) I felt the sunday-mood, and realised that it's been exactly 10 days since I wrote anything in my blog! So, I wanted to think of a topic, and the first that came to my mind, and most likely one of my favorite topics (all my friends probably know this) is self-confidence.

To me it has almost always been quite obvious that my self-confidence is not at the level where it ought to be. Be it the Finnish modesty, having amazingly accomplished friends, or choosing the career with low success rate (we can discuss this point, though), I always had this feeling in my head that I will not accomplish anything really great.

Thinking about it I realised this is quite crazy! I live in one of the best countries of the world (with that I mean education-wise, social system-wise, and standards of living) - so I have the best opportunities to accomplish anything I ever want - and I told myself I've got to work on these thoughts of my low self-image. Here are some points I came up with.

1. Compete with yourself, not with the others

I talked about this in my previous post too, but it is so easy to compare yourself with others. I don't want to repeat what I already said but I thought listing this point here is important in the context of self-esteem. The only thing that ultimately matters is how you yourself view your accomplishments. Setting goals that work for you are the key thing here, and making yourself work for them (they should be such that they matter to you and you genuinely want to fight for them).

2. Eating, excercising and sleeping

Ok - you can disagree. Maybe these things have absolutely nothing to do with self-confidence thougths. But I realised that whenever I am putting myself down, I have probably forgotten one of these (either slept too little, eaten unhealthy or haven't taken the time to excercise). So I would list them here as those pillars that set your mind to the right place.

3. Positive self-perception

Easy to say but how to do this? Some things to try are to list things you have done today that you are proud of. It does not have to be something big, simple things will do. It's surprising that actually there are quite many.

4. Courage to be exactly who you are - and at the level where you are

Some things that I think many young people starting their careers experience is the feeling that everyone else is faster, better and smarter than you are. Then, to compensate for this, oddly, you might start to act like you know more than you actually do - and this is not a smart thing to do. Instead, the person who dares to admit the mistakes they make (and everyone makes them, no matter how experienced you are) is actually viewed as a mature and genuine colleague at work.

I am hoping to get a comment, please tell me what are your experiences on these points listed above. Did I forget something?