It’s empowerment. Belief in yourself and the work you have put in. It can be the key to obtaining any of your achievements - big or small - and just as useful in dealing with normal day to day situations. It helps you feel comfortable where others might not, and thrive in situations where others might crack and fold. Confidence plays a big part throughout your life and within the challenges you face. The Dalai Lama once said “with realisation of one’s own potential and self confidence in ones ability, one can build a better world.”
Confidence in yourself and your ability really can be the difference between being successful or unsuccessful. You can be the most talented person in the world, but if you don’t believe in yourself or in your abilities you will never gain the courage to put yourself out there for people to see. This brings me on to my own personal experiences.
Before I started martial arts I was very much what I’d like to call a worker bee. A worker bee to me is someone who turns up, does what they’re told to do and then goes home. Although there is nothing wrong with this, I always felt like I could (and one day would) achieve more. At this point in my life I had lots of goals or at least I thought I did. Looking back I now understand that they were just dreams and the difference between the two are simple, you fantasise about dreams whereas you act on goals and at the time I wasn’t acting on anything, and this was down to having zero confidence in myself, my ideas or my own abilities. It wasn’t until I stepped onto the mat for the first time that my life changed completely.
Anyone at Tempest will tell you I took to kickboxing like water off a ducks back. It wasn’t just the physical side of things, it was also the mental side of it. The focus and determination it takes to push yourself to your limits only to then push even harder once you get there is an amazing feeling and it’s that feeling that fills you with confidence in all walks of life. When you are faced with a situation in the real world that would have seemed challenging to the old you, you have those memories in the back of your head of the sweat, the pain, that breaking point that you pushed through and all of a sudden you think “this is absolutely nothing compared to that”. It’s situations like this where doubt would usually creep in but because you’ve put the work in elsewhere you believe in your abilities and your strengths and that ultimately you will prevail. Not only will you find challenging situations easier, you will also find taking control of situations a lot more comfortable!
I slowly found myself taking the lead in working situations without even realising I was doing it. Being filled with confidence in myself and what I know, I would step forward and direct people with ease putting forward my own ideas and solutions as if I’d been doing it for years. This all stems from martial arts and the belief it instills in you, the self confidence you gain from it is life changing (and priceless in my opinion) and I doubt there’s anyone who would disagree. I now find myself in a position in life where I am a coach at my gym, currently training to be a certified instructor, and I’m also a supervisor in my day to day working role. Neither of those things would have been possible if I didn’t have the confidence in myself to try and achieve them!
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