You can't build confidence and resilience by yourself

The key to success is confidence and resilience, but these qualities cannot be cultivated by the individual alone. — Perdana University

Confidence is the feeling you have when you know that you will be able to excel at something, or that you will be able to achieve your goal.

It is being sure of your abilities in a secure and realistic way.

It is the feeling that you have when your team is 3-0 up in a football game and you can’t possibly lose.

It is proposing to your long-time partner, already imagining the positive answer in your head.

Resilience, on the other hand, is the ability to bounce back, to keep on going when life gets tough, to learn and thrive when one is faced with challenges and adversity.

It is being able to endure the psychological pain of failing, and learning from the failure.

Confidence and resilience are two distinct qualities required for any individual to learn a new skill, understand a certain topic, win a race, lead a government and everything in between.

They are both required for success.

Positive reinforcement

That being said, confidence is not something that comes naturally when we are talking about learning or doing something new.

Yes, we may be confident in our own physical and mental abilities, but the acquiring and application of new knowledge can often be worrisome, and to some extent, frightening.

However, one influencing factor on a person’s confidence levels – a factor that has more effect than the actual attempt, whether successful or failed – is the reinforcement received from such attempts.

Let’s take a look at an example.

A young boy tries origami for the first time, and after folding for 15 minutes, makes a decent paper plane.

Along comes his father who commends his efforts with a pat on the back.

This positive feedback boosts his confidence and he he will be motivated to try and make another paper plane.

Now, the same boy could have been criticised by his father for his efforts or had his plane thrown away for wasting time.

The very same product that had garnered him praise in first scenario, could have shattered his confidence altogether in this second one.

Hence, we can see how reinforcement or feedback plays a much bigger role than the end product itself.

When looking at it from an employment point of view, an employee whose work is positively reinforced, i.e. valued and appreciated, will likely become a confident worker.

And a confident employee will further strive to work harder for the company, whereas an employee who is constantly ridiculed and criticised will most certainly lose his confidence, and thus, perform more poorly.

Learning from failure

Resilience, on the other hand, develops from failures.

Naturally, we can assume that a person who is successful all the time may not necessarily be resilient.

Resilience comes from a state of mind that understands that after a failure, there is a lesson to be learnt and that we can always try again.

This is what we refer to as automatic thoughts – instantaneous, habitual and non-conscious thoughts that are triggered by certain events that occur to us.

These thoughts shape how we behave and respond to those events, and can be either positive or negative.

They can have developed to be inherent in some people, and acquired in others, particularly children and young adults.

Significant figures such as parents, teachers and superiors, possess the ability to inculcate and generate positive or negative automatic thoughts in those they interact with.

A student who has failed a recent examination may feel that he is incapable of learning, and thinks that going to school is futile.

A teacher can always help by developing a different narrative for the student, e.g. suggesting that maybe he just needs extra classes to better understand the subject or reassuring him that he will score better in his next attempt now that he knows his weak points.

These more positive narratives will help the student learn from his failure, and hopefully, emerge mentally stronger.

A property agent who has failed a few times to close a deal may think that real estate is not his thing, or may feel powerless when talking to people.

His superior can help him pull himself up and suggest some tips to improve his performance, e.g. throwing in some furniture to sweeten the deal, or perhaps sweet-talking the buyer a little more.

All this will replace negative thoughts with more positive ones, and will help the employee to feel better and try again in the future.

In order to be successful in anything that we do, not only do we need to be confident in ourselves and our abilities, but we also need to have resilience for the long haul.

However, these qualities do not magically emerge by themselves, but need to be introduced and nurtured.

More importantly, the power to become a confident and resilient individual does not lie solely with that individual, but also with those around and above him.

Parents, teachers, employers and other significant figures in a person’s life play vital roles in developing confident and resilient individuals who will have a better chance at success.

Zaheer Firdaus Zakaria is a tutor and clinical instructor at Perdana University’s School of Occupational Therapy. This article is courtesy of Perdana University, which is celebrating their 10th anniversary this year. For more information, email [e-mail]. The information provided is for educational and communication purposes only and it should not be construed as personal medical advice. Information published in this article is not intended to replace, supplant or augment a consultation with a health professional regarding the reader’s own medical care. The Star disclaims all responsibility for any losses, damage to property or personal injury suffered directly or indirectly from reliance on such information.