Your Self Confidence Is In Your Reps

One of the pleasures of being a parent is getting to see life from your kids’ perspective.

This morning as I was driving my son to his school, he reflected on a specific challenge he was going through currently ” I am doing pretty well in Physics, but I am not feeling confident.” Despite external validation in the form of decent results, internally, he was not confident as he was in the other subjects.

I nudged him carefully-“What about Physics is making you feel uncomfortable?”

“It’s just that I am not able to anticipate all possible types of problems. I have practiced well, but I worry that I may get caught out on my understanding of the concepts,” my son said. 

We were about 5 minutes away from the school.

“What could you do to develop the confidence in solving different types of problems,” I asked, hoping that he will figure out the answer to his predicament.

“I have to keep practicing more. I have to work on different types of problems, testing my conceptual understanding. The more I can do that; I guess I will feel more comfortable and confident.” he concluded just as I reached the school.

The last comment from my son triggered an AHA moment for me.

Self Confidence

You may have great talent and skill. But, if you don’t have self-confidence, you will not go very far. You will keep sabotaging yourself.

Self Confidence is that feeling that you are competent, you can learn, put in the hard work and achieve anything you desire. It is the cornerstone for any achievement:

• Writing an exam
• Engaging in a relationship
• Leading a team
• Completing a task or
• Mastering a subject or running a marathon

 What builds self-confidence?

My son’s comment presented the answer to this question. 

It’s In the Reps

You grow your self-confidence through repetition, through repeated practice. When you repeatedly do something, you start getting better, and naturally, your confidence grows.

My son keeps doing lots of Maths or Physics problems; he will figure out the concepts and gain mastery in the subject. That is how he builds his self-confidence.

The same concept works for every other aspect of our life. You keep practicing, you keep repeating whatever you have to do, and somewhere through the practice, you cross over to the side of being self-confident. You know you have it in you to do what it takes to be successful.

Your self-confidence is in your reps.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.

Will Durant