Mein Kampf with self confidence.

 Note: Mein Kampf means "My Struggle"

I've struggled throughout my life with self confidence.  This struggle shows itself with my daily interactions with people, and I work hard to hide it.  I figured I'd write a small entry about my struggle with self confidence and how I manage every day dealing with it.

I wake up every morning with a feeling of low self-worth.  This is not something strange to me, and it is not necessarily something negative.  This feeling of low self-worth I just look at as being aware of the improvements to myself that I have to make.  I don't feel down when I think of these things - I feel content, even proactive.  I feel motivated to improve myself.  

I am incredibly critical of myself.  Every situation I encounter, I look back at it reviewing what I could have done better, what I could have improved upon.  I make note of every tiny error in reasoning, every tiny error in social interaction, every tiny error in my reactions to things.  I make note of these errors and I fix them for next time.  

The problem with this, however, is that I tend to dwell on my errors.  I sink into my head and almost obsess over them, thinking about them constantly.  I go over everything in my head, dissecting the events.  I often appear lost in thought during this process, and I never seem to want to talk about it at the time.  This is my obsession: my errors.

This dissection of errors brings low self-confidence.  Frequently, in class, when I'm pretty sure of the answer, I whisper it quietly instead of saying it aloud for all of the class to hear.  The times when I'm not confident in my answer are the times it is correct.  I also always second guess myself.  I'll take a quiz or a test, and immediately afterward I will start to think about all the errors I made.  I find myself e-mailing the professor afterward to explain the errors, as I feel that I must always explain myself.

This state of self-criticism I find myself in most of the time has an extreme opposite that I also struggle with - over-confidence.  When I go in to take a test or a quiz, I feel confident at first.  I breeze through tests and quizzes often times without double checking things and without, sometimes, thinking things through entirely.  My most common mistakes are silly ones, things that could have been fixed if I had just taken the time to look.  I always pay for my over confidence.

The IQ test didn't help with the over confidence thing.  I had walked into that test expecting to receive a score higher than average, maybe in the 130 range.  I never expected a score as high as I received, and as much as I say that I don't put any faith in IQ tests, it did have an effect on how I behave.  It did increase my ego a bit, maybe too much.  Then again, it did also make me even more critical of myself.  I constantly think "I have an IQ that's in the ionosphere, why can't I do this?"  I do tell myself that IQ tests were made by monkeys to test monkeys, but it's not always easy to do.

While I struggle with both sides of this coin, I find that I manage a comfortable balance.  The obsessive thoughts about my errors don't cause any real anxiety in my life, they just become background noise.  I think it is good to be in a constant state of self improvement because what better can you do with your life than improve yourself?  If you are unhappy, though you may want to blame others, the problems may lie with you.  If you take a constant look at yourself, then maybe you'll find the secret to what has been troubling you.  The greatest thing about finding errors in yourself is that you can change them.  I almost typed "you can easily change them" but such changes aren't always easy.  

Being critical of yourself can be a good thing if managed properly.  While I am almost obsessive in this act, it does not depress me or make me feel down.  I am hard on myself, oh so hard on myself, but I don't feel like there's no way out.  What I know about me is that if there is something I don't like, I can change it.  I've lived 23 years now, and I've been improving myself on a constant basis most of my life.  I can't say that I like myself now, but I can say that I've made progress towards the goal of liking myself.  I wonder sometimes if I'll ever really like myself, and that question motivates me.  I know that I will always make mistakes, but I also know that those mistakes could always be forgiven.  I don't hold grudges, with myself or with anyone else.  Make note of the error, fix it, and move on.  It's as simple as that.

I am a happy person.  I take pleasure in my daily mistakes because that presents to me a chance to improve.  I've written here before about pessimism, realism, and optimism and discussed how I am a realist.  I see looking at one's errors as a way to be realistic about things.  Pessimism skews realism by making everything a negative event even if it is inherently positive.  Optimism skews realism by placing faith in an outcome that may be far from positive, harboring disappointment.  Realism takes what is in front of you and looks at it logically, not necessarily placing a positive or negative spin on it.  Being realistic with my errors gives me a feeling of forward movement, a feeling of progression.  Never do I feel idle with myself because there is always something to improve upon.

This battle I fight within myself isn't a bad thing, I don't think.  Maybe others would say otherwise, but I feel content in this.  It is what I am used to, but I would also suggest this sort of thinking to others if I felt they could handle such things.  Some people are built for looking at themselves critically constantly, while others are not.  If depression about these things quickly overwhelms you, then I suggest you avoid this constant criticism.  If you are unhappy with yourself and with your life and you feel that you can handle such thoughts, I suggest being critical of yourself.  Look inwards before you look outwards, often the mistakes lie with you.

One thing I always have to remember: Don't beat yourself up over your mistakes.  Just fix them.