Gaining the confidence to be yourself

Winnie Baffoe, Executive MBA (London) participant, discusses the issue of confidence, and how good counsel and self-care can help you sift through negativity to help you identify the meaning and purpose of your strengths and differences.

The Rogers and Hammerstein musical ‘The Sound of Music’; some may call it saccharine, but I call it essential medicine for the soul. From the beginning of the movie to the end, it explores the nature of life, how people and institutions can impose their thoughts on you, both negative and positive. The impact of this can be confusing, isolating and devastating.

Another exploration through the love triangle consisting of the glamourous Baroness Elsa von Schraeder, Captain Vonn Trapp and Maria, illustrates that on the day we least expect, we run into our destiny, but there will be a challenger that also seeks that same destiny. That challenger appears more polished and ready, in comparison to one who appears dull and ill prepared.

The combination of years of imposed thinking and a nonconforming exterior affects one’s confidence and leads one to question purpose and credibility. Good counsel and the practice of self-care can help one sift through the noise of negativity projected by others who do not understand one’s approach to life and help one identify the meaning and purpose of one’s strength and difference. 

Good counsel and the practice of self-care will help one see that that one’s challenger has had practice and fallen many times (in the game of love as was in this case). But one’s raw talent and zest for life is what the seasoned bachelor needs to maintain what matters most in his life, his family and hope for the future.

Equally as a woman, it is that difference of experience and difference of thinking that will help in the necessary regeneration of a seasoned institution which requires diversification if it is to remain engaged with the world.

External factors encourage us to mute confidence where it will disrupt the way of life designed by power brokers. If your confidence is muted and you see an opportunity in a venerated institution, take this anecdote as medicine:

 “It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.” James Baldwin

You belong, you are worthy, what matters is that you have and will offer qualities which offer progression and inspiration for the development of the organisation. Increase your confidence, because you have right to be (t)here.

Find out more about the Executive MBA (London)