My Confidence
For as long as I can remember I have always lacked confidence. I’ve never spoken up for myself, never expressed my views, and have always been the quietest person in the room. Sometimes I would think I had an ally in the other quietest person in the group (occasionally thinking they might even be quieter than me), but that person would inevitably start to gain confidence and blossom and leave me alone as the quiet guy. That was unsettling. I always seemed to fall to the bottom. I could never understand how my previous ally had been able to blossom as my own lack of confidence seemed so deeply entrenched. Even well into my forties I would blush furiously when being introduced to new people or when expected to speak in front of a small group. If a new member of staff or a visiting client asked about my role I became a sweating, blubbering fool despite the fact I had been in the role for a decade or more.
In my mid-forties I was suffering from some health issues. I was experiencing problems with my balance, joint pain, and brain fog. The health issues were bearable but annoying. Maybe they were just a sign of ageing, I thought. One day I read an on-line newspaper article about health and in the comments section someone was advocating for the Paleo diet. So, I gave it a try. I’ve never been the best at sticking to diets, but I established a plan to eat ‘Paleo’ Monday to Friday and eat whatever I wanted over the weekend. The outcome of this diet was that I soon lost a lot of excess weight, and all my health problems disappeared. Wonderful!
There was a further outcome that I hadn’t anticipated. For the first time in my life I began to feel genuinely and buoyantly confident. My step was slower, more planted. Strangers started smiling at me or talking to me in lifts. I had no idea why, but it seemed as though I has some sort of attraction to them. It happened again and again. I now entered a lift expecting people to strike up conversation with me. Often I would spark up a conversation with the stranger. There would be this weird sort of energy in the lift where there was a sort of coming together. If I walked into a room full of strangers, I no longer sought solace at the bar or by clinging to the edges of the room. Now I would confidently survey the room with a certain swagger like Cantona after scoring that goal.
I had always considered my lack of confidence to be utterly insurmountable. It was who I was. The best I could do was try to make some sort of differentiating feature out of it. I would be introverted, different, deep. Deep was probably my favourite as it seemed to have the most positive connotations. But now that I was feeling confident and the source of the change so simple I had to ask the question of who I was. Had I really lacked confidence at all. Had I simply been putting the wrong fuel in the Ferrari. Could I have had a life filled with success, reward and status if only I had eaten a healthier diet. Who the hell was I back then? Who the hell am I now?