My Confidence Mantra!

April 19, 2021

What do you start your day with?

A cup of tea? A morning walk? Checking your phone?

Unconfident, Self Doubt, Anxiety. 

Well, these are the things I start my day with. 

I’m not a person who wakes up and scrolls through social media. When I wake up, I look at my calendar and the tasks that I have to do. And I don’t know why, but it starts making me feel unconfident when I look at it.

I start doubting myself. 

Will I be able to do it? 

How will I do it? 

What if I couldn’t? 

Am I a coward? 

But on the contrary, my family, my friends and colleagues have always believed in me. They always say positive things.

“You have such good willpower. “

“You do things easily.” 

“You are a confident person.”

“You have good control over your feelings and emotions.”

“You are so strong.” 

“You inspire us.”

Listening to all these compliments would give me temporary happiness. But after a few hours, I would doubt myself again. 

I was so unconfident that I couldn’t even talk properly to a random person – either it’s a delivery guy at the doorstep or Airtel wali ladki on a phone call.

One of the reasons I was anxious and worried was – [blockquote text=”What am I going to do after college?” text_color=”” width=”” line_height=”undefined” background_color=”” border_color=”” show_quote_icon=”yes” quote_icon_color=”#4285F4″]

Two months before my college got over, I couldn’t beat my anxiety and had no idea what I was gonna do. 

It was not that I had no option, I was anxious because I had multiple options. I was confused about what to choose.

Family Business? I didn’t want to join it at the age of 21.

MBA? I got 35 percentile in CAT and failed to join IIM.

Job? Why should I do a job when I have my own family Business, log kya kahenge?

Phew! 

Eventually, I ended up choosing which was not an option – Enterprise India Fellowship, Pune. 

I became a partner at Enterprise in April 2020. 

I was curious how this journey would turn out. Because I chose a path that was going to take me to my destination. 

I knew somewhere in my heart that it was going to be a roller coaster ride. I didn’t wear a seatbelt and the ride began. 

Other partners joined from different cities and I didn’t know any of them.

I was with random people of different age groups. I got a mentor who could guide me and opportunities to work on real-life projects. 

And yes, it started the way I wanted – Adventurous.

I always enjoyed and loved roller coaster rides, but I started noticing that I’m actually enjoying it with a bit of fear.

I used to work for more than 15 hours a day. To be honest, even at the time, I was not confident, was worried and doubting myself.

And then, I started working with 4 partners. 

I was totally out of my comfort zone. But the hunger of ‘doing’ kept me going.

I was stuttering, repeating the same words in a sentence, mixing two words and forming a new ill-logical word while I was talking to them. I was scared, literally scared. I was wondering, what would the partners think? 

Will they support me or laugh at me?

Do you know how I dealt with it? I simply told them how unconfident I was feeling and doubting myself that I couldn’t work.

Me: “Guys, I’m not feeling confident. I don’t know what and how to do it?”

Partners: “Yes, don’t worry. We are a team and we are here to support each other.”

Seems like a filmy reply, right? But that was real. And then I saw the magic. Yes, they supported me. I was spending around 7-8 hours with them in a day.

I liked working throughout the day. Imagine waking up every day at 5 am during the lockdown and starting your day with Zoom meetings! I loved it.

Attending Scrums, working with Agile Methodology and learning Soft and Hard Skills. 

I was in a growth environment, the way I wanted.

However, as months passed, the complexity of the work also increased.

But I kept on grabbing the opportunities. I never said ‘No’ to any opportunity.

Yes, I was feeling unconfident, anxious and self-doubt, that was obvious.

However, I never took a step back. I kept on doing and doing and doing – #Karo.

Now when I see myself, I feel 10 times bolder. I can see how far I have come. However, there’s still a long way to go. 

So far my journey feels like an ordinary roller coaster, but now I’m ready to experience the Formula Rossa.

Shivam Mistry

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