Like almost everything else, self-confidence is a habit.
It is formed by persistently choosing to let the mind dwell upon our successes, and in turning our thoughts just as persistently away from our failures.
Suppose out of the ten things you did today eight were failures. When you come at the end of the day’s doings to take stock give these eight one good look, don’t dodge them, see what caused them and how you may do better tomorrow—and then dismiss them from your mind.
Think of the two things wherein you have succeeded, even if they be of small import. Speak of them. Don’t mention the others.
Keep bringing your success episodes up into the light and air, where they can grow and reproduce their kind. And keep the failure incidents as much as possible in the cellar of your memory, in the dark, where they will “dwindle, peak, and pine.” Sterilize your failures. Asphyxiate them.
Of course, this is easier said than done. What hurts is more easily and sharply remembered than what pleases.
A slap in the face is harder to forget than a pat on the back.
Bad things, unpleasant things, ugly things, and nasty things have a way of sticking to us; and good, pleasant, beautiful, and wholesome things, such as our conceit, we are prone to take as matters of course and pay little attention to them.
But here precisely is where the will comes in. Here is the opportunity for self-training. Here is the secret of improvableness.
For moral slumping is always easy and moral bracing hard. “Smooth is the road to hell,” runs the proverb. A person with a flabby will is growing worse every day, just as a man that will not pull at the oars is steadily floating down stream.
And a man is never more a man than when he summons up his will to combat a tendency.
As a matter of fact, almost every day for every one of us contains more agreeable than disagreeable things, even to the grouchiest of souls. Just take a pencil and paper and set down in one column all the events of the day, big and little, that have gratified you, and in another all that have annoyed you; and if you are honest in your account you will find the first column has ten items to the other’s one.
It is hard to do. But all improvement is hard.
The only way to climb any height of culture is to keep on doing a difficult thing until it becomes easy.
And the very heart and core secret of culture is to have the disposition to tackle the difficult things.
The trouble is that the one offensive occurrence magnifies itself. The one point on your body where you have a boil attracts more of your attention than the entire remaining surface.
And when a child has a sore he wants to pick it. And we love to handle over and over the memory of the thing that hurt or pained us.
Well, quit!
Turn around!
Back up!
Except ye be converted (which is a Latinish word that means turned around) ye cannot see the Kingdom.
Let the inflamed spots in your recollection alone. When the rebuff, or mistake, or loss, or insult, or slight, or other ugly thing soever pops up in your thinking, look away, direct your thoughts elsewhere.
