The answer given by a nine-year-old child to the question "Where is self-confidence?" was very interesting. “self-confidence is actually something we have inside a person, just like our arms, legs or other organs, and all we have to do is find it and extract it.” And he goes on to add: “self-confidence allows us to communicate with people, find a job, make friends and be successful. If we do not find the self-confidence within ourselves, we cannot do these things.”
So what really is this self-confidence and where is it? Although it is a concept that may have different definitions from different perspectives, if we explain self-confidence through Maslow's hierarchy of needs; "Trust", one of the basic human needs, is the trust that a person needs to live. If a person does not have a safe space, he cannot do anything to meet his other needs. Once he feels safe, he can make an effort to think about his other needs. It then ends as the need for belonging and love, the need for esteem, and finally the need for self-actualization. Self-actualization, what we call the ideal self, is a person who knows himself and what he wants, who has done what he can, aware of what he can and cannot do.
If we look at it in more detail, what does trust look like? A newborn baby needs to trust its mother or caregiver until the age of 1. A child who trusts his mother learns to trust. Since he does not have the ability to perceive himself until the age of 3, he perceives himself from the perception of the mother or caregiver towards the baby. A loved baby learns to love himself. Knowing these, the child now moves towards meeting his other needs.
When it comes to self-actualization, the person who has met all his needs begins to know himself, accepts his shortcomings and becomes aware of his abilities. He develops his talents while accepting his shortcomings. We can call this state of self-awareness self-confidence.
He does all this with the trust he receives from the mother or caregiver during the first infancy development period and with the self he perceives. So, we can ask, what will an individual who did not receive these in infancy do? Then, as the nine-year-old said, “everyone has self-confidence within themselves and finds it through their own efforts.” One must deduce, analyze oneself and make conscious choices. He can achieve the confidence and good self-perception that he could not get from his mother during infancy, through his own efforts.
We said that self-confidence is being aware of one's abilities and accepting one's shortcomings. That's why it's not possible to be successful in everything. To be successful in the subjects in which he is talented. It is not possible to act with the same self-confidence on every issue every day. It's kind of like specialization or choosing a profession.
Our ancestors say, "If we are still alive, we can find the self-confidence within us, repair it, and bring it to light by wiping off the dust."
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