Confidence

How to … Care Less About What Other People Think

February 29, 2024 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Are you spending too much time worrying about others’ opinions of you? Studies show that we consistently and needlessly overestimate how much—and how badly—others think about our failings.

While seeking acceptance is natural, it’s essential not to become overly focused on pleasing others or taking rejection personally. Challenge social norms and maintain a balanced perspective.

By regularly bring your focus back on the bigger picture (“What do I want?”) and daring to go against the tide, you’ll find that others’ opinions have less sway over you. This shift reduces overgeneralization and premature conclusions.

When faced with criticism, assess whether the criticism is fair and warranted. If upon reflection, you find that the criticism holds merit and aligns with your values or goals, it may be beneficial to consider making changes or adjustments accordingly. However, if after careful consideration, you determine that the criticism is unjustified or does not resonate with your beliefs or objectives, don’t let it affect you negatively.

Be mindful of your thoughts and interrogate them. Don’t allow assumptions about others’ perceptions to dictate your actions. Often, what you fear others are judging you for exists solely in your imagination.

Idea for Impact: Know what matters to you personally—what you stand for, what your values are. Persuade yourself to become more competent in the skills and fields that matter to you. This attitude will enhance your self-confidence and develop a strong and positive self-image.

Ask For What You Want

February 22, 2024 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Ask and Receive: Unlocking Possibilities Through Asking for Help Don’t just sit around twiddling your thumbs, waiting for the good stuff to fall in your lap. Open your mouth, and you might just catch what you’re aiming for.

There’s no shame in reaching out for a hand. If it’s all above board, and there’s something to gain without risking much, why not give it a shot?

Fear’s gonna sneak up on you, but don’t let it hold you back. Sure, you might face a few ‘no’s or some pushback, but that’s just par for the course. It’s those rejections that pave the road to that one big ‘yes’ that could change the whole game.

Winners ask for what they want. Sure, they might face a heap of rejections, but they’re also the ones more likely to snag the big wins.

Idea for Impact: As long as your ask is ethical, ask for what you want. People who hesitate to ask usually settle for far less success than they could otherwise achieve.

Don’t settle for crumbs when you could be dining at the feast.

How to Feel More Beautiful

December 11, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Some people base too much of their self-esteem on how they look. They’ll go to great lengths to preserve how good they think they look.

But props aren’t the real beauty. Props are just accessories.

Beauty should be more than meeting some subjective, media-defined, Kardashians- prototyped notion of what’s attractive. Ultimately, the verb “make up” suggests compensating for something missing or deficient.

Arguably beauty is admittedly a worthy aspiration. There is no virtue at all in eschewing good looks or those perceived to have them. Indeed, western philosophy usually considers beauty among the absolute human values—along with goodness, gentleness, self-control, truth, and justice.

However, you shouldn’t just don’t let attitudes about looks and sexual desirability overtake all other features of your self-esteem.

Feeling your very best—your most beautiful—doesn’t necessarily have to do with the way you look. Beauty is about finding what makes you happy, comfortable, and confident: wearing a specific set of clothes, going for a run, spending time with people you love, getting a good night’s sleep, and walking through warm sand—all these can make you feel good about yourself. They can give you a slight glow that shows.

Idea for Impact: Beauty is the highest expression of our physical selves. Let your beauty radiate from the inside out.

Base your self-esteem upon your inner, not outer, qualities. Define yourself in ways other than how you look. Zero in on what’s good about your abilities, skills, empathy, cheerfulness, personality, relationships, and perspective on the world. Even small shifts in your outlook can improve your overall self-esteem.

What does it take for you to become a more attractive version of yourself? Figure it out, and try to get more of it (whatever it is!) into your life.

No point in being pretty on the outside when you’re ugly on the inside.

The Dark Side of Selfies

September 22, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Selfies are generally acceptable to a certain extent. They provide a means to chronicle oneself and curate the highlights of one’s life, and as humans, we have an innate need to feel acknowledged and seen.

Selfies can be a tool for self-love and expression, allowing individuals to communicate something about themselves and present themselves in a certain way. When taken intentionally, a selfie can give the illusion of control over one’s fleeting identities, which is a natural desire. It’s perfectly fine to create a persona and seek others’ approval, as a healthy self-identity depends on it.

However, when taken too far, the desire to be liked and accepted can quickly become a constant need for validation and status. Self-objectification can cause one to forget that self-identity is primarily based on subjective, biased perceptions of others. Using selfies as the ultimate self-expression can lead to overinflated self-importance and shameless self-promotion.

How to … Strengthen The ‘Asking Muscle’

August 23, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Many people are afraid to ask—even negotiate—for what they want. Just because you ask for something doesn’t mean you’ll get it, but you must keep trying. In the same way that your body’s muscles need regular exercise to stay strong and flexible, the voices in your head do too. The more you practice asking (rehearse with a friend if needed,) the more comfortable it becomes.

Idea for Impact: Don’t wait for good things, as you may have been taught. Ask for what you want. With each triumph, you’ll gain confidence; with each disappointment, you’ll learn something. You’ll overcome the dread of asking for too much. You’ll conquer the fear of rejection or reprisal. Besides, you’ll be less deprived of what you’re reasonably entitled to.

The Streisand Effect: When Trying to Hide Only Makes it Shine

May 25, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In a famous episode of the beloved British sitcom Father Ted, the main character and his fellow priests embark on a protest against the airing of a film titled “The Passion of Saint Tibulus.” The movie portrays a Catholic saint disrespectfully, causing outrage among the Vatican and local bishops. However, despite the priests’ efforts, their parishioners do not heed to the boycott. To their dismay, media coverage of the priests’ pickets only amplifies the controversy, inadvertently making the film even more popular.

This comical scenario perfectly exemplifies the Streisand Effect, a phenomenon wherein attempts to suppress something end up drawing more attention to it.

The term “Streisand Effect” originated in 2003 when singer and actress Barbra Streisand sued a photographer for including an aerial photo of her Malibu home in a collection of images documenting coastal erosion. The lawsuit garnered significant attention to the photo, which had only been downloaded six times before the legal action. Suddenly, the photo went viral, accumulating millions of views and symbolizing the Streisand Effect.

A more recent example of this phenomenon occurred in 2017 when then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer attempted to quash a story about his meeting with reporters. Spicer had requested that the reporters keep the meeting private, hoping to prevent it from being reported. However, his efforts backfired spectacularly when the journalists went ahead and wrote about the meeting. During a press briefing, Spicer scolded the journalists for disregarding his wishes, inadvertently bringing even more attention to the original story. Had Spicer ignored the reporting, the story might have fizzled out quietly. Instead, it became a viral sensation, sparking numerous memes and jokes.

These examples serve as a powerful reminder to carefully consider the potential consequences before attempting to suppress or control information.

Trying to Be Perfect is Where Your Troubles Begin

February 20, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Fear of failure is one of the insidious confidence killers. Instead of living life in a place of self-acceptance, many folks try to live up to unrealistic ideals. They’re on a continual treadmill, chasing the illusory feeling of urging on everything in their lives to be “perfect.”

When you cling to the all-or-nothing standard, all your endeavors result in perfection or failure. This mindset drives you to see yourself as a disappointment again and again.

Let go of dichotomy. You needn’t be “perfect or failure.” Don’t build yourself up to fail with the unattainable goal of always being perfect. Instead, set goals that are very achievable and within your control. Make your goal just to take action. Not to achieve a perfect outcome, not even to a positive outcome, but just to be done. Completed with a satisfactory result. Checked off.

Idea for Impact: You don’t have to give 110% or even 100% to everything you do. Be very selective about when you want to push yourself to the max—only when the stakes are big enough and when your perfectionism is thoroughly justified.

Risk More, Risk Earlier

November 16, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Some of the best careers are crafted by those who use their initial working years to gain diversified on-the-job business education.

The compounding returns of vetting opportunities wisely and taking sensible risks are particularly valuable today. Business is more complex than ever, and competition for top positions is intense.

Idea for Impact: Take on as much risk as possible early in your career. You may have less to lose than you think—and a great deal to gain. Your older self will not have the energy, time, autonomy, or temperament that you contentedly have now. Plus, you’ll have more time to make up for mistakes.

Public Speaking is Traumatizing Vulnerable Students

November 7, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

For decades, universities have forced presentations and class participation to be integral to students’ grades. Sure, employers are interested not only in graduates’ subject knowledge but also in their ability to communicate, work in teams, problem-solve, build consensus, and so on.

However, public speaking anxiety is too common in college students, particularly those suffering from chronic social anxiety. Some even dread the sheer prospect of raising their hands in class for fear of being judged.

Sadly, our academic institutions aren’t doing enough to support such students. College is, after all, a place to practice in a supportive environment—it’s better for students to confront their fears in a relatively low-stakes classroom setting than in the real world. One lecturer I know of accommodated a nervous student by dismissing everyone else and making her present only to the professor.

Colleges must emphasize that anxiety and fear of public speaking are entirely normal—Mark Twain famously noted, “There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.” Colleges should assess individual students’ natural ability and teach public speaking as part of university learning, starting with systematic desensitization and conditioning confidence until the students feel they can tackle entire presentations.

Are You Ill-Prepared for Being Wrong?

October 31, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

We spend so much of our lives being right that, I wonder if, we’re ill-prepared for being wrong.

Since childhood, we’ve been inured that being right is more acceptable than being wrong. Being wrong feels so unpleasant—repulsive even—that we instill a series of strategies to salvage ourselves when we are exposed as being wrong. We learn to trip from our forked tongues explanations, justifications, excuses, and blames for our errors and oversights.

What’s worse, we develop a deep-seated impulse to shirk responsibility and accountability for our actions. We become loath to change our beliefs or behaviors because change takes effort. We envisage change as a challenge to our identity. In the words of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, “People who are right a lot listen a lot, and they change their mind a lot. They wake up and re-analyze things and change their mind. If you don’t change your mind frequently, you’re going to be wrong a lot. People who are right a lot want to disconfirm their fundamental biases.”

Idea for Impact: What’s lost in all this is that being wrong is not only a central feature of being human. It’s one of the most potent ways of learning. Admitting we were wrong—and conceding we’ll be wrong again—can be so liberating and welcoming.

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Idea for Impact: Beauty is the highest expression of our physical selves. Let your beauty radiate from the inside out.

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