Self confidence

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I've had quite a lot of problems with work situations over the last few years where employers have said that I don't have enough self confidence and I've had to leave because of it, and it's getting to the point where I really don't know what to do. I worked as a care assistant for a few months and the nurse in charge said that I didn't have enough initiative and the same thing happened when I worked in a cafe and in a bar. For the last few years, I've worked in a school and tried to do a teacher training course which really didn't work out for various reasons (found it hard to talk in front of a class, terrible behaviour management and couldn't cope with the noise in the classroom) and the teacher I was working with said it was because I need more self confidence. I had a similar situation last week when I was meant to do a presentation at a conference and got too nervous so spoke too fast, missed a lot out and couldn't speak when it came to answering questions which was really horrible, and a woman from the conference said I need to work on my self confidence before doing anything like that again. The problem is that I already feel selfish most of the time because I find it hard to see things from anyone else's point of view and often forget to ask even though I'm trying really hard to think from other people's point of view, and because I hardly ever 'get' other people and assume everything's my fault, which I know is really self-centred which I hate and feel even more guilty about. I really don't want to be arrogant and I don't know what to do. I hate that by trying not to be selfish, I'm ending up more selfish because people are getting annoyed with it and it's affecting their work which I don't want to do. No idea what to do but I'm 25 now and have had this problem ever since i can remember and I REALLY need a job! I'm going to apply for either teaching again or educational psychology for next year, and really don;t want to fail again because they might not let me on the course again...

Bubbles, sounds like you have some anxiety issues and people misread that as a lack of confidence. Confidence doesn't equal arrogance. If you get help with your anxiety, you will appear more confident.

I've tried that- I saw an occupational therapist last year about managing anxiety and improving social skills, and it did help (two different kids at school have said that I seem less nervous, and I managed to 'rescue' a friendship before I really annoyed the other person) but still hasn't made any difference to work situations. I think a lot of the problem is that I really don't feel 'real' or 'adult' enough and I don't know how to address that- I can do it in one-to-one situations or on my own but in work, it's different.

maybe you do have real issues and shortcomings....
I know I do
thats why I'm an engineer and work with machines rather than people
people are crazy
machines are logical
I like machines

Hey, that's great that the OT helped; is it possible to go back and work on the 'work' issue? It sounds like you might also benefit from CBT. All that feeling guilty and selfish stuff is no good! (I know...I did it for a long time...)

Something that really helped me in work situations was clothing choice. I discovered that whenever I needed to wear a uniform (especially one with rank slides), I automatically felt a lot more confident, or at least was able to 'act' more confident. And in jobs where there was no uniform, I made sure to choose what I wore based on how 'powerful' they'd make me feel. Then I gradually came to transfer that confidence to work regardless of what I was wearing.

I had to 'act' confident long before the actual confidence set in (and if it helps, I was 26 when it did) but now people actually come and ask me how they can improve their public speaking and professional presence - including lecturers!

So anyway, that's what worked for me. There's no quick fix but don't give up on your ambitions. When you manage to get to where you want to be in life, you're going to have learned a lot more, and be a lot more resilient than most.

I agree somewhat with Marybird. That what you describe sounds something like you dont have a problem with starting to do something just that some situation overwelms you and you simply shut down into something like a state that your brain freezes.

Is that right?

Then I think you dont have a self confidence problem but a triggered anxiety puts you to some state,
where your brain doesn't allow anymore normal reactions or reduces your skills.

Somehow I guess though, this has something to do with self-confidence. Or that you might easier come over it when you have the power to do this by will!
For really bad ones that is very difficult, I guess.

If you would be not self confident then you probably would avoid presentations. But you wouldnt fail neccesairily that way???

If I would describe myself and my relations to self-confidence, then for myself I am really convinced about myself, maybe even excessive.
But on the other hand I am pretty afraid as well that I am just too stupid to recognize when something goes wrong,
make everything much worse than what it actually is.

I am usually afraid of falling through the net that normally would catch everybody. And then I relate many things to myself which are not directly my fault.
Even thinking doesn't convince me then. Have done too many stupid things...

I am not even sure do I know what self-confidence actually is. I would describe it for me as something either extreme overconfident superfical stupidness or totally exagerating no need to sell myself. I like to present myself as somewhat contained, because I am conviced to do a good thing you have to be very doubtfull about your things and thinkings, especially as an aspie. (Wild associations kind of thinking sometimes) : Sometimes there is a stupid flash, which I enjoy though!

I know that being selfconfident is really good if you want to acchieve something. But I want to convince and not do some fancy show off, which is usually falling down into pieces. (Aspies dont get blinded by self confidence of others).
NTs do much more I guess. If you are a freak then you can sell something nonexisting so well that nobody will ever realize it, especially if a deeper understand is missing. Self confidence makes you also believe things that are not true about yourself or something.

This means, I am in that respect quite a contradictory person, that has learned to accept sort of my two sides.
You need both analytic self-doubting kind of thinking to evaluate your overconfident flash kind of things.
Although these make me happy, and mostly I am not so wrong, I still glitch into these anxiety related things and return when I checked with my analytics.

Now, these anxiety things are not at all positive, because they make you go wild in the negative way. A flash is not so bad, because you experience it as positive

But, even though I am very convinced about being right with my attitude,
nowadays world is in quite contradiction to my ideals and I think I am really moving around far off somewhere.
Nobody even would go close to where I move, because it is even excluded from their thoughts that somebody might actually try to do something out there.
NTs are really afraid of going somewhere were they must fear a defeat.
For me I must try because I see also usually clearly the advantages in difficult things which really demand my intellect.


Sad though that your anxiety has such a big effect and that you are so affected by sensory overload.

Nerveous is for me the right word, that is not a state of missing self confidence, its a pressure that builds up from inside, trying to steel your brains, more or less.

If you have that kind of symptoms then I think you have that what quite many have here: anxiety problems...
Self confidence helps to some extend to exit it or not to get there, but the actual problem is somewhere else
more like frightened to death kind of thing (in the extremest case) and maybe even for no reason

What is the normal missing self confidence symptom?
I dont get it, I probably never had it.

Even doubt for me is not against my self confidence, it is more part of it.
(Like if I am not too self condident then I can be self confident enough) Hehe... Superlogic crazy stuff

And I even like contradictions to some extend...
Niels Bohr, trete vor!(complementarity principle, nature has contradictions)

Now I start to laugh because I repeated myself about 1000x, though not exactly copying the sentences. Copy of my thinking process. Stupid. Starting to remove text....