My greatest joy in life at the moment is that, I get to be an aunt to amazing nephews and nieces, who in their individuality and uniqueness, add a little more colour to my otherwise boring life. 😂😂 Well, I will be writing about one of them today, her name is Abundance.
I was having a very random conversation with my cousin this morning and I recalled my very funny moments with my little niece and we had a good laugh.
Abundance was age four at the time and she has a sister Praises, who is almost 3years older to her. Praises at age six/seven could spell very well and so when they visited with my other niece and nephew, I would naturally engage them in spelling bee but there was no one of them, who was more excited about this exercise than Abundance. She would always jump whenever I tell them to come to my room for spelling bee. I was intrigued by her excitement and went on to use her as an example to the other ones who didn't show as much excitement. Praises looked at me and said "aunty, you just ask her to spell cat first,just cat." Her tone of voice should have told me not to bother but curiously I turned to Abundance and asked her to spell cat, she smiled warmly at me and said "that's easy" and then went on to spell cat as "hpqskwrsvgduct" 😂😂😂😂 I looked at her so helplessly and lost because her spelling didn't in anyway match her excitement and in that moment I was wondered why on earth she was so excited about spelling and books, if she couldn't even spell a cat. That is by far the worst and longest spelling of cat I have ever heard in my life. There was my niece Amazing, who was as shocked as I was and Praises who kept laughing like "aunty, I warned you."
Well, I knew I got fooled by her enthusiasm or say her misleading excitement for a moment. Girl just had more confidence in herself than she knew how to spell. Well, remembering that moment with my niece today made me think of how important confidence in one's self really is. She was the youngest there and with her boldness and confidence, she managed to sell herself to me, that I not only included her in the spelling bee but trusted she would do well. 😂😂😂
Most of us have the dreams,ideas,talents and skills but lack the self confidence my little niece already had at age four, that made her see herself as the best in the room. She believed she was so good, that she was even more excited about doing the spelling more than the people who actually knew how to spell. This is not me writing because somehow I'm like my bold niece Abundance, on the contrary, I'm writing this because I know how much I have lost second quessing myself. The opportunities I have missed out on because of self doubt and the fear to fail. People can see your confidence and they can also sense your fear and there is no one in the world who banks on fear or on someone who is unsure of his/herself.
Well, Abundance' enthusiasm about books in general and spelling in particular, made me focus on teaching her three letter words that holiday. I remember I didn't know whether to tell her straight on that she couldn't spell or applaud her, just to keep her happy. I decided to tell her the truth and then teach her to spell. The first time I told her "that's not how to spell cat, you got it wrong" she went "okay,okay,okay. Aunty, ask me to spell fan" and against my better judgement I asked her to spell fan and she goes "that's easy, hpqfwrghcjwrloy" and after a good laugh, I finally got the memo. This girl didn't need a task to spell, I needed to get into the task of teaching her how to. Teaching her was really easy.
There are alot of us sleeping on our dreams and ideas because we keep second-guessing ourselves and thinking we are not good enough. Can we all agree to have a little more confidence in ourselves and to try to do "us" and give the world the chance to judge how good we are? Confidence is a great part of success. People often buy us the way we sell ourselves before they do their own findings. Let's stop underselling.
Note: Do you have a thing or two to add on the topic of confidence? Share in the comment section and let's all encourage each other to do better.
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