Self-Confidence

The thrust of my entire life has been about working through insecurity to develop self-confidence.  The main thing I have learned is that authenticity fosters confidence.  As an actor, I trembled at auditions.  As long as I fought my tremors and made myself wrong for feeling afraid, I tensed to protect myself from showing my fear.  In one key audition, I sang for “Jacques Brel is Alive and Living in Paris”, I decided to let myself shake.  I couldn’t stop it, so I let it happen and I sang with every ounce of passion I had.  I got cast!  What a lesson!  Authentically shaking and allowing myself to be was all it took to win the audition.  That one audition developed so much self-confidence in myself, even though I was terrified. People who are self-confident are not without insecurities.  They simply allow themselves to work through them, to feel the feeling of the fear or anxiety. I recently found a blog post by a Director who echoed this in saying” It’s okay to be insecure!  It’s okay to be afraid.  It’s not okay to let them take over your life.”