MS.

SHERMAN
Period: 1

CONFIDENCE BUILDING
Jazmin Sanchez

Jazmin Sanchez is a Junior Publicist for S. Charles Public Relations.

Jazmins experience as an intern with S. Charles PR has improved her
communication, critical thinking, and people skills, and mainly, building
confidence. Confidence building, especially with young adults or teenagers
has been an important topic for years. Confidence is not something that can
be learned like a set of rules; confidence is simply a state of mind. Positive
thinking, practice, training, knowledge and talking to other people are all
helpful ways to help boost your confidence levels. Confidence comes from
feelings of well-being, acceptance of the body and mind and belief in your
own ability, skills and experience. Not everyone is born with a sense of selfconfidence. Sometimes it can be hard to develop confidence, either because
of personal experiences that have caused you to lose confidence in yourself,
or if you suffer from low self-esteem. Low confidence can be a result of many
factors such as fear, criticism, being unhappy with personal appearance,
feeling unprepared and lack of knowledge, poor time management and
failures. Confidence is not a static measure. Our confidence to perform roles
and tasks can increase and decrease. Although confidence and self-esteem
are linked sometimes, they are not the same thing.
Throughout Jazmins educational experience beginning during her 8th
grade year, she had always had a low confidence level. Although now that
she has worked through it and has a higher level of confidence, it was rough
getting through it. Jazmin was lucky enough to have met an awesome
teacher at her middle school who helped her through the situation. Jazmin
and that teacher stayed connected through the years so, the teacher was

glad to have been interviewed by Jazmin on teenagers building confidence.

Along with that interview are three others. The interviews are then followed
by secondary sources that were used to put together the project as a whole.
While conducting her research, Jazmin was able to access a great
amount of very informative sources and data. She was able to collect
research that showed how many teens were having low confidence levels,
both male and female, reasons for teenagers having low confidence levels,
and awesome tips on what could boost confidence levels. Jazmin also
gathered lots of information on how adults could assist teenagers with low
self-confidence levels in polite, respectful manners. Besides using the search
engine to conduct research for this topic, Jazmin also met adolescents who
were not so confident themselves and had meaningful stories behind them. It
was truly a great experience to listen to everyones different perspectives
and learn about each of their stories and everything they went through, good
and bad.
According to the Raising Children Network, Confidence helps
teenagers make safe, informed decisions. Confident teenagers can avoid
people and situations that arent necessarily right for them, and to find those
that are. Jazmin believes that their statement is quite frankly true,
considering that she went through this. The Raising Children Network also
stated that teenagers with low confidence are less likely to join in activities,
more likely to hold back in class, and might be more willing to give in to peer
influence and that When a child lacks confidence, he might expect to fail at

things he tries, or to not try as hard when things get tricky. It has been said
that raising your self-confidence levels will improve your life. Having healthy
and a good amount of self-esteem makes it so much easier for you to be
happy and achieve your goals, whether it is in terms of your career, your
education, your relationships, or even just being so much happier about life
in general. You would also be thrilled about living your life to the fullest when
you build your confidence. Your excitement, great energy, and positive vibes
will rub off on those around you and you also end up helping those who you
may come into contact with. Many times it may even inspire you to become
more confident yourself. The true key to any positive life changes, though,
comes from understanding why self-confidence is so critical to your
happiness and well-being and how you can boost confidence for yourself. A
great amount of people have a general understanding that self-confidence is
something good to possess but not many understand how life-changing
confidence really is or can be. Having high self-confidence can naturally
make you stronger and stronger over time. When considering all of these
perspectives, you realize that not only is it worth your time and effort to
become a more self-confident person, but it is also worth your time to
develop a high degree of self-confidence that will always benefit you in life
and make your life easier in every way possible. Self-confidence can be the
difference between success and failure for someone. It definitely affects your
thinking, causing your outlook to be positive or negative. Self-confidence
allows you to have positive yet realistic views of yourself, too, and the
situations in which you are involved. Having self-confidence can decrease

your free if challenges; you are able to stand up for what you believe and
have the courage to admit your limitations. Having an accurate sense of selfconfidence means you avoid behaving overconfident, reckless, and cocky. It
means you are not afraid to take risks on tasks that you are able to do and
you do not get paranoid by the fear and anxiety when facing things you want
or need to do. People with high self-confidence typically have little fear of the
unknown, are able to stand up for what they believe in, and have the
courage to risk embarrassing situations.
There are several factors that affect ones self-confidence. When
dealing with teenagers or even adults in some cases, parents attitudes and
support are crucial to their feelings about themselves, particularly in their
early years. Children who do not have the attention or even emotional,
physical or mental support they need from their parents tend to have less
confidence in themselves. It becomes hard for those children to push through
and focus on their education and keep their behavior in line without that
attention from the people they need it from the most. When parents provide
warm acceptance, children receive a solid foundation for good feelings and
thoughts about themselves. If one or both parents are super critical or
discouraging to any extent, children may come to believe that they are
incapable or inadequate. Yet, if parents encourage childrens moves toward
self-reliance and accept and love their children when they make mistakes,
they will learn to accept themselves and will be on their way to developing
great self-confidence which is what every parent should want for their child.
Lack of confidence is not automatically related to lack of ability. Instead,

sometimes the result of focusing too much on the unrealistic expectations or

standards and opinions of others, especially parents and society. Friends
influences can be just as powerful as or even more powerful than those of
parents and society shaping feelings about ones self. People with low selfconfidence tend to repel people around them. Their limiting mindsets and
behaviors make them feel like a drag to be around. Lack of self-confidence is
a crippling trait because it may limit you in your opportunities and
jeopardizes your chances of success. For example, you are given a task for a
huge project but you lack self-confidence so, you feel that you will not be
able to deliver the expectations for the task. That lack of self-belief is going
to influence the thoughts and actions that you undertake, on both a
conscious and unconscious level. When you are constantly thinking about a
negative outcome, it takes your focus off what you should really be doing to
achieve your outcome. This eventually leads to a poor quality because an
undesirable outcome is displayed, your belief gets enforced and you
continue to have low, if not lower, self-confidence. On the back side, if you
are a self-confident person placed in the same situation? Chances are, things
will plan out totally differently. Since you are certain of success, you do
everything needed to make things happen. If you do not have the skills, you
acquire them. If you do not have the knowledge, you will learn it. If
something unexpectedly happens, your confidence somehow taps into your
subconscious for the solution. Thus, having self-confidence is clearly an asset
to your life. Not only does it put you at a better and more positive emotional,
it also sets you up toward getting what you want. Having self-confidence

enables you to fearlessly pursue your biggest dreams. It equips you to

conquer your challenges, no matter how invincible they may seem to be. It
sets you off to live your greatest life possible. A lack of confidence leads to
fear of failure, self-doubt, and negative expectations. You would be unwilling
to take risks, and you may find that you blame yourself when the fault is not
yours. An excessive amount of confidence can be just as damaging following
the lead of someone who does not have your best interests at mind, or who
has an overstated opinion of your abilities can set you up for massive failure
and then a tragic loss of confidence, which happens to a great amount of
people, especially with teenagers. Building confidence provides you with a
measurable way of seeing how you are doing and building on the success
you enjoy by setting new, slightly more challenging obstacles. When you
achieve those goals that were set, using the skills and knowledge you have
accumulated on the way, you experience a reinforcement of your confidence
and a boost to your self-esteem. By having a realistic understanding of what
you can do, you do not set yourself up for failure, and you are more likely to
enjoy the honest circle of goal setting reinforcement, success, positive
feedback, and greater confidence.
Going through the experience of having low self-confidence and
meeting all kinds of people going through the same experience, there were
so many perspectives to think about and view. With that, unfortunately there
were still a handful of things there were not quite clear to Jazmin. One of the
main points that Jazmin wanted to conduct more research on how to exude
confidence without arrogance. Many adolescents have trouble with

distinguishing the two, which is something that is important and needs to be

understood.
In the time of conducting this essay, Jazmin was able to learn the
different stories that were possible to go on with a person. It was important
to be mindful of everyones story so another one of the most important
things Jazmin learned was better people skills. She gained a large quantity of
knowledge on tips on how to boost ones self-confidence which will definitely
come in handy in the future for not only herself, but also for others around
her. Gaining a good level of self-confidence is and always will be important
because confidence plays a big part in the lives of young adolescents,
especially young girls. Going through middle school and high school, in this
day in age especially, girls are somehow given standards to live up to so they
feel pressured to look a certain way and if they do not, it is sort of found
upon. Those girls begin to feel unaccepted by society and just put down
about the way they look or dress. Jazmin feels that having knowledge on how
to gain and help boost ones self-confidence will always be a remarkable
thing simply because she will be able to share her story and other peoples
stories (with their consent) about what they went through to help others.
Receiving the opportunity to help other people, mainly young adults, in big
way in this sort is one thing Jazmin has always wanted to do. In conducting
research in this particular topic, Jazmin realized that she was better than the
negative thoughts and opinions that were coming from other people around
her. She realized that everyone in this world has a different mindset, opinion,
and judgement overall, and will always have something to say. Jazmin came

to the realization that her confidence level boosted up once she began to
think positive, connected herself with positive, encouraging peers, and
stopped fearing the negative opinions of society. And with this turn around
for herself, she would then be able to help other people who were like her or
in a similar situation. Viewing self-confidence in different perspectives is one
thing that was new for Jazmin throughout this learning process, which she
feels is an important factor. Being able to open mindedly listen and view
things differently than what you are used to is important and necessary to be
successful in the world of communication. Undertaking this topic assisted
Jazmin with her social skills and emotional make-up by being able to openly
talk to a stranger and get to know them and their story, in a respectful
manner to where that person was comfortable enough to open up. Her
emotional-make up came into place when listening to what some of these
people had to go through and the tragic feelings and thoughts that would
come to their mind and make them feel the way they did. Jazmin had to
remain strong and keep her head up high while listening to their heart
breaking stories because from her point of view, she would felt pitied and
she would not have wanted to and did not put any one in that position. It was
already enough going through some rough patches with having a low
confidence level but then to be speaking to someone knowing that they are
feeling sorry for you is a feeling that you would not want. After completing
this project, remaining in the field of communication is definitely Jazmins
number one choice at the moment. There is a variety of categories in
communication but no matter which category she chooses, she wishes to

continue to help young adults get through low self-confidence stages. Going
through a rough experience with being bullied throughout her younger years
during school which then lead to her low level of self-confidence is something
that will stay with her forever and hopes that her story will help others in any
way possible to overcome their experience.

Works Cited
Barker, Joanne. "What Girls Need to Know About Growing Up." N.p., n.d. Web. 18
Nov. 2015.
Chaika, Glori. "Ten Activities to Improve Students' Self Concepts." N.p., n.d. Web. 18
Nov. 2015.
Ellis, Kori. "Boost His Self Esteem." SheKnows. N.p., 04 Aug. 2011. Web. 18 Nov.
2015.
Hatter, Kathryn. "Reasons for a Lack of Self-Confidence in Children." N.p., 28 Feb.
2014. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.
Network, Raising Children. "Confidence in Teenagers." N.p., 19 May 2015. Web. 18
Nov. 2015.
Witmer, Denise. "Building Confidence in Teens." N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.