From the Desk of Keith Hafner

It Hurts, Doesn’t It?

You watch through the playground fence. The kids are playing soccer. Your child loves soccer, yet stands on the sideline, afraid to join in.

Worse, your child’s self confidence erodes even further when he kicks himself for not having the courage to act.

Now you know why self-confidence is the greatest asset a person can have. A person with confidence cuts a wide path through life. Doors open for him that remain shut for the timid.

The confident person fully experiences all the excitement life has to offer!

Confidence is somewhat different from the other “Rock-Solid” skills. Here’s why: You are born with all the confidence you will ever need.

Consider for a moment the way a baby develops in the first couple years of life. He or she moves from learning experience to learning experience. Within just one year, that helpless infant has learned to walk and talk.

Have you ever asked a five-year-old what she wants to be when she grows up? Kids always want to be the most incredible things: astronauts, professional athletes, doctors, and celebrities. She has total confidence in her ability to do anything she wants.

But then something happens. Within the next four or five years, she has lost a lot of that initial confidence. She has scaled back her expectations. She’s become more “realistic.” By the time she’s in middle school, she’s lost much of that excitement about what the future has to offer.

Plenty of kids, by the time they graduate from high school, lack the confidence to get even the most basic job. How does this happen? It’s an accumulation of negative thinking.

For example:

A parent tells them, “You aren’t as smart as your brother.” Then they hear why: “Girls aren’t supposed to be good at math.”

Next, the coach says, “You aren’t fast [or big, or thin, or talented] enough.”

Somewhere along the line, peer pressure rears its ugly head. The other kids at school start to tell your child, “Hey, it’s stupid to try hard. It’s not cool to do well in school. Why don’t you be like the rest of us?”

When his mom first brought Kendall to Karate, he had no confidence. He was afraid to try new things, and he avoided looking people in the eye.

His mom said, “I’m going to FIGHT this thing! My son is smart and nice. I’m not going to let him succumb to this. I remember how I felt when I was a child and had no confidence!”

So she did one confidence builder after another. Even though, at times, it seemed that nothing was working, she stayed with it, and eventually her strategies began to work.

Kendall’s confidence gradually improved. His friends and teachers noticed a difference in the way he looked and in the way he acted.

Kendall’s mom was successful because of her commitment to achieving these results!