Adversity
Life comprises different challenges that one has to encounter and overcome in order to grow and develop. In my personal life, I have faced many challenges that have tested my physical, psychological and emotional mettle. One of the serious challenges I have faced in my personal life is lack of self confidence. I was always shy, lacked self confidence and had a low self-esteem. Growing up, I was shy and didn’t talk to anyone because of my low self-esteem. I avoided interacting with people, especially large groups of people. Most of the time, I would hang out with the same people i.e. three close friends because I had an extremely bad social anxiety. During my initial years in school, I was considered the class clown and would be removed from class often. My teachers were always concerned about my habit and would always try to find out if everything was alright at home. On the other hand, my parents were very worried about whether I will be successful in my personal and professional life.
Despite my social anxiety, I would still perform well in my academics and joined high school. While in high school, I became more aware of myself and started to realize my bad social anxiety and its negative impacts on my growth and development. One of my high school teachers helped me to understand my struggles and develop a way of overcoming these challenges. This high school teacher adopted an individualized teaching approach through which he sought to understand every student. As part of his teaching strategy,...
During this process, he enabled me to understand that I was suffering from social anxiety, which affected my interactions with others. Through his support, he helped me to start identifying ways I can address this problem and improve my interactions with my classmates, friends, teachers, and others.
My teacher’s support and encouragement helped me to start engaging in small and large group discussions in class. As a result, I worked on my shyness and lack of self confidence by participating in debates. These debates were critical in my development as I would share my opinions regarding matters at hand and would gain self confidence in the process. My experiences from participating in debates influenced my decision to enroll for dance classes. I got an opportunity to dance a solo recital in front of many people. The reaction from the group after my performance was really encouraging and boosted my self confidence.
Participation in debates and performing a solo recital dance are the two important steps that I took to help me overcome my personal challenge of lack of self confidence and shyness. Through these activities, my self image started to change as my self confidence grew. I would now find it easy to develop relationships with people I didn’t know within and outside the classroom. Additionally, I started having a positive self image and belief that I…
