ep 117 About Acquiring Confidence
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Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Coffee Corner. Today is your episode 117. So today I don't really have a topic. There are a few things I'd like to talk about. First is being affirmative. This is what I learned from my therapist.

Second, I want to talk about is more of having an absolute power when it comes to parenting. And I want to explain that a little bit in this episode. And of course, there are some other tedious stuff and I want to go over. So hopefully you will stay till the end with me. Anyway, so let's get started. So first one, it was really interesting because I was...

watching a video about parenting and I happened to come across this comment about being affirmative. Then I went to a therapist for myself because I had a panic attack and anxiety before I started my school year and also before my kid started his school year, which is the first time ever in his life. Two things combined and then this is what I learned about being affirmative also comes across being confident.

So here is the thing. I read the comment. He says, sometimes confidence doesn't come from what you really say. So such as I can't. Most people will tell you that you're going to look at your mirror and you'll tell yourself, I am pretty. I am beautiful. I can do this. I can do that. Or you're on the stage. You're about to give a speech or a presentation. And then you tell yourself, I can do this. It is not about I can't. When you mention I can't,

You are telling yourself you have debility, but deep down you don't have debility. True or false, you might doubt yourself have debility and that doubt will destroy your confidence. And this is why I think it totally makes sense when you don't say I can't. Because once you start to say I can't this statement,

you are telling yourself or you are forcing yourself to believe you can get the result you want. But most likely you might fail and you might not get the result you want and then you start to

feel disappointed and the worst of the worst you lose your confidence and you might do you might never want to do it telling yourself you can might not be a good idea for some of the people like me I don't really tell myself I can because I know I cannot but

But this is what I learned. What I learned is don't tell yourself, I can't tell yourself I am going to do it. This is one thing that might also benefit for you to get rid of procrastination. So this is how that works. And it's really interesting. I learned this is most of us don't want to do it because we predicted the result or the direction where we ended will or might end up

being and then the best way to avoid thinking about the results will be just tell yourself to do it

And that is difficult because a lot of things I'm sure I did a couple of live streaming this week and we were talking about, oh, I've watched a lot of English shows, but how come my speaking is not still there? My comments was I watch a lot of tennis matches and NBA and hockey games. I don't know how to play tennis and NBA and hockey.

because I never practiced, because I told myself I cannot do that. And if you put me on the spot to play tennis, I'm not going to feel confident because I know the result. But if I switch mindset, same thing applies to you practicing speaking is just tell yourself, I'm going to do this and that.

is about steps, not results. So you're not thinking about whether you're going to do good or bad. You're thinking about whether you're going to do it or not. But doing it is so much simpler than achieving the desired result.

Right, because you really can't control what you can get, but you can control whether you are going to do it or not. So, for example, let's say today I was debating whether I wanted to do a video or not because I start to feel a little bit irritated because I felt like I wasn't in the mood and my language wasn't quite there. I just woke up with a headache.

I may not be able to do a good video but I'm not thinking about a good video I'm thinking about I might not do a video because I'm not at my best okay then I am trying to tell myself I started slowly picking up the steps so I'm telling myself I am going to do it not only I'm going to do it I'm also going to live stream how I do this video which is a plan I had a long time ago Bob you support me

Yeah, okay, Bob is right there. So I started to grab my microphone, started to grab my laptop and my camera, and I dressed up a little bit for this because I wanted to look good. Maybe I can get a little bit more views and put my hair up. I even did my lipstick, but I am not thinking about what to do.

I can get out of the whole setting. I'm thinking about even if I don't have a good filming today, at least I look good. All right. At least I started to move. That is a big compliment for me. And that little tiny step is a big accomplishment for me. That big.

boost my mood boost my confidence for the next step then I ended up actually talking really well to now and I'm very happy I'm live streaming at the same time too so that makes me happy makes me confident makes me feel like I can't pick up anything I want to do anytime

So that's about being affirmative. That's number one, being affirmative. You need to tell yourself you are going to do it. You are not thinking about whether you can or cannot. You are going to do it today. Let's say you want to get up at seven o'clock. Maybe usually you get up at eight or nine. So today you want to get up at seven o'clock because you want to do something different. You are telling yourself, I am going to do it.

And then you set alarm, you get everything ready and you get up at the seven o'clock. You check your phone or anything you have near you and you look seven o'clock. I'm up. I'm in the bathroom. I'm washing my face. I'm putting this on, putting that on. And then you decide that, you know what? Seven o'clock is not my thing. I want to go back to sleep. And that is fine because you did manage to get up at seven o'clock and you did manage to get a lot of steps done.

And that is accomplishment for you. And people will feel confident when you accomplish something, whether it's a small little tiny thing or that is huge thing for you. But you have to get going. You have to move. But that moving part is difficult. And that moving part will give you confidence.

And I mentioned this, like whether you feel confident or not doesn't matter in the other episode. If you're interested, you can go back and have a look. But what I want to say is sometimes we do need confidence to look comfortable.

Maybe during a talk, you feel comfortable and people like talking to you. Maybe during a job interview, you need the confidence to get a job. There are a lot of things, a lot of occasions you might really need the confidence, but you can't just go shop around and get it. You have to build it yourself. And how to do it?

You got to do it by start to tell yourself, I am going to do it. Don't think about the consequences or results you're going to get. Don't think about whether you can or not. If this is the idea, this is your idea, this is what you want or you're thinking that you want to do, just pick it up and do it.

So that's the first one, being affirmative. Second one, being affirmative is one thing that I want to say that sometimes don't be a pushover. I had a spat with my husband the other day on the way to park with my kid. How did that happen? Okay, so we had multiple appointments. We're trying to squeeze in all the appointments this week. So next week we start our job and then we don't have to take a day off.

So we had this spat about appointment conflicts. So I got a phone call from my hand therapy. And I said, OK, so I want to book Thursday in the morning so I can get a specialist. But then that has a conflict with the other appointment we had already booked a while ago. But I forgot when. So I looked at him. I said, when was the appointment?

Appointment he said something I didn't catch it and then I told that guy I said, oh, okay. Yeah Thursday Okay, well I was talking I looked at him I said, okay, and he said yes. So anyway hung up and I looked at him I said Thursday

12 o'clock and then he was like we can't because we have appointment same day from 11 to 12 we can't make it he normally talks to me with a very gentle soft tone so he rarely does that we can that kind of tone so that made me upset and i refused to talk to him and then i picked up the phone and i called him back and rescheduled my appointment

And after we got to the place and he said, okay, let me fix that. I said, no, it's already done. I don't need you to fix anything. I'm not going to call them back and say, put me back to Thursday again. I don't want to do this back and forth. It's already done and I'm not talking about it.

And he said, oh, you can't do this to me. Let me fix it. Don't be mad. And I said, no, I'm just using the way you talk to me to talk to you. And he said, I'm not using this way to talk to you. I said, I'm not discussing this at this moment. I'm not happy and I don't want to do it because we're at the park. We're going to go have fun.

I was so proud of myself and when I was talking to my therapist and I mentioned this to her, I said, sometimes when you get married, after you have kids, you're going to hate your husbands. Whether they're good or not, you're just going to hate them. They can never get to your point. They always rub you in the wrong way.

So that's why there is a book called How to Not Hate Your Husband After Child, if you are interested. Anyway, so I mentioned this and I also said sometimes I had chat with my parents and then from time to time it make me upset again. So she said what I did at the park with my husband was a perfect example of being affirmative for myself, which is actually a boundary, right?

or a way to speak up for yourself. And I realized I sometimes was pushed over 100%. In a conversation, what they say, I might not agree, or they're trying to take advantage of you, and I sense it, but I don't know how to protect myself or speak up for myself. And I just let it happen. Then after that, I felt so upset and so...

hating myself because I could have said this to protect myself. I could have said this to make my situation better. But at that moment on the spot, I just could not.

And then she said, this is because you don't believe yourself. You don't believe yourself that you can protect yourself. So you let other people decide how to or you let other people decide where to go in this conversation and how to do things. And you don't like it. You hate yourself. You hate everybody. And then you lose the confidence and affirmation in that situation.

So perfect example will be you are not feeling comfortable in that conversation. Instead of saying that you should not say this, you should not say that, you should not do this to me. You tell them I am not going to have this conversation with you at this moment. I don't like it. I feel uncomfortable and I'm not happy and I'm not having this conversation this moment until you figure out your own thing.

And then we can start to talk again. Because I am not responsible for your feelings at that moment. Because I'm already upset myself. I said...

I never felt this way. And that might be difficult when it comes to family members because you always live together and it's hard to say, you know what, get out of here or you get out of here. Especially when you don't have, let's say, if you live with your parents, you don't have your own financial support. That can be even harder. What I want to say, you don't have to be this extreme, right? When couples have fights, it can be very tense, right?

So what I want to say is no matter what relationship you have right now or you're in right now, romantic relationship, friendship, your colleagues and maybe just acquaintances or your neighbors, those kind of relationships, any social relationships, if any conversation, any words in any circumstances make you uncomfortable, unhappy, make you feel uncomfortable,

that you are losing yourself, you can stop the conversation right in that moment. That's one thing you can do.

by yourself, right? You have the ability to stop the conversation. Just say, at this moment, I don't think you're right about this thing. Or say, I don't think you get what I want to say, but I can say that one more time. If you are still not happy about what I say, or you still disagree in that manner, I am not going to continue this conversation with you. We can always come back and figure out things, but not at this moment. And walk away.

that will give you huge confidence to set a boundary and protect yourself and make yourself a better person. What I mean by making yourself a better person means that you will feel good, will feel happy, you will feel not always being taken advantage of.

That is very important. You might not be able to do that all at once. You might have to practice. You might have to do baby steps first. So for example, if your roommate asks you to pick up an order for her and you decide to say no, and then she said you're a selfish person, you say, guess what? If that's what you can say to me at this moment, I don't think we can continue with this conversation. I got my own stuff to do.

I'll see you later. So walk away from that situation. That sounds like a baby step that might be huge for you at that moment, but you can practice that. A lot of things just need practice.

Once you have enough experience of that techniques or skills, you will really grow stronger. So that's what I learned from the comment and my therapy and also from the fight with my husband. But I think being affirmative is very important and being affirmative definitely gives you confidence.

Second thing I want to talk about is absolute power. I know there are famous saying, I forgot who, but it says absolute power gives you corruption or brings corruption here. Since I am a parent now, I've been thinking about that a lot as a parent myself and also think about the relationship I have with my parents too. So what I was thinking about absolute power, if you think this way,

I don't know how many of you have kids or you don't have kids or you're in a relationship. Think about it.

So let's use kids, parent and kid as an example. When you first give birth to your baby infant, they are very, they're absolutely vulnerable. They will die without you for sure. So as a mother, a lot of some things that you might not have control over. So for example, you're trying to make him sleep and he doesn't sleep and you lose control over that. Anyway, so what I wanted to say is that

You, for a very long time, you have this absolute power over them. They have to listen to you. If they don't listen to you, they lose everything. When they're a little baby, you decide whether they go to school or not. Go to what school? You decide what they wear. You even decide what they eat. You decide their schedule of the day. When to play, when to have a nap, when to eat snacks.

A lot of things, most parents are very responsible and educated. So what they do is to make their children's future bright and then lead them to the right direction. But some parents might think they are well educated, might think they have the correct path for their kids mapped out for them. But they don't know. It might be wrong. You never know. How do you know you're a good parent or not?

You don't know, right? So that's the danger of absolute power because you basically map out for your children where they should go, what they can be. That scares me because I don't know if I have the ability to

do that? What if my kid is a genius, right? The last episode I was talking about being ordinary genius. What if he's a genius, but I have this limited vision of things that I just could not give him enough to support him to step up? What if, right? What if I make the wrong decision and then he's screwed up? So those kind of things,

Makes me scared about absolute power. That's one thing. But also, once you get used to this absolute power, and most people are ordinary people, you're not in an important position, or you never had any kind of strong power, political power, or relationship, social power in any situation, this is a chance for you to be a leader, and you have a taste of the power to control other people.

people small people and you like it and now your kids are growing older and they start to grow their own mind their own independence their own opinions they're gonna eventually question you and and talk back to you and have very different opinions and don't agree don't agree with you and don't like you anymore or those sort of things they will have things that are totally opposite

to what you want them to do and that is a challenge to your absolute power but you already have the habit of having everything under control and telling everybody what to do now this person

stands up and tells you, no, I'm not going to follow your order. How do you feel? So maybe, so we're talking about the under whatever, whatever's going on. You might be mad. You might flipped at that moment, but I think underneath it's your panic.

It's your panic of losing the control, losing power. So for the symptoms of your deep down emotion, you get mad at them and you start to curse. You start to yell at them. You start telling them they're not good kids anymore. Those kind of things. So I'm also reflecting on myself about my relationship with my parents. I think I'm always a very strong willed person. I always know what I want and what I don't.

But during the adolescent stage or even young adulthood, I did not have enough ability to rebel. Right. So let's put that way. But once I came to Canada and I started to learn and absorb a lot of things that I like, I started to have more freedom and more freedom.

free speech, more free will. And that made them panic because they feel like they're losing me at the moment. They started to not recognize the person they used to live with. And then that's when they said I was brainwashed.

I'm scared too because I'm the kind of person once I have once I grow this attachment to someone it is very difficult for me to get rid of the attachment and this is why I always have a hard time thinking about that one day Bob is still gonna be gone sorry I can't talk about this and my kid might want to travel

might want to live in another country those kind of things is leaving me behind and I got stuck with what I used to have and now thinking about my parents I think they felt the same way and that's why I said they are now they're learning a lot I think they are so brave to let me go they're so brave to support my lifestyle right now even though sometimes they would they would nag

about small things. But again, I feel like they're very brave to let me live my own life. I think I might, I think in the future, I might have a hard time doing that same thing too. But I think that's the absolute power of parents, that some parents are able to let go of things, let go of emotions, attachment, let go of their children or any kind of relationships. And some parents are not capable of doing so. So they become control freak.

I think this is why. And if your parents are control freak, sorry, it might be a little bit extreme description for that. But if your parents are control freaks, that might not because they really want to make sure everything's under control. That might because in their whole life, that's the only time they had a taste of absolute power and they don't want to lose that and they don't want to lose that experience. And that's how I ended up being controlled.

like you being stuck in that situation. You feel like you can never get out of that. But again, like what I said many times, doesn't matter where you get stuck right now, at work, at school, at home, or in any kind of relationships you have now, don't just say, I gave up because there's nothing I can do. At that moment, you might not get the immediate result you want, but

But don't just give up and do nothing. You need to learn as much as possible and gather what you can gather as much as possible. And one day eventually you will get out of there. This is my experience with my jobs. I did not like those jobs in the beginning, but I was trying to take advantage of what I could use without paying too much, without sacrificing too much.

I'm trying to learn as much as possible. And that had paved a path for me to where I am right now. I was taking a lot of exams and I failed.

I applied to schools, I failed. But what I learned to prepare for those exams and the school offers or entrances did not go nothing. They were there. They support me. Now I have the knowledge and the foundation to go further. And that's what I mean. Don't just do nothing and complain and be sad. You're going to be affirmative about what you are going to do and then think about what you can get afterwards. So that's the most important thing.

Anyway, so maybe a little bit talkative and emotional about it. I don't think I'm going to talk a little bit more. I think it's already a very long video, but I hope you like it and stay tuned and I'll see you next time. Bye.