I've always heard how attractive the trait confidence is to posses. And for a long time I always associated being confident with also being cocky. That really steered me away from thinking that confidence was something I should be expressing outwardly because bragging and boasting just wasn't what I was about.
In the past couple of years my opinion has slowly, but surely changed as to the importance and the attractiveness of being confident.
I joined Kappa Delta in the fall of 2014 with no clue of how it would change my life. I have had good times and really trying times while being apart of this Panhellenic organization, but it is this time of the year, recruitment season, that seems to be a helpful reminder of a quality I should posses during my times of struggle, and that quality is confidence.
I have realized not only through my experience as a sister of Kappa Delta at Kennesaw State University, but just being apart of the Panhellenic community in general. It has shown me that having confidence will take you the best kinds of places, introduce you to the best types of people, push you to do the best kinds of things, and you may even find that it helps you change a life or two.
Although Kappa Delta's platform for all of our philanthropies and values, The Confidence Coalition, is a big part of the organizations brand, the Panhellenic community is filled with confident women who look to inspire the confidence that their organization has given to them. Not only that, but the way confidence is promoted is unique to each individual organization. There doesn't seem to be just one form or personal definition of the word confidence.
Which brings me to my point, maybe confidence is being cocky or boastful, but maybe that isn't the attractive kind of confidence I have been told to have. It turns out that the confidence I should posses is a lot of things.
It is having a smile on your face, it is holding your head high and standing up straight, it is being kind, genuine, and encouraging to someone you don't know or maybe aren't the biggest fan of. It is owning what you have to offer and not conforming to the crowd around you because the confident crowd won't be afraid to accept you. It also means knowing when the way you are acting is something you should consider changing and learning from your mistakes. And then not only learning from that mistake, but not beating yourself up for making them because even the people we think have it all together are flawed as well.
The confidence that I have may not be the same kind of confidence that the women in my Panhellenic community posses and share while they recruit and serve the community with, but it is a beautifully unique confidence and one that means something to them.
With this in mind I hope that my experience with confidence (and my complete overuse of it in this article) has made you think about what form of this trait you may be showing people, made you see the importance of being confident, and inspired you to encourage someone else to find it within themselves.
