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In the Sunday Blog post “Letting Your Voice Out of Its Box”, we learned several reasons as to why people don’t speak up. These included wanting to avoid conflict, fearing backlash, not wanting to burden others, not wanting to come off as unreasonable, feeling like others won’t care, and being unsure of yourself.

Of these six reasons, five of them have something in common. They relate to how a person perceives another’s feelings. For example, if you want to avoid conflict, it’s because you think what you have to say will anger or upset another person.

The one that doesn’t fall into this category is the last one: being unsure of yourself. This one purely relates to how you feel about yourself. Whether or not you think your voice matters.

I don’t consider myself the most interesting person. I wake up, hit the snooze, eventually get up, eat, work, eat, sleep. I don’t travel much or do the spectacular on a daily basis (or any basis, really). When I’m asked to give a fun fact about myself, I scream internally. Personality quizzes tell me I’m over 90% introvert.

But eventually I gained confidence. It didn’t happen overnight. A spider didn’t bite me and I woke up with superpowers. Gaining confidence in myself took time, and it wasn’t because I had a glow up or came into money or got a great job. It took putting myself in speech and debate. It took raising my hand to present first in class. It took performing poetry in front of hundreds of strangers. It took going against all the internal monologue screaming at me to run the other way. But it did happen. 

Confidence is a gradual process, especially for those of us who have lacked self-esteem for the better part of our lives. But it’s a process that requires self-starting. And it’s a sweet journey that never ends. To feel comfortable in your own shoes to the point where you can walk on water and talk like fire.

So my ask of you is to start your own journey to self-confidence. Whether that begins with a post on Voicebox, finally telling your boss you deserve a raise, or anything else, when the ball gets rolling—take it from me—the walls of that box surrounding your voice won’t know what hit em.

Tuesday Deep Dive is a series where we discuss in more detail a specific point made in the previous Sunday Blog.