Identify Your Areas of Focus

Hello Steemians!

This is my response to @thegaillery's first takeaway of The Confidence Project. This is not an official entry, as I am planning to continue to support the project by promoting it and writing conjunction posts alongside the main takeaways. I am not after the monetary reward. What I am after is the outcome of this project and how it will affect ourselves.

For the sake of transparency, I would like to share that I already sent the SBD rewards of my conjunction post to @thegaillery. That reward will be added to the reward pool of the Confidence Project. Please refer to the screenshot below or follow the trail on my wallet.

Monetary rewards are great motivators, but they're extrinsic in nature. Extrinsic motivators such as money, fame, praise, and grades are motivators that could manifest a particular behavior do something with the expectation of getting something among those mentioned in return. These motivators came from the outside of the individual, hence the term extrinsic.

On the other hand, there is what we call as intrinsic motivation. This manifestation of behavior to do something is driven by internal rewards, hence the term intrinsic. The behavior to do something is driven by the idea that the activity itself is naturally satisfying to the doer. In a sense, if you are the doer, you are not expecting something from the outside when you do something.

Identifying your areas of focus in the first place is recognizing your strengths and weaknesses. Once you recognize which part of your life requires more attention, that's the time you say that you have to focus on that area. In a way, it requires rigorous self assessment which may be easier said than done.

I would like to tie those two different concepts and hopefully come up with a comprehensive framework that could be used in the attainment of my goal of the first takeaway.

My Goal of the First Takeaway

The initiators of the Confidence Project - @thegaillery and @jsmalila - might have a different goal of the first takeaway, but I would like to provide a different perspective based on the view of a supportive outsider. I am an outsider because I am not involved in the project, but I have been a supporter since @thegaillery opened it up to me.

I would like to add a different angle to this project. This is not to diminish the efforts of the initiators, but to expand the scope that the project encompasses. I have no intention of derailing the project or stirring it to another direction. I just want to provide an additional view on top of the existing ones. I hope I made myself clear just to prevent anyone from construing a negative connotation to my conjunction posts.

Before you join any takeaway of the Confidence Project, ask yourself first which of the two motivators has a bigger portion of your reason why you joined this initiative. It's okay to be honest and vulnerable. If you're motivated because of the monetary reward, it's okay. It's not a bad thing, but if you try to look into the intrinsic rewards that you'll get from this project, you'll be amazed of what you can find. It's difficult to measure at first because it's intangible, but with time, you will realize how the project has made an impact to you.

My goal of the first takeaway is to urge those who partake in the challenge to have an in-depth assessment about themselves. As I've said, identifying your areas of focus will lead you to get to know yourself more. In some cases, you never knew you have an innate talent until you make a careful assessment of what you can and can't do.

For me, The Confidence Project is bigger than what it is. This is because there are intangible effects that we can't measure. It means that while building self confidence is the main purpose of the project, there other effects to the one who accepts the challenge. Whatever those effects are, I'm sure it would be more on self awareness. In the end, I would be very glad to read stories of people who will say that because of the project, they were able to overcome their insecurities. Because of this novel concept, there will be a rise of true masters in their own field of endeavor.

My Areas of Focus

I would like to take this opportunity to partake in the first challenge. As I am now more focused on the intrinsic value of things, I will be taking the challenge at my own pace. I will just update you from time to time about my progress.

Here are the areas that I want to be more confident on:

Strong command of the English language.

It's undeniable that as a second language, we have to learn everything from proper word usage to coherence. Since it's not a natural tongue, many hours were spent learning and familiarizing the language. I regret that I didn't take English subjects very seriously when I was in high school. I thought that once the sound is not awkward, then the grammar must be correct. I was wrong! I was slapped in the face when @jocelynlily pointed out everything that is wrong in my first short story entitled "The Woman on the Bench". While I thank and commend her for honestly pointing out my mistakes, my confidence was really affected. To redeem myself, I will do the following:

1. Review everything that is related to English grammar. From proper tenses to construction of complex sentences, I should learn everything back from the very beginning.
2. Continue to write stories and maintain this blog. I will try my best to upload on a daily basis. In this way, I will be honing my writing skills.
3. Learn a new word every day to expand my vocabulary. I will keep with me a dictionary and read it as often as I can. I will then try to use that new word in the blog.

Socializing and expanding my network.

I am really awkward when it comes to socializing. I have mentioned it several times already in my posts. I don't have that natural charisma that could attract people to talk with me. Even when I made new friends here on steemit, the feeling is still unnatural when I meet new people. To be confident in this area, I will do the following:

1. Increase my social media presence specially here by commenting and welcoming new steemians, as well as communicate newly found friends as often as I can. It is still not my natural impulse, but I'm taking baby steps.
2. Attend meet ups and promotional events initiated by @steemph.cebu. My first meet up was unexpectedly awesome, but I have to admit that it still felt awkward to be with people you just met. Good thing I found great people who never made me feel worse. I really had a great time, so I will do it more often.
3. Push myself to initiate a conversation with a complete stranger. When someone approaches me to talk, there would be no problem. But if I am to initiate a conversation, the story changes. It's really a dreadful thing for me to do. If I can do it even once, I'll be satisfied.

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I could go on and add another area on that list, but I guess some of you might have stopped reading already. So I guess that's all for now. I'll update this list, maybe in the next takeaways. As I've said, I'll partake in the challenge at my own pace.

Thank you all for reading this post and I would really appreciate it if you can tell me what you think by dropping a comment below.

Keep on building that self confidence!

Hanggang sa muli,
Kim, @ybanezkim26

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_{Please don't forget to follow @thegaillery and @jsmalila and upvote their posts if you like them. You can also accept the challenges of the Confidence Project. Thank you!}

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_{Images were taken from pixabay.com}