Confidence

Back in the days where I wrote my first songs, I hated my voice. I saw myself as a songwriter and guitarist but never a singer! I tried working together with a male singer for a short period in Scotland before moving to Germany. I had to record my voice with my song-arrangements, so as to give him an idea of the vocals I was looking for. It ended up as an embarrassingly thin, unconfident and out of tune sound to my ears. He told me I should stick to playing the guitar and I agreed promptly. Any singing career was seemingly buried for ever in that moment!

Once in Germany, I continued to write songs and embarked upon an endless search for the perfect singer. I heard many styles and levels of accomplishment along the way, from both female and male voices, but I was never satisfied. I knew what I wanted – a clear, highish pop voice – but nothing fitted the bill entirely and sometimes there was a chemistry problem.

So often we (or at least those of us who struggle with confidence) tell ourselves that confidence is one of those intangible, inherent qualities. Either you have it, or you don’t. Some people seem to just ooze it. You know who I’m talking about. They walk into a room and you can just see the puddles of leftover confidence that’s just dripped off of them as they meandered gracefully from one person to the next. Little social butterflies with the presence of something so much larger and greater.

I’ve wanted to be that person for a long, long time. I’ve wished that I had the confidence to be the “life of the party” or, if not that, at the very least someone who didn’t shy away from the party altogether. People are attracted to confidence. I’ve always wanted to inspire that. But, here’s what I’ve learned over the years: we can choose to be confident.