The link between confidence and resilience is supported by research, and how when you work to build one, the other naturally follows. When you are confident, you believe in your ability to bounce back when life happens. We know that for young people, life really happens: quickly, and challenging at times. Resilience occurs when young people experience bumps in their path and thrive through them often enough that they understand they can do it again, and in turn, builds their confidence that they can tackle life successfully.
Having confidence, especially in yourself, means that you have faith in your abilities and capacity. In other words, you believe you can take on any challenge or task and find the resources to do it well. Your self-esteem is high. Being confident shows inner strength and self-reliance. As you build confidence, you also bolster your inner strength. Consequently, one feeds the other and you are self-assured about facing even the most challenging times in life.
Building confidence isn’t that different than building muscles at the gym. You do sit ups and such to build core muscles that hold you upright—the more you flex them, the quicker you can get up and the longer you can stand. The same is true for building the confidence muscle.
Confidence also comes from knowing who you are and how you want to walk in the world. For First Nations youth, confidence is anchored in genuinely believing #the3Things: they matter, they are important, and they belong.
It is why we are developing and designing Increased Confidence = Increased Resilience = Stronger Futures; (known as Stronger Futures), a Youth Voice, Development and Healing Gathering. We want to provide a ‘gym’ for Indigenous young people to attend over four days to explore, expand and experience what confidence is, and can lead to in their lives.
Here’s a snapshot of the experience youth from Kashechewan First Nation had taking part in Stronger Futures,