Dear Counsellor:

I am a 38-year-old male, married with three children, in one of the better jobs with a good salary package, but I hate myself for lacking confidence, lacking assertiveness, lacking high self-esteem. My many attempts at academic growth seem futile. I feel worthless, I feel like a misfit, like someone who does not belong, I get bored easily, lose focus and think I suffer a great deal of chronic inferior complex.

I love my job and don't want to lose it, but I'm afraid that it will be snatched away, leaving me with more misery and pain. There was no 'pull string' in getting the job. God's hand played a part in my life, but my personal academic growth has many holes and I don't know what to do anymore.

- Mark

Dear Mark:

Do you feel a lack of confidence when you are around persons who you perceive to be 'better looking', more educated or of a higher social status? Do you, in those moments, experience a feeling of inferiority? Eleanor Roosevelt said that no one can make you feel inferior without your permission. Mark interestingly there is also a correlation between self-confidence and assertiveness. The more confident a person is, the more assertive that person will be. The person who lacks self-confidence will many times lack assertiveness. One could als confidence with competence; with increasing competence, one increases in self-confidence.

You fear that your job will be snatched away from you and, sad to say, it will, if you continue to harbour negative thoughts. Our thoughts impact on our feelings and our feelings determine our behaviour. That is how our attitudes are formed. If you continue to feel the way you do, then ultimately, your behaviour will be negative, and without realising it, you will do things to sabotage your job. Then you will feel that you deserved to lose your job. We call this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Many factors

There are many factors that could have caused you to feel like a misfit, including the things that were told to you as a child. At home, you might have been compared to others and made to feel that you were not good enough. At school, you might have tried fitting into a group, only to be rejected with someone telling you that you did not belong. This left you feeling unsure about yourself and feeling rejected you seem to be doing well, the tapes from your past still continue to play in your head, telling you that you do not belong, you are a misfit.

You said that God has a hand in your job, this leads me to believe that you practise a particular faith. As such, I will speak to you from that platform. Mark, you have so much to be thankful for. I would like you to take a piece of paper and write down all your blessings and each day, you thank God for them. Thank Him for the job He has given you. Thank Him for your wonderful wife and your beautiful children.

Also, take a walk down into your past and unveil all the times you were told that you did not belong or that you were a misfit. Each statement was like a blow, fracturing portions of your self-esteem. Each day, look in the mirror and reclaim a piece of yourself by reminding yourself that you belong to a royal family and you are 'fearfully and wonderfully made'. Finally, sit down with a counsellor and work through the hurdles to your academic progress.