22Diaries #32 - THE POWER OF CONFIDENCE

22/01/2024 - Volo Ganca

Bafana Bafana registered their first win at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations Tournament, after they defeated neighbours Namibia, by four goals to nil. In the first half, there were nerves aplenty as a nation collectively held its breath with every Shalulile-inspired search for an opener. But then Percy Tau gave us the opening goal we needed from the penalty spot.

Before you knew it, Bafana Bafana were up by 3 unanswered goals, before half-time. And in those 10 minutes before the sides sauntered into the changing rooms, knowing they had put in a remarkable shift. I couldn’t help but think: How incredible is confidence when it comes to how we perform?

You see, Bafana Bafana’s result in the first round had left many South Africans dismayed and preparing for the worst. Which is, the 1996 Champions bowing out of the tournament after the first round. I can only imagine that this nervous energy had made its way into the camp as well, given how the team performed after kick-off. There were sloppy passes and a gameplan that wasn’t visible to the naked eyes of 60 million.

But following that third goal from Themba Zwane, Bafana became a team transformed. They began to string passes in a way I haven’t seen the national team do for many years. Suddenly, they looked like they could go on to score a total of six goals & Namibia were out of the game completely. And I just thought - Why can’t they play like this all the time? Confidence.

Confidence is that thing that will take your everyday performances in whichever field, to the next level. It will give you an out-of-body experience, where you can see yourself reaching new heights and wonder how it happened. And that’s the key, right? HOW it is cultivated. Because if it was a pill, it would probably remain sold out. But confidence doesn’t come that easily. The way to confidence is actually quite arduous. Because the way to confidence is: Just Doing It.

Whatever that may be, you have to actually do the thing before you become confident that you can actually do it. You’ve got to prove to yourself (much like Bafana did in that opening half) that you know what you’re doing and there needs to be evidence that supports this notion. In order to also DO the thing, you’re going to have to suck at that thing, first and foremost - because you haven’t done it yet. Mr Beast’s YouTube story of his journey is a perfect illustration of this. From making videos in his room as a teenager to being the biggest content creator in the world, he only gathered the evidence that he could do what he could, from doing the thing - without a concern of whether or not it was good. He prioritized doing.

And that’s where we are now as 22Ours, with January almost behind us and in the thick of things with our AFCON 2023 “Africa Assemble” campaign. We are in the moment of doing and gaining confidence in our skills, from putting the work out there. Will it always be great and be met with favour? Definitely not. But that’s not the point of why we’re doing what we do. We’re doing it because we want to get better. And the better we become, the more confident we are in ourselves. And the more confident we are in ourselves, the greater the impact of our work on the people we serve.?

So if you come across our work on any of your socials, please share it or drop us some words of encouragement. It’s a small act that acts as the evidence we need to bring up our collective confidence.?

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