Yhem Speaks

What’s one thing you wish you had started doing earlier in life?

One thing I wish I had learned earlier in life is that it’s okay not to be good at something.

For the longest time, I thought confidence was something people were born with. Some people walked into a room and immediately commanded attention. They raised their hands in class, spoke their minds freely, and seemed completely comfortable being seen. Then there was me. The shy girl who preferred to stay in the background and hoped nobody would ask her to stand in front of a crowd.

Looking back now, I realize that shyness stole more from me than I was willing to admit at the time.

Growing up, I missed opportunities not because I wasn’t capable, but because I was afraid. Afraid of saying the wrong thing. Afraid of making mistakes. Afraid that people would judge me. Most of all, I was afraid that whatever I had to say wasn’t important enough.

So I stayed quiet.

Whenever there was an opportunity to speak in front of others, I immediately began looking for ways to avoid it. My heart would race. My palms would sweat. My mind would suddenly forget everything I wanted to say. The thought of standing in front of people felt unbearable.

One memory that still comes back to me from time to time happened in high school. I was sitting in a science class when our teacher asked a question. It wasn’t particularly difficult, and as soon as he asked it, I knew the answer. One by one, students raised their hands and confidently gave answers, but every single one was wrong. The teacher became increasingly frustrated. Instead of getting the answer he was looking for, he announced that the entire class would have to spend the next three weeks researching the topic and submit additional work.

The whole time, I sat there quietly while I knew the answer.

I remember debating with myself over and over. Raise your hand. No, what if it’s wrong? What if everyone laughs? What if the teacher asks a follow-up question and you don’t know what to say? So I did what shy people often do. I stayed silent and hoped someone else would speak up.

Nobody did.

Later, after class, I gathered enough courage to approach the teacher and tell him that I had actually known the answer. He looked at me and said something I have never forgotten. It was too late. The opportunity had passed, and I would have to complete the extra assignment along with everyone else.

At the time, I was annoyed about the homework. Looking back now, that wasn’t really the lesson. The real lesson was realizing that sometimes silence has consequences too. I had spent so much time worrying about the possibility of being wrong that I never considered the cost of saying nothing at all.

For years, I thought staying quiet protected me from embarrassment. In some ways it did. But it also protected me from opportunities, experiences, and moments where I could have learned something about myself. That day in the science classroom taught me something I wouldn’t fully understand until much later: confidence isn’t always about knowing the answer. Sometimes it’s simply about being willing to raise your hand.

What makes me laugh now is that I genuinely believed everyone else knew something I didn’t. I thought confident people had somehow received a secret manual for life that I had missed. I assumed they always knew exactly what to say and never felt nervous.

Of course, adulthood has taught me otherwise.

The older I get, the more I realize that many of the people who appear confident are simply willing to be uncomfortable. They speak even when they’re nervous. They try even when they might fail. They raise their hands before they feel completely ready.

Confidence wasn’t what came first.

Action did.

That is the lesson I wish I had understood much earlier.

For years, I believed I needed confidence before I could speak up. I needed confidence before I could share my ideas. I needed confidence before I could put myself out there.

But life doesn’t really work that way. Confidence is often the result of doing the thing repeatedly. It grows quietly in the background while you’re busy being a beginner.

I sometimes think about how much energy I spent hiding. Energy that could have gone into learning, growing, trying new things, and developing skills. Instead, I spent a lot of it worrying about what people might think.

The truth is that most people are too busy thinking about themselves to spend nearly as much time thinking about us as we imagine.

One of the greatest gifts that has come with getting older is realizing that my thoughts do not have to be perfect to be shared. My opinions do not have to be groundbreaking to matter. My voice does not have to sound like someone else’s to deserve space.

So, I wish I had learned earlier that it is not about how to be confident or fearless but how to be a beginner at something.

How to admit that even though I’m not got at that thing, I can still try it anyway even if I fail. The failure is just a phase and won’t be forever.

How to speak even when my voice shook.

How to take up space before I felt completely ready.

Because every skill starts with awkwardness. Every expert starts as a beginner. Every confident speaker was once the person standing at the back of the room hoping nobody would call on them.

If I could go back and tell myself one thing, it would be this:

Your voice doesn’t become valuable the day you finally feel confident.

It was valuable all along.

With Stories Always,

Yhem💞