Gaining self-confidence

Few years ago l used to be a very shy person, I used to run away from people, I never engaged myself in anything called public speaking. This was because I had low self-esteem. Even to communicate with people was such a burden to me. People started capitalizing on my inability, even the ones I called my friends. This became a very big challenge to me, I looked for every possible means to put an end to this problem I had, all but to no avail. I realized that I have been missing out on so many things just because I was afraid of saying something (even though what I had in mind was right). This got worst when I gained admission into the university, I remember when I was given a seminar topic on “Bankers Algorithm”. I went back and made a good research on the topic, wrote it down and studied it carefully. My write up was amazing (no doubt), but when I came to present it, I really messed up, not because I did not know what to present, but because I had stage freight. I was shaky all through the period of my presentation, as I was even presenting, I noticed that some of my examiners were already dozing off, while some were murmuring, the worst was that some even started checking time. I knew my presentation wasn’t interesting at all. I had this feeling that the whole world had fallen on me, and it was as if I should disappear to thin air immediately just to hide my face from the shame. When I was done presenting, all the examiners expressed their dissatisfaction in my presentation skills. I really felt challenged, but in all this I never gave up.
I started reading motivational books such as “Be All You can Be”, “Public speaking instruction Manual”, “the art of public speaking”, “Develop self-confidence, improve public speaking” all written by Dale Carnegie. His books mainly focused on self-improvement, corporate training, public speaking, interpersonal skills, etc.
I got helpful tips on how to develop and grow self-confidence, then I realized that the first thing I need to do is to “believe in myself” I started working on my public speaking by doing indoor practice, I started taking initiatives for some things; I always wanted to be the first take a step (something I used to be afraid of). Things really worked out for me, I even started aspiring for leadership positions because I was totally free from my low self-confidence and low self-esteem. I found better ways of communicating with people and getting their attention.

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These are snapshots of when I started doing my presentations confidently.

Well…some might be wondering “what has this post got to do with me?”
I am writing this post because I know there are people like me out there who needs this kind of help, I want to encourage you to never do this three things:
Never give up on your self
Never look down on your self
Belief you can do it
Also, spend some quality time reading some motivational book by prominent authors and you will get rid of your low self-esteem.
Thanks for taking time to read to the end, I believe this post has helped someone out there.