A crisis of confidence is not so much a time to pause and reflect as it is a time to plan rational action--and to remind yourself of what have done well in the past.

Low confidence isn't so much an indication that you need to think, so much as you need to give yourself credit for the thinking you have already done in your life to date. "Here's what I have done well. This is the proof that I can take the steps to do even better now."

Young people haven't had a chance to establish a track record, I realize. This is why they need to have confidence not just in their own minds and abilities--but in human potential and humanity, as such. If you see a crisis of confidence in a young person, it's not because of his own failures, but because of the failure of any adult to inspire him, to date.