How to get more confident in anything
When people think about confidence, they often think of it as something you either have, or you don’t. We trick ourselves into thinking that some people are just naturally more confident than others, in the same way that people might have blue or brown eyes.
But confidence is not an inherited trait.
Confidence is therefore primarily a learned trait. And, like with most things we learn, we have scope to shift and change how we approach it as a concept, in order to gain more of it.
Confidence is a learned trait.
When I say that confidence is a learned trait, I don’t mean in the style of going away and reading books on how to do it better. No, I mean it in the sense that it is often our upbringing and the social dynamics of our childhoods that instil particular ways in which we see ourselves, and this narrative can have significant impacts on the levels of confidence we may feel in the future.
If you are raised in a critical household where your every move is highly scrutinised and interrogated for mistakes, it’s likely that you might grow up feeling as though you’re not very good at many things. So finding confidence might be harder for you later on in life.
Similarly, if your parents loudly applauded every single act of yours, from your first sneeze to your most recent wipe, you may develop an over-stated sense of confidence that isn’t entirely warranted.
In these ways, confidence is initially a result of what we learned in our early years. But it doesn’t exist in a fixed state.
Confidence lives on a spectrum.
There is a lot of variety in terms of the levels of confidence we might feel. And the biggest influence on where we might sit on the confidence spectrum is rooted in the stories that we tell ourselves.
These stories can be subconscious ones from our childhood, revealed through mindful reflection and exploration, or more overtly such in the form of feedback from a sports coach or work colleague. But at the heart of confidence lies the story we tell ourself; how good are we at a particular skill?
Jim Kwik is an expert on the human brain, particularly in the area of memory. He believes our brains have the power to let us achieve limitless things, if only we could step out of the way. Or, as he puts it:
“If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them.”
Jim KwikIt might be true that for the first few attempts at something we fail miserably and objectively can’t achieve it. But if we create a consistent story in which we tell ourselves that we can’t do something, then that simply becomes our story. We make it true. And we limit ourselves in this way.
We create a limitation, and then our stories reinforce it in a way that allows us to keep it.
Why confidence is more than just saying ‘Yes, I can’
Now if this is starting to sound like I’m about to launch into the notorious advice behind the 2018 pop-culture book, The Power of Yes, fear not.
Confidence is not about saying, it’s about doing.
The premise of that book was in the power of affirmations. That if we tell ourselves we can do something, it unlocks the power to achieving it. While there’s some degree of truth in the idea, the link between confidence and achievement is a lot more complicated. That notion severely underplays the role of perseverance and application in building confidence.
Alex Hormozi puts confidence in a more helpful context:
“You don’t become overconfident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are.
Outwork your self doubt.”
ALEX HORMOZIConfidence is built through repeated effort and action, not just words. But that’s easier said than done, sometimes.
The Power of ‘Yet’
I believe a far more helpful construct lies in the power of the word ‘yet’.
When attempting a new skill, say learning the guitar, or to sing, or to play golf, or to code in Java or HTML, we can fundamentally shift how we view our story within a skill or area of expertise by adding one word:
I can’t do this… yet.
By placing our confidence towards a new skill on a spectrum, it allows us the room to accept that gaining confidence is a journey.
No one goes from being a complete novice to an expert in one day.
We falter, we fail, we get up, we learn, we try again. And slowly, sometimes painfully, we get better and we make…progress. And as we do, we get a bit more confident in what we can do.
Incorporating the concept of ‘yet’ into our story of ourselves and our skills affords us patience, and kindness to ourselves. It creates room for growth and expansion. It doesn’t shut us down before we’ve even begun to try. In fact, it inspires us to go again. To step into and create a space for improvement.
By allowing this space, we create agency for ourselves. We make ourselves responsible. You may not be able to do something, yet. But the only person who is capable of changing that situation is you.
The power of ‘Yet’ comes with a question:
Well, what are you going to do about that?
I can’t hit a tennis ball straight, yet. But maybe if I got some lessons and practiced, I could.
I can’t cook well, yet. But maybe if I went to a class or watched tips on YouTube, I could learn how to improve.
I can’t get a job at Google, yet. But maybe if I took a few free online courses to improve my technical skills, I could.
Confidence is a result of progress, not the precursor for it.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t - you’re right.”
Henry Ford