Are you waiting for confidence?

Have you ever been in a meeting and wanted to speak up but told yourself that you were not ready? That you would wait until next meeting when maybe you would feel more confident?

Have you ever wanted to put yourself forward for a promotion but felt that you needed to have more experience and more knowledge to be able to feel confident enough to take that step?

Have you ever heard someone speaking at a conference and thought „I wish I could speak one day at a conference, if ever I would be confident enough“?

Are you waiting until you feel more confident?

I was.

I was waiting to feel more confident before speaking up in meetings. I was waiting to feel more confident before starting my blog. I was waiting to feel more confident before starting to coach.

I used to think that, one day, the stars, the moon, and the planets would all align themselves perfectly and from that day onwards I would feel confident and ready to do all the things I wanted to.

The years went by, the planets never aligned and I never found the magic formula to feel confident. As a consequence, I was not where I wanted to be. It made me think of Albert Einstein's quote that says: „Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results“. So, if I wanted confidence, I would have to start doing things differently.

Most of us want to feel more confident before we take action. It makes sense, right? You want to know that you can do something before you do it. You do not want to make a fool out of yourself in front of others. You want to feel ready before taking action. That feels safe. That feels like you are in control.

But what is confidence and how does it work?

What is confidence?

According to our friend Google, confidence is „a feeling of self-assurance arising from one‘s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities“. Confidence is a feeling or a belief in your ability to do something. Usually, the things we do not feel confident about are things that are unfamiliar, new, and possibly make you feel a little uncomfortable. If these things are unfamiliar and new or you have little experience in doing them how can you expect to feel confident? Before learning how to drive, did you feel confident about your driving abilities? Most probably not.

We need to look at confidence the other way around.

Confidence does not precede action. Confidence follows action.

The fact is, if you keep waiting until you have the confidence you admire in others before you start anything, you will never start. And if you never start, you will never feel confident. It’s a vicious circle. Only by doing things and then doing them again and again and again will you start getting the experience that you will need to feel confident. Confidence is the result of repeatedly taking an action.

I know that if I would have waited for confidence I wouldn’t have started to write my blog and I wouldn’t be on a mission to inspire women to become the successful women they want to be. Wouldn‘t that be a shame?

I am going to be honest here, I still do not feel confident about writing my blog for example but I know I still have not written enough posts to feel confident. So I keep on going.

Is it scary? You bet it’s scary to take action when you are not feeling confident. But either we are operating from a place of fear or from a place of courage. Fear pulls us back into our comfort zone. Courage pushes us forward.

You see, when you are considering speaking up in a meeting or speak at a conference and decide not to do it because you don’t feel confident enough, what you are feeling is fear, not lack of confidence. It takes courage to decide not to listen to that voice that tells you, „you can’t do it“, and act.

This lead me to another important discovery: before taking action, what you need is to have courage, not to feel confident.

Courage should be the goal

Confidence is the result of repeated acts of everyday courage. So if you want to grow confidence, what you really need is to get more courage.

According to the Cambridge dictionary courage is „the ability to control your fear in a dangerous or difficult situation“. In other words, courage is the inner strength to take action, when all you really want to do is shrink away.

Courage is about being afraid and still taking action. Courage is about doing what needs to be done to move you forward, regardless of how uncomfortable it feels. Courage is about taking risks even if you don’t know if it’s going to work out. Courage is about trusting that you can handle anything no matter what happens.

If you are like me, you weren’t born courageous. So you shouldn’t expect to magically acquire courage. As Tony Robbins says „ Courage, like fear, is a habit. The more you do it, the more you do it“.

I am not talking about having the courage that makes you run into a building on fire to save others or jump in the river to save a child from drowning. These are heroic examples of courage.

I am talking about developing everyday courage that is shown in smaller ways and that will help you increase your confidence. Speaking up, saying „no“, asking the difficult question,….

Courage isn’t exclusive to a few chosen ones. We can all develop it. Courage is a habit, a muscle, and like the muscles in your body, to strengthen them what you need to do is to exercise them. Is it easy? No, but is it possible? Hell, yes.

True fact: you will not see results with the muscles in your body after 2 sessions at the gym or working out inconsistently (so much my case, by the way! Not proud of that). Likewise, you cannot expect your courage muscle to improve significantly after a couple of tries or by working on your courage every now and then.

Start small and begin now. Remember, the more often you act in a certain way, the more habitual that behavior becomes.

Many times throughout my career I found myself walking into a meeting, taking a seat, and realizing I was the only woman present. Initially, I found it hard to say anything as I was afraid that my ideas were not good enough, that no one would be interested in what I had to say or that I would just be wrong. Speaking up in a meeting dominated by men takes courage. I decided, however, that at each meeting I would attend that I would share my opinion regardless of what these men would think of me. So, each time, I take a deep breath, decide not to listen to my inner voice that is telling me to „keep quiet“ and speak up. Does it still scare me? Absolutely, but not as much as the first times.

If I had waited to feel confident before speaking up in the meetings, I would still be silent and for sure would have not advanced in my career to where I am today. Instead, I gathered the courage to do it, and with time I became a bit more confident.

It takes courage to take action despite our doubts or even though last time we might have fallen short and made a fool of ourselves. I don’t know about you, but if I give myself time to think and start listening to my inner voice, I will talk myself out of doing anything. The trick is to decide you will act and don’t stop to rationalize things. Do not make a list of pros and cons or ponder about the possible consequences as otherwise, you will talk yourself out of doing it. Trust me, don’t wait for confidence and begin before you are ready. When you start doing something courageous you can be sure that confidence will come later.

The stars, the moon, and the planets are still not aligned but I am no longer waiting. I have started. What about you? When are you going to start?