Some people teach that developing self-confidence is about learning to pretend to be self-confident until eventually you are. ‘Fake it till you make it.’
While I think there can be a benefit in acting ‘as if’ – in other words, choosing to do things before you feel completely ready, as if you were already that more confident person – I’m not a fan of the idea of faking it.
Instead, I think building confidence is actually less about building, and more about deconstructing.
We are all born confident. We are all born believing that we are worthy. So becoming more self-confident is ultimately about undoing the thoughts and patterns of behaviour we’ve built up along the way that suggest to us that we’re somehow less than others.
Learning to trust ourselves
Self-confidence is absolutely not about believing that you’re better than other people. That’s arrogance. It’s about learning to trust ourselves.
It’s not about becoming the kind of person who never feels anxious or embarrassed or ashamed. If you’re human, you feel those things, and the people who say they don’t are probably just sticking their fingers in their ears and ignoring those feelings.
It’s not about being so fabulous that nothing will ever go wrong for us. That’s delusion!
It’s about trusting ourselves to deal with whatever sh*t might get thrown at us by the universe, or anyone else.
Which is kind of fabulous when you think about it.
And when you’re running your own business, I think that kind of confidence is particularly important. Because you can’t possibly know in advance whether every decision you make will work out.
You might launch an offer and nobody buys it, put yourself out there on LinkedIn and receive a critical comment, or have a difficult conversation with a client.
Confidence doesn’t mean being certain those things won’t happen. It means trusting yourself to deal with them if they do.
Undoing old patterns
So what do I mean by undoing patterns and thoughts?
For example, I once worked with a client who said, ‘Whenever I’ve stuck my head above the parapet, it hasn’t gone well for me.’
That’s a story.
Whether you believe in God or not, there’s no one up there watching and waiting for this person to stick their neck out and then throwing eggs at them.
But as long as this person believes that story, they’re likely to keep subconsciously recreating it.
Perhaps they’ll avoid opportunities because they’re convinced something will go wrong. Or they’ll interpret every small setback as further evidence that they were right to be worried.
And, of course, that makes it much harder to develop the confidence they’re looking for.
Confidence comes from recognising that eggs might indeed get thrown, because life can be like that. But it’s not because there’s something inherently wrong with taking a risk, and things might equally well really pay off.
And either way, you can trust yourself to learn something from the process and move on to the next thing.
We will doubt ourselves at times. I certainly have the odd wobble.
Negative feelings are perfectly normal and natural, and part of how our brains try to protect us from harm.
But unless we want to spend the rest of our lives hiding in a cave, which is what our subconscious would ideally prefer, we’re going to have to accept those feelings and get on with doing the things we want to do anyway.
And each time we do that, and the world doesn’t end (even if things don’t go entirely according to plan), we grow in self-confidence.
Confidence in uncertain times
When I originally wrote this article in 2021, we were living through particularly uncertain times.
But, you know, they actually always were. We just chose not to see it.
None of us can ever predict the future with any certainty. We can’t guarantee that our businesses will grow in exactly the way we hope, that our clients will always be delighted, or that every new idea will be successful.
And once we really accept that, there’s a real freedom in it.
We can try things out, make mistakes and see what works.
We can stop putting quite so much pressure on ourselves to make the perfect decision, because there probably isn’t one.
And if we already know that we can’t control the outcome of everything we do, that can actually help us feel more confident.
Because, again, it’s about trusting ourselves to deal with whatever happens.
So, nothing wrong with trying something like Amy Cuddy’s power poses if you find them helpful, but I think true self-confidence comes from accepting our vulnerabilities and lack of control, and just getting on with what we want to do anyway.
And the more we do that, the more evidence we build that we’re capable of coping, learning and moving forward, even when things don’t go entirely to plan.
Which, to me, is a much more solid foundation for confidence than pretending to feel something we don’t.
Want to feel more confident running your business?
If self-doubt, fear of getting things wrong or worrying about what other people think are getting in the way of building the business you want, I’ve brought together some practical resources to help.
In my Feel more confident running my business Resource Centre, you’ll find articles and videos about dealing with your Inner Troll, overcoming unhelpful beliefs, recognising your expertise and making decisions with greater confidence.