I’ve been thinking about someone who says they lack confidence.
Which is interesting, because from the outside, confidence does not appear to be the problem.
This person can have an opinion and stand behind it.
Make a decision and own it.
Walk into a room without shrinking.
Speak with absolute certainty.
Even when they’re spectacularly wrong. 😂
And I don’t mean they’re pretending to be confident. I don’t think there’s necessarily some secretly terrified person underneath putting on a performance.
I think the confidence is real.
Which made me wonder:
What if confidence isn’t what they’re missing?
We use the word confidence to describe a whole pile of things. Certainty. Assertiveness. Competence. Courage. Self-esteem. Self-trust. Belief in ourselves.
We toss them all into the same basket and call it confidence.
But I’m not sure they’re interchangeable.
The whole confidence vs. self-belief conversation gets interesting when someone seems to have plenty of one but struggles with the other.
Because someone can be incredibly confident about what they think and have a much harder time believing in what they’re capable of.
And I think that’s worth talking about.
You Can Be Confident and Still Doubt Yourself
Confidence isn’t one big personality trait that you either have or you don’t.
You can be confident in your ability to do your job and completely intimidated by the idea of starting your own business.
You can be confident speaking your mind but struggle to make decisions about your future.
And you can know you’re smart, talented, resourceful, and capable of handling whatever life throws at you.
And still… find yourself staring at something you want, wondering whether you’re really the kind of person who could make it happen.
Which is interesting, isn’t it?
Because you have evidence that you’re capable.
You’ve solved problems. Learned things. Figured shit out. Made decisions. Survived situations you had absolutely no idea how to navigate.
But somehow, when it comes to the things you actually want for yourself, that evidence doesn’t always seem to count.
You can recognize your abilities without necessarily believing those abilities will take you somewhere new.
And I wonder how often we call that a lack of confidence when what we’re really struggling with is something deeper.
Confidence Isn’t Always the Same as Believing in Yourself
I don’t think there’s a perfectly clean line between confidence and self-belief.
They overlap. They influence each other. And the words mean slightly different things depending on who’s using them.
But here’s a distinction I find useful.
Confidence often has something specific to stand on.
I know how to do this.
I’ve handled this before.
I’m good at this.
I know what I’m talking about.
Although, as we’ve already established, knowing what you’re talking about is apparently optional for some people. 😂
But believing in yourself asks something a little different.
What happens when you don’t know how?
When you haven’t done it before?
When there’s no previous success to point to?
Or when the thing you want requires you to become capable of something you aren’t capable of yet?
Can you believe in your ability to learn?
To adapt?
To make mistakes without deciding those mistakes define you?
Can you keep moving toward something even when you don’t have proof you’ll get there?
That’s where I think self-belief becomes especially important.
It doesn’t guarantee success.
But it changes what you’re willing to attempt.
You Can Know You’re Capable and Still Not Bet on Yourself
This is the part that really interests me.
There are people who are incredibly capable.
They show up for everyone else. Sometimes they solve problems. Or take responsibility. Or maybe they figure things out when things go sideways.
Give them a crisis, and they’ll find a way through it.
Give them an opportunity to pursue something they genuinely want for themselves?
Suddenly, they’re not so sure.
And I wonder how much of that comes from the difference between responding to what life requires of us and choosing something we want for ourselves.
When something has to be done, we do it.
Maybe we’re scared. Or overwhelmed. Maybe we have no idea what we’re doing.
But we figure it out because we have to.
There’s a certain kind of clarity in necessity.
You don’t always have the luxury of debating whether you’re capable.
But wanting something?
That’s different.
Now you have a choice.
You could try and fail.
You could put time, energy, or money into something that doesn’t work.
Or you could discover that you’re not as good at something as you hoped.
You could disappoint yourself.
And there’s no emergency forcing you to find out.
So maybe you don’t.
Not really because you lack ability.
But basically you haven’t quite learned to trust that your ability is worth investing in.
Believing in Yourself Doesn’t Mean Believing You’ll Succeed
I think this is where a lot of the motivational advice gets it wrong.
Believe in yourself!
You can do anything you set your mind to!
If you believe it, you can achieve it!
Well, that’s… lovely.
But I can believe I’m going to win the Boston Marathon with every fiber of my being.
At some point, my legs are going to have a few opinions about that. 😂
Belief doesn’t erase limitations.
It doesn’t replace preparation, effort, opportunity, resources, or skill.
And it certainly doesn’t guarantee that things will work out the way we want.
So if believing in yourself means being certain you’ll succeed, we’re setting ourselves up for a pretty fragile relationship with ourselves.
Because what happens when we don’t succeed?
Was the belief wrong?
Were we wrong about ourselves?
Does one failed attempt mean we were never capable to begin with?
I don’t think so.
Maybe believing in yourself isn’t about being certain of the outcome.
Maybe it’s about believing that you are capable of participating in what happens next.
You can learn something.
And make adjustments.
You can ask for help.
Recognize when something isn’t working.
Or you can try another way.
And sometimes, you can decide something isn’t worth pursuing anymore without making that decision a verdict on your worth.
That’s a very different kind of belief.
And I think it’s a much more useful one.
What Happens When You’re Wrong?
Remember that person who can confidently defend an opinion even when they’re spectacularly wrong?
There’s another interesting piece to this.
What happens when they find out they’re wrong?
Because confidence can make us willing to speak.
But self-belief may influence how willing we are to learn.
If being wrong feels like evidence that we’re not smart enough, capable enough, or good enough, admitting it can feel pretty threatening.
So we defend. And explain.
We double down.
We become extremely committed to an argument that probably should have been retired twenty minutes ago.
Not everybody does this for the same reason, of course. Sometimes we’re just stubborn. Sometimes we’re missing information. Sometimes we’re convinced we’re right because, well, we think we’re right.
But I think there’s something powerful about being able to say:
Well, shit. I got that wrong.
And not have it become an identity crisis.
Because if I believe in my ability to learn and grow, being wrong doesn’t have to mean something terrible about me.
It means I have new information.
Maybe I need to reconsider something.
Maybe I need to apologize.
What if I just need to try again?
Self-belief doesn’t make us infallible.
It can make us more willing to be fallible.
And that’s an important distinction.
Maybe You’re Trying to Build the Wrong Thing
Here’s why I think all of this matters.
When someone says, “I need more confidence,” we tend to encourage them to act more confident.
Speak up.
Stand tall.
Stop apologizing.
Take up space.
Make decisions.
And sometimes that’s exactly what they need.
But what if they’re already doing those things?
What if they’re perfectly comfortable telling you what they think?
What if they can handle difficult conversations, take charge of situations, and stand up for themselves?
Maybe the thing they’re struggling with isn’t expressing who they are today.
What if it’s believing in who they could become?
That’s a different problem.
And I don’t think we solve it simply by telling someone to be bolder.
Maybe we start by asking what they actually don’t believe about themselves.
Do they doubt their ability to learn something new?
Do they believe their past mistakes predict their future?
Struggle to imagine themselves succeeding at something they haven’t already mastered?
Trust themselves to handle disappointment?
Think their dreams are reasonable for other people but somehow unrealistic for them?
Those questions can tell us a lot more than simply asking whether someone feels confident.
Because you can’t really work on something until you understand what you’re working on.
So How Do You Start Believing in Yourself?
I wish I could tell you there’s a switch.
You wake up one morning, look in the mirror, and announce:
I BELIEVE IN ME!
And suddenly you’re ready to take on the world.
Unfortunately, I suspect the mirror would just like you to finish brushing your teeth. 😂
I think self-belief develops much the way trust in another person develops.
Through experience.
Through evidence.
And through seeing what happens when things don’t go perfectly.
But here’s the catch.
If you’re waiting until you believe in yourself before you try something, how are you supposed to gather any new evidence?
Sometimes you have to give yourself an opportunity to find out.
Not by making some enormous, life-altering leap tomorrow.
By choosing something that matters to you and taking a step toward it.
Something small enough that you can actually do it, but meaningful enough that it asks something of you.
And then paying attention to what happens.
Not just whether you succeeded.
But what you learned.
How you responded when something was difficult.
Whether you asked for help.
Whether you adjusted.
Maybe you discovered an ability you didn’t know you had.
Or you survived the discomfort of not getting it right.
Because the evidence isn’t always in the outcome.
Sometimes it’s in how you handled the process.
And every time you give yourself a chance to learn that, you have something new to build on.
Maybe Confidence Was Never the Whole Question
I don’t think confidence and believing in yourself are opposites.
I don’t even think they’re completely separate.
You can have both.
Hell… you can struggle with both.
You can have plenty of one in a particular area and very little of the other.
And both can change as you grow.
But I do think there’s value in being more specific about what we feel we’re missing.
Because if you already know how to speak up, becoming louder probably isn’t going to help you trust yourself to pursue something new.
If you already know you’re capable of handling difficult things, collecting more proof that you can survive hardship may not be what you need.
Maybe you need opportunities to discover what you can create. Not just what you can endure.
Maybe you need to stop measuring your potential exclusively by what you’ve already accomplished.
Maybe you need to become a little more willing to invest in yourself before you know whether the investment will pay off.
Not because you’re guaranteed to succeed.
But because you believe you’re worth giving the opportunity to try.
And maybe that’s the question worth asking.
Not just:
Am I confident?
But:
Do I believe in myself enough to find out what I’m capable of?
Speaking of Confidence…
What Kind of Hard Are You Having Today?
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