So today, I want to talk about Confidence. There is a school of thought that you should ‘fake it till you make it’. I am not a fan of this way of thinking, partly because I don’t think it really works. People aren’t stupid; they can usually tell when your words and actions aren’t authentic… and in a social-media-dominated world full of self-promotion, personal branding, and everyday narcissism, authenticity and integrity are beautiful and increasingly rare traits. You don’t want to throw that away.
There are two ways I think confidence develops.
1. Becoming Great at the thing you want to feel confident about. Let’s take how your body looks and feels as an example. If you want to feel better about your body and you are carrying 20kg more than feels healthy or comfortable for you, then losing some of that weight and getting fitter will probably make you feel more body-confident, and possibly more confident in your social life, sex life and working life too.
Now, do you have to go through a body transformation programme to feel great about yourself? No, you don’t… but I do think loving your body and having a good relationship with it involves looking after it. Regardless of the excessive societal pressure around appearance, showing your body love means feeding it well, moving it, resting it and generally treating it with some respect.
If that example hits a raw nerve, let’s use Tango instead. If I want to feel confident as a Tango dancer, then rather than convincing myself that I deserve to feel confident as a Tango dancer, isn’t it easier just to take a load of Tango lessons? Remember, confidence is often just another way of describing how certain you feel that you can handle a particular task.
2. Dance with Failure. Another way of improving confidence is by caring far less about when things go wrong. From sparring to rock climbing to dating, when you care less about the outcome and focus on being present and ‘in the moment’, the experience becomes more interesting and, ironically, you often do better. I promise you, this is incredibly freeing for the Ego and will also help you get out of your comfort zone and stay humble.
Arrogance & Bravado
These are often confused with confidence because, on the surface, they can look very similar. Please don’t be fooled. Real confidence is not fragile, nor does it need to be shouted loudly so you can feel superior. True confidence transcends the Ego and has as much to do with humility as it does with ability.