Five Myths About Confidence

We all have the ability to become more confident, and yes, that includes you. But if you bark up the wrong tree, and it doesn’t work, you can get discouraged and conclude that you’re just “not a confident person” or that “imposter syndrome never goes away.” So let’s look at five common myths about confidence that keep people from becoming more self-assured.

Myth #1: You can persuade yourself into confidence

Your boss knows you’re good at your job. Your friends know you’re smart. Your resume shows that you’ve put in the work. So surely you can just point all this out to your brain and it’ll stop telling you that you’re a fraud, right?

But when you try, you end up saying something like “Rationally, I know better, but I don’t feel better.” You still get the jitters when it’s your turn to speak. You still get queasy when it’s performance review time. You still can’t bring yourself to hit send on that application.

It’s not that you didn’t persuade yourself hard enough. It’s not that you’re being irrational. You’ve done great work at the mental level, but you also need to work at a deeper, more somatic level — where those jitters come from.

Myth #2: You’ll be confident once you know more

Maybe you should take a course on AI. Maybe you could use some mentorship on how to influence your team. Maybe if you studied up on that topic you always have to look up, you’d finally feel like you really belonged here. And if you took a class that gives out a certificate, then you’d have to feel legit. Right?

The truth is, there will always be more to learn. If you buy into the idea that confidence comes from knowing everything you need to know, you will never be confident. As soon as you learn the next thing, you’ll identify a new gap. 

The secret is, confident people don’t feel like they know everything. They feel secure in themselves even though they have more to learn. This means they can learn out of interest instead of out of desperation. And that actually makes absorbing information a lot easier!

Myth #3: You’ll be confident once you get recognition

If you could just get that fancy title or be recognized with that award, then you’d know you had arrived. If someone who really knew their stuff decided that you knew your stuff, you wouldn’t have to make sense out of your own mixed opinions about yourself. You could just trust that they were right and you were the real deal…you hope.

In reality, a big promotion or recognition often makes imposter syndrome worse instead of better. When we get put on a pedestal, we question whether we deserve it. It doesn’t reflect how we feel inside, so we assume it must be a mistake. And worse – now we’re up high, and falling from here would really hurt! Not to mention that we know how much people love to tear someone down from up high. We figure they’ll judge us extra harshly – so we try to beat them to the punch.

Recognition is important, but it can’t do your work for you. It feels best when it resonates with what you already know for yourself.

Myth #4: You just need to work harder at acting confident

You just need to fake it till you make it. Stand up straight. Stop saying “sorry” and “I think.” Assert yourself. Eventually your actions will trickle down into your feelings…won’t they?

What you do can influence how you feel, especially how you hold yourself. You may find it easier to feel confident in a power pose than in a collapsed pose. However, it’s not always enough on its own to change your confidence. For many people, the “fake it” strategy leaves them feeling inauthentic – like a timid little kid pretending to be an adult who knows what they’re doing. This just exacerbates imposter syndrome – the feeling that you’re a fraud and can be found out at any moment.

The version of this myth that I really dislike is the one that ignores how you feel altogether – where people only try to solve the problem of not acting confident, and don’t care what your quality of life is like. Your feelings matter, even if they don’t pay the bills!

When you feel confident, then you can act confident naturally, instead of self-consciously trying to act the way you think a confident person would.

Myth #5: Confidence can be overdone

One of the biggest reasons people subconsciously block their own confidence is that they’re afraid of betraying their values. They want to be kind, hardworking, humble, responsible, and teachable – the opposite of “overconfident.” They see overconfidence as simply too much confidence, so they worry that if they allow themselves to become confident, it’ll be too easy to overdo it and wind up becoming what they hate.

And yet, think about the most arrogant person you know. Would a truly confident person be that jealous and territorial? Would a truly confident person need to work that hard to prove themselves to people? Would a truly confident person be that bad at taking feedback?

Overconfidence isn’t actually an overdose of confidence – it’s a compensation for it. True confidence, on the other hand, is perfectly compatible with humility, because it gives us the ability to be honest with ourselves without feeling threatened by the truth. So the best way to avoid becoming a bully, a slacker, arrogant, foolhardy, or an excuse-maker is not to avoid confidence, but to deepen it.

The truth about confidence

Confidence doesn’t come from classes, credentials, promotions, or trying to change yourself. It’s an aspect of your humanity, just one that gets easily covered up by fears and habits. So the way to find it is to get to know yourself deeply. 

The only trouble is, getting to know yourself deeply when you’re not feeling confident is really hard. You’re not sure you’re gonna like what you see! It can feel like a catch-22 – you need confidence to find confidence!

Fortunately, there are ways to make it easier:

• Parts work helps you take one small step at a time, making it less overwhelming.
• Learning about the Flavors of Confidence helps you realize that you already have some kinds of confidence and can use those to help you find other kinds. (You actually can use confidence to find confidence!)
• A feedback loop between coaching and taking action allows you to find confidence in easy situations first and then build from there to finding confidence in more challenging situations.

Want to understand how these techniques would apply to your unique situation? Book a free consultation with me here to have a no-pressure conversation about it.