When looking to gain confidence, it’s critical to focus on courage above and beyond all else.
Think of confidence like baking a cake. Courage is the essential ingredient, the flour that binds everything together. Without courage, the cake simply won't rise.
It doesn’t matter how great the icing or decorations look if it’s missing the flour. (Unless of course it’s flourless chocolate cake, but that’s blog for another day!)
Courage allows the cake to meet its full potential otherwise it’s just a recipe and a bunch of ingredients sitting on a counter. Courage allows us to try something despite fear — to experiment, to mix things up even when the recipe seems daunting.
WHERE DOES THE FEAR COME FROM?
Fear comes from the unknown. Once we understand the source of the unknown, the fear (typically) dissipates.
It’s like we’ve finally mixed all the ingredients together and now we have to put the cake into a big box and we don’t know what will happen to it. But once we realize the big box is an oven and is important for the cake to bake, then we can tolerate the heat. In fact, we may welcome it because we get that heat is needed for cakes to fully bake.
And once we have that experience, we understand that we no longer need to fear “the box” and the fear dissipates.
Space is created for confidence to grow.
WHAT IS CONFIDENCE?
Confidence is your ability to be certain about something - yourself, another human, a situation, an institution.
Unfortunately, confidence is frequently conflated with perfection, control and charisma.
Have you ever bought a cake thinking how delicious it looks and then you take a bite and it’s bleeeccch. You see, that’s not confidence. That’s pretty icing without the real goods underneath it. Just as perfection, control and charisma are not confidence. They’re just some icing and decorations.
Confidence is really about your connection to your resilience which includes your ability to learn and adapt.
Have you heard chefs talk about perfecting a recipe? Or star athletes discuss their training? Or scientists failing over and over again? They develop confidence because they are connected to their ability to respond to failure through learning and adapting.
When you overcome obstacles and challenges you gain confidence. Shying away from obstacles and challenges is a recipe for losing confidence.
WHAT DO YOU NEED IN ORDER TO OVERCOME OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES?
Courage.
Courage does not require perfection nor success. It requires entering the kitchen despite the fear that you don’t know the recipe, have the right recipe, lack ingredients, don’t know how to work the blender, and have no clue what you’re doing.
SHAZAM!
So you know how bakers and chefs have a little secret something to kick up their recipes? Like how mayonnaise in a chocolate cake makes it extra moist? Well I’ve got three tips for how to give building your confidence a little “shazam” boost.
THE POWER OF “AND”
The first is the power of “AND” — I’ve written about this previously here. It’s taking two seemingly conflicting ideas and marrying them with the word “and.”
I am afraid AND I am courageous.
When you connect two opposing ideas then it gives you a path forward. If you are only afraid then you are stuck. If you connect “afraid” with “courageous” then you can be both and take action.
It’s critical to understand that fear is not a sign of lack of confidence. It’s an invitation to grow your confidence and you can receive the invitation by using the word “AND.”
VALUES ARE ANOTHER KEY TO CONFIDENCE
The second tip is about how your courage is bolstered by knowing your values — what’s important to you. Values are the spark that ignite courage.
Action and values need to be in alignment in order to gain confidence.
However, it’s important to realize that while courage is action despite fear, the action may actually be walking away, pushing the pause button, or saying no.
That’s why you marry your courage with curiosity. How am I honoring my values in both activating my courage and taking action?
Curiosity is a great tool. Use it liberally - like peanut butter or Nutella or strawberry jam or Kerry Gold butter.
PRACTICE DISCERNMENT
Now that you’re in the kitchen and baking the cake, you may still lack confidence despite taking action. That’s okay because you’re going to continue to embrace curiosity and marry it with the third tip: discernment.
When we utilize the tool of discernment (assessment without judgment) we can build on what is working and make adjustments to what is not working. The very act of doing something is giving you new information. Your assessment of what you’re doing puts you in the driver’s seat and this builds confidence.
You may discover that you don’t actually like the recipe for German Chocolate Cake. Or plastic measuring cups. Or that the oven you’re using has a faulty temperature gauge. You may find that you have a natural ability to decorate the cake with found objects.
With this assessment, you learn that you like Red Velvet Cake and glass measuring cups. You learn that you need to test if the cake is done by inserting a toothpick. You learn that you enjoy decorating more than baking.
Remember, confidence is not perfection. Confidence is your ability to be certain about something - yourself, another human, a situation, an institution.
It’s derived from your ability to learn and adapt as new information presents itself.
A STORY
I’ve been invited to celebrate my bestie at Nobu in Malibu with twenty other people. I immediately feel tension in my stomach and my jaw gets tight. My breath gets shallow and I hear my voice go up an octave. “That sounds really fun! Let me double check my calendar and circle back.”
Leaning into curiosity, I see that right now I’m valuing frugality over lavish outings because of cash flow issues related to contractions in the entertainment industry. I also feel stressed in large crowds where it’s hard to hear people. I value intimate gatherings.
I kindly decline the invitation which requires courage because I’m a recovering people pleaser and I don’t want anyone to be mad at me. Remember that courage is not always about saying yes. Sometimes courage is about walking away.
Now I do want to celebrate my friend’s birthday in a way that feels good to me. So I decide to try something new and bake her a birthday cake instead.
It’s a stretch goal because baking intimidates me and I’m scared I’ll mess it up. I’m also a recovering perfectionist.
So I use the power of AND.
I am afraid to bake a cake AND I really want to make one to celebrate my friend’s birthday.
Then I take a look at my values to help me access the courage to act on what I want.
I value friendship and acts of love. These values are more important to me than messing up the cake.
Using a recipe I found on-line, I bake a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting from scratch. The cake turns out fine, but the application of the frosting is pretty amateur. In assessing the experience and googling, I find that I should have cooled the cake before decorating it. Whoops. Next time I bake a cake, I know to give myself more time before applying the icing or to give that job to someone else. Turns out, I really enjoy finding the recipe, gathering the ingredients, following the exact directions of the recipe and cleaning up. I don’t love the decorating part - not my thing! I’ve learned a bunch of new stuff and know how to adapt the next time I bake a cake.
Simple, not always easy!
BOTTOM LINE
When you marry courage with the tools of discernment, AND curiosity you have a powerful recipe to create confidence.
Confidence, then, is the finished cake with a healthy dose of resilience created from courage.
Resilience is what makes the cake moist (along with mayonnaise!) and is what keeps it from crumbling at the slightest touch. Resilience is built through overcoming obstacles and challenges.
When looking to gain confidence, it’s critical to focus on courage above and beyond all else.
JOURNAL PROMPTS
Here are some questions to help you further explore your relationship with courage, fear, and confidence more deeply.
What fears or uncertainties am I currently facing that are holding me back from pursuing my goals or trying something new?
Reflecting on past experiences, can I identify instances where confronting fear led to growth and increased confidence? How did I feel before, during, and after overcoming those challenges?
Considering my core values and what matters most to me, how can I align my actions with these values to cultivate courage in the face of fear?
Are there any situations or opportunities I've avoided due to fear? How might embracing curiosity and a willingness to learn help me navigate these challenges with courage?
Think of a recent decision or action where you demonstrated courage despite feeling afraid. How did curiosity play a role in your decision-making process, and what did you learn from the experience?
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My blog aims to help people achieve their ambitious goals, their moonshot if you will. 😃 Oftentimes, though, we neglect an essential aspect of pursuing our dreams: the inevitable missteps, obstacles, and failures that come our way. Failing to acknowledge and process these losses properly can lead to imposter syndrome, burnout, low self-esteem, confusion, and even result in completely abandoning our dreams. 😟 That's why I strongly advocate for embracing grief awareness (along with other tools like values identification, knowing your why, sharpening executive function, habit forming, and more.) By doing so, we can effectively navigate challenges, regain motivation, and hit our moonshots. ✌🏾️ If you know someone who could benefit, please share this newsletter or recommend me to them. 🙏
When Building Confidence, Focus on Courage