How do I become more confident?

Efri · 1 min read

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Confidence is difficult because you wait to feel it before you act. You think confidence comes first. Then you will do the thing. That is backwards. Confidence is not a prerequisite. It is a result.

Why that is

You believe confidence is a personality trait. That some people have it and you do not. That is false. Confidence is built. It comes from evidence. Evidence that you can handle things. Evidence that you can survive failure.

Evidence that you can figure it out. You do not get that evidence by thinking about it. You get it by doing.

The mindset shift

Stop trying to feel confident. Start collecting proof. Every time you do something hard and survive, you build evidence. Every time you fail and recover, you build evidence. Every time you keep a promise to yourself, you build evidence.

The feeling follows the proof. Not the other way around.

What to do next

Do one small hard thing today. Not the hardest thing. Just something slightly uncomfortable. Speak up in a meeting. Send the message. Ask the question. Do it scared. Then notice that you survived. Then do it again tomorrow. Slightly harder.

Keep a log of these moments. Read it when you feel small.

How to maintain it

Review your evidence regularly. Remember the things you thought you could not do and did anyway. Stop comparing yourself to people who are further ahead. Compare yourself to who you were last year. That is the only fair comparison.

And accept that confidence fluctuates. Some days you feel unstoppable. Some days you feel like a fraud. Both are normal. Keep going anyway. That is how confidence is built.