What Does it Mean to Have Confidence?
Posted on July 13, 2021 by Rachel Ostroy, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
Maybe you've had confidence all along, you just need to look at it from another perspective.
It seems to me we have lost touch with what it means to be confident. “He just needs more confidence.” "If only she had more confidence,” I overheard my parents say. Since I started coaching this word has come up a lot and it’s something I have struggled with as well.
The word confidence is now equated with being sure of yourself. In the sense of “I’ve got this," “it’s all good,” and coming across as having a big presence. I believe what it really means is, I am sure of who I am, “I am sure of my self” vs. “I am sure of myself.”
Let’s separate ability, skills and knowledge from knowing who you are. Who you are, the person you have always been, you at your essence, has nothing to do with information outside of yourself. It is the information inside yourself. Granted, there are times we aren’t so sure of that inside information, of what is our own voice, but that’s not what I’m talking about now. Save that for another time. However, should you be confident when you are about to give a presentation to a group of 50 people for the first time? I don’t think that is the question. The questions are: do I know who I am when I give the presentation? Do I know what I am giving the presentation on? Do I know who I am? Do I know my material? And, do I know that I am new to giving presentations to a group of people? Can you be okay with yourself at not being good at everything? Can you show up confident about what you don’t know?
After getting this far, I thought it might be good to look up confidence in the dictionary.
Here’s what I found from Merriam-Webster.com:
1 a : a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances.
//had perfect confidence in her ability to succeed
There are many things that I love about this definition, but the gem is the second part. “…of reliance on one’s circumstances.” Why would you feel sure when you aren’t familiar with your circumstances, and can you be certain you can rely on them? Once other people and unfamiliar environments come into play, everything changes. Let’s try to distinguish who we are from what we know, and I have a feeling a little more confidence will creep in.
Let’s say you are home preparing for a webinar that you have given many, many times. You feel confident about your knowledge on this topic, your slide deck and how webinars generally go. But, this time, it’s to people who aren’t native english speakers, it’s a different host platform, or someone in your audience can’t figure out how to mute themselves and there is a lawn mower and dog barking in the background. My point is, you can be confident in yourself and just not know how to handle everything that comes up. That doesn’t make you insecure. It just means you aren’t omniscient.
Get to know yourself and your confidence will grow. Love and accept yourself as you are and your confidence will grow. Be comfortable with what you don’t know and don’t pretend that you do and your confidence will grow. Be true to your values and your confidence will grow.
