How to Build Genuine Confidence
Why you don’t actually need it + the journey from courage to confidence
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Listen on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
Chapters:
0:00 Cold Open
1:11 Show Intro & Today’s Topic: Confidence
2:17 What is Confidence?
13:22 Why does it feel like some people have confidence and others don’t?
18:23 The Limitations of focusing on Confidence
22:41 The Wisdom and Normality of lacking Confidence
28:10 The value of appearing confident (or admitting a lack of confidence)
39:49 What to do when you’re overly focused on your Lack of Confidence
47:16 How to Build Confidence
58:26 Final Thoughts
If I could wave a magic wand and grant you more confidence, would you take it?
I’m willing to bet the answer is yes.
Something I hear from nearly everyone I work with is that if they just had more confidence, then they’d do the things that they really want to do.
I’ve no clue if that’s true or not. But I do know that’s not how confidence works. You can’t just snap your fingers and magically have more of it.
So where does the belief that you’d act if you had more confidence leave you?
Stuck. Stuck with your lack of confidence and nowhere to go.
In this week’s episode of No Clear Answers, we deep dive into confidence. We talk about what confidence is, why everyone seems to want more of it, and how to shift your focus away from “being” more confident and toward building more confidence.
Some of my favorite points of discussion:
Why you don’t need more confidence
How we project confidence onto others without knowing whether or not they have it
How admitting when we lack confidence can be a strength
How to refocus your attention to source confidence
How most people are like ducks
The Journey from Courage to Confidence
As I listened back, I noticed a clear throughline connecting my thoughts about confidence. It was captured in quotes like:
“I rarely hear people say they want to build more confidence, they say they want to be more confident.”
“Most people think you need to get confident to go somewhere, but really you need to go somewhere to get confident.”
“People think they need confidence to hit the game winner in order to take the shot. Really the orientation is—can you be completely comfortable missing the shot? You don’t need confidence that you’ll hit it, you need to be comfortable with the possibility of missing it.”
“Confidence follows a track record. And this is why being okay being unconfident is so key, because confidence builds over time from knowing that I’m showing up and I can do it. And that’s why you have to get comfortable starting with, ‘I don’t know if I can do it’….
If you’ve dug into what’s really important to you and what really matters, sometimes it’s just a function of showing up for enough time for confidence to bloom. It’s like a flower. And you just have to keep showing up and giving it sun and water for it to bloom.”
It’s so easy to believe that you need confidence in order to do what you really want to do. But the opposite is so much more true. You need to be willing to unconfidently do what you want so that you can build confidence.
The reality is that fear and lack of confidence are expected when you start out doing something new or something that deeply care about. They show up precisely because you care and want to do it well.
So the real question is: what gets you over the hurdle to act when you’re afraid and lacking in confidence?
Courage. Or a Corey said, Conviction.
The key skill to building confidence is courage. It’s being willing to courageously dive in when fear is present and confidence is absent. This, more than anything else, is what I see determine someone’s growth trajectory. Are you willing to dive in, even and especially when you’re afraid and lacking in confidence?
So don’t look for confidence early on. It’s a fruitless endeavor, and it won’t achieve what you want it to achieve. You’re hoping that confidence will make the fear go away. But it won’t. The fear won’t go away because it’s there for good reason (you care). Instead, find your courage. Find your conviction. Courage and conviction are what allows you to act while fear is present.
Find your courage, and confidence will develop along the way.
If you want to dive deeper into how to build genuine confidence including lots of practical tactical tips, listen on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
Hope you enjoy!
-Justin
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P.S.
A newsletter-related update—
I’ve been judging myself for mostly sending out podcast episodes as of late. I’ve not written a long form piece in over a month. This is, according to my inner critic, a cardinal sin:
“God, it’s been over a month Justin! These people deserve some real written content! They’re all going to unsubscribe, and for good reason!”
With my practice the most full it’s ever been and a few exciting projects in the works (wahoo!), I haven’t had much time to write. Or rather, to own it, I haven’t been prioritizing writing.
I’m hopeful that space will clear in April and, with that, that the writing will flow. I have a few longer form pieces that I feel rumbling inside of me that I’m wanting to clarify, as much as for me as for you. Okay, more for me than for you. I’m especially excited about one related to this:
And in the name of doing my work, there’s a limiting belief here that longer form content is somehow “more valuable” than sharing the podcast and the most potent ideas from it. Resting in the reality that these writings might be more valuable for many of you! Ahhhhhhhhh.
Hope you’re well and, as always, let me know what you think of the pod and if there’s anything you’d like to see me or us discuss :)
-J
If you enjoy reading the Leadership Lab, consider clicking the ❤️ or 🔄 button above so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏