Confidence Leaks - How To Believe In Yourself

Not too long ago, I was on my way to an important interview, of which I had to drive through a major city with busy roads, something I’m not required to do very often.

There was no thought of these roads, as it never usually bothers me; however, due to the natural nerves going into the interview, I found myself second-guessing every decision and questioning myself at every turn. For the first time in a while, I was a nervous driver.

The interview went very well (I got the job), but upon leaving and driving again on the same busy roads, I found myself in a completely different state. It felt as though I owned the road; it went from feeling like I didn’t know anything to feeling full of confidence.

This made me wonder how we could use this to our advantage. If I could have two completely opposite experiences in identical scenarios within the space of an hour, there must be something to take from it.

Directional Leak

Considering how I perform in an interview has nothing to do with driving, then this suggests that building confidence in some domains can be done by doing so in others. It can leak into other domains.

The thing is, confidence is all about self-belief; they're mostly the same thing, and self-belief is all about proving yourself wrong. It’s about taking the parts of yourself that you doubt, and disproving them.

This then means that self-belief is not bound to one thing; this is why I was driving nervously, an element of myself was doubting and questioning how I’d do in the interview, thus doing the same in the car.

So, if you want to build self-belief, specifically in one area, you can also do so with completely unrelated domains. 

If you doubt you can achieve your goals, but also doubt you can do a public speech or doubt that you can become a runner, you’re able to eliminate some of the doubt in relation to your goals by doing these other things, for example. 

This helps because with something like your goals, you’re going to doubt yourself all the way until you achieve them. This can take years, as only succeeding can prove you right; however, by disproving your self-doubt elsewhere, you can eliminate an element of that self-doubt along the way, building your confidence and helping you stick with it long enough to actually succeed.

Sometimes we can get stuck at the bottom. We have big dreams, but nothing to suggest that we’re capable of achieving them. But being able to build that self-belief in smaller and unrelated areas can lead someone to finally take that first step.

To put it simply, when you overcome an area of self-doubt, it leaves you wondering ‘what else can I do’, and you keep doing this until the only logical outcome is to be filled with self-belief.

How

What does full self-belief and confidence mean to you? Let’s say it means being faced with a new challenge, something you’ve never done before, and feeling as though there is a high possibility of you succeeding. Because who wouldn’t want to feel like this?

Okay, so now let’s talk about what it would take for you to achieve this kind of confidence.

It can be broken down into two parts: novelty and competency. Essentially, it’s something you haven’t done before, and it’s something you have to beat.

So, for you to go into a situation like this and feel this way, you need to build evidence; remember, self-belief is all about evidence. Confidence without evidence is delusion.

But considering this challenge is new, how do you do that?

Practically, you do what I mentioned above. You choose something you doubt you can do, or at the very least haven’t done before, then you work hard to do it.

This can be any challenge; it could mean waking up earlier for a month straight, it could be losing 10 lbs, or it could mean running a half-marathon. It just needs to be new and hard. 

Once you’ve succeeded, you choose the next thing, preferably harder.

Remember, confidence leaks, so although you can’t specifically build evidence concerning this new challenge, you can build evidence to suggest that you’re capable of overcoming things you’ve never faced before, and that’s evidence enough.

So, start small, start at whatever level you’re at, then beat it.

There’s no shame. If you need to start by simply waking up without snoozing 5 times, then do that. The trick is to not overwhelm yourself, start at whatever is currently the next level for you, then increase it as you go.

Never look at the top of the ladder; always focus on the next step.

What’s the next challenge for you? And how much will it push you forward?