I’ve been thinking a lot lately about confidence. How do you get it? What does it take to have it? How does it help or hurt? Is there such a thing as too much confidence?

It’s an interesting concept; confidence easily comes with great success. However, how does success happen without confidence? It’s a “chicken and egg” thing. Which comes first?
That idea got me thinking about the belief system that goes into confidence building. Maybe it’s some process where you practice something so that you actually have the opportunity to fail first. You see what that’s like, learn, and then do that thing differently and hopefully experience success.

I had a serious conversation with a friend once about what she needed to have the confidence to sell more. She explained to me that she has confidence when she has the experience of the situation. But honestly, I don’t think that can be true. You have to succeed with the experience before you have confidence, AND there’s the rub. You have confidence even when you don’t have the experience first because you must have a first experience.

Listen, I’m confident I can’t do a cartwheel without hurting myself, so I’m not attempting a cartwheel again! I know this because a couple of years ago, I had the absolute certainty that I could flip like I could 20 years before, and I had the experience of doing a cartwheel. I was wrong about being able to do it– and my hip still hurts today. I’m now confident that cartwheels are a thing of the past for me.

So–I think you must accept failure as part of the confidence-building experience. I’ll be so bold as to say that failure can give you great confidence that whatever you did to do it wrong helps you get it right.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have this figured out. I wish I did. It takes a lot of confidence for a new employee to feel secure enough to fly solo in their new position. We work with salespeople more naturally wired to “fake it till they make it.” Nonetheless, knocking on a stranger’s door takes a lot of courage. OH! There’s a key–courage must be part of confidence.  I wish I could package some confidence vitamins! Just take one CON-vitamin, and BOOM– you can speak with anyone, open any door, and ask for whatever you want or need! Men and women alike would boldly walk up to one another and ask them to dinner, insecurity would fade away, and people would pursue their dreams. Sounds like a ton of fun to me!

Brene Brown has spent her career studying vulnerability and talks a lot about “leaning in” to fear (the opposite of courage and confidence) to live more “wholeheartedly.” I love her work and recommend that you pick up her book, Daring Greatly, if you are thinking about confidence and want to grow in your ability to be more confident.

I looked up the definition of confidence to see if I could find any answers. I liked this one:

I liked the “power” part a lot. The thought that confidence might be some superpower feels good to me! Everyone would like to have a superpower, and confidence CAN be cultivated.

I think you have to be confident first. You must be willing to be vulnerable and “lean in” to loss.  Maybe Nike has it right; “Just do it.” If you have the chance, practice a bunch. Getting it right builds confidence. Getting it wrong teaches you what not to do. That works for me because I learn whether I win or lose. What is it that they say, “Knowledge is power?” Maybe knowledge is a key ingredient to earning that superpower of confidence.
Thanks for reading.