Confidence

Found on this medium article: medium article

Confidence is not something you have to “build”. This is something you always had, you can only lose it. But before we talk about regaining it — what is confidence for you? Do you have an answer? A great definition was given by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School: Confidence is an expectation of a positive outcome. This is exactly what confidence is. I would like to add one more word to it, though: “Confidence is an expectation of an emotionally positive outcome”. I’ve seen many people who feel down even when they achieve great results. Likely, you’ve seen them too. In the end, it all comes down to your emotional state and your control over it. If you can be sure that the result will be positive for you, you will feel confident. If you can be sure that no matter what kind of result you will get, you will feel good — you will be always confident.

One of the best ways I know for ensuring this outcome and preventing “emotional hijack” is mindfulness. When you are trained to observe your emotional state on a constant basis, you are less likely to fall into a negative emotional state. So what makes you lose it? Three things are most common:
- You are unable to handle uncertainty.
- You have a prevalence of negative experience.
- You have insecurities related to the challenge you are facing or a result you are aiming for.

To handle uncertainty you can evaluate the situation in more details. Write down all the outcomes you feel are possible and see how likely each of them is and what kind of consequences they would bring for you. Often it is not as bad as your emotions are telling you. Negative experience is easy to handle too. Thanks to our brain quirk, we tend to remember the strongest and the last experience. So to make sure your experience is adding to your confidence — always end your new experiences with a positive one.

Insecurites are slightly more complex — they are built around our learned vulnerabilities, so unless we can face our vulnerabilities, they are not easy to overcome. One of the easiest ways to employ is an attention shift. For example, you can use exercises from CBT or similar approaches to bypass your vulnerabilities. Alternatively good way around them them is question thinking. Last, but not least — you can also overcome your vulnerabilities for good, through self-acceptance.