The Confidence Shift

If I were to ask you how you’d rank yourself on a scale of 1-10 on how confident you are (10 being the most), where would you rank yourself right now?

(Keep this number in mind for later.)

Everyone says they want confidence. And some people seem to have it–right? Most often, however, I hear people speak about confidence as a trait everyone else has been blessed with except for them.

So why does confidence feel so ubiquitous and elusive simultaneously?

Because, I believe, most folks are dead wrong about what confidence really is.

I think everyone has a fairly different outlook on this—what a confident person looks like, how a confident person feels, what they would do if they felt confident, etc.

For me, I used to think that confidence would feel like fireworks: sparkling, electric, powerful…

The confident version of me could kick down the door, walk in, and fix every challenge or win every conflict. I’d be untouchable if I had confidence. 

Yet I never really slowed down and thought about what confidence really meant or how I would know I was there. I thought I could see it out there in the world, and like I’d know it once it showed up… but how would I ever really know?

So what IS confidence?

This question comes up a lot, especially for folks in leadership roles. 

A common answer they have to this question is that “Confidence is knowing the answers to the questions people bring me.” Or, “Confidence is knowing the right way to handle situations that come up.”

Reasonable answers, right?

But they have an underlying problem:

We can’t know if we’ve handled a situation “correctly” until after the moment has already passed.

We know the “right way” only after we’ve seen what happens and how others respond. It’s backward-looking. And every situation we deal with is different—different players, different settings, different tones, etc.—so even if we experience a similar situation to one we handled in the past, we can’t have any idea if this one is going to play out the same way.

If we use the metric of experience or knowledge, confidence is always in the future.

It’s just ahead of us and we can never be confident until we can get there.

In this framing, confidence is waiting for you only at the moment before you die; only then will you know the contours of every detail of your life.

So what if there were a different metric?

What if instead of “Confidence is knowing you have all the answers” the real version is:

“Confidence is the level of TRUST you have in your ability to figure it out.”

What if not knowing how to handle a challenge right now had nothing to do with your confidence?

If you don't know how to proceed, that’s absolutely fine. You will figure something out. You always do, don’t you? You'll choose and take a step forward.

I can’t know what’s going to happen in the future—be it the outcome of a choice I make or the response someone has to me--and I know with 100% certainty that I will figure it out one step at a time as it unfolds.

I can’t know the future, and I can always trust that I’ll solve whatever challenges are put in front of me.

You will always find a way.

If you lost your job today, what would you do?

Probably start with some mix of emotions (shock, anger, maybe more than a little bit of relief or joy, etc.), then likely some kind of pause coupled with the question “What do I do now?”

And then, you’ll choose something.

I don’t want to oversimplify the challenge this poses, and it’s always been true: You choose a path and you go.

You’ll apply for jobs, you’ll interview, you’ll find something. If an ideal option isn’t available at first, you’ll find work as an amazing barista in the meantime. (This is my plan, personally. No joke.) You’re resilient. You’ll figure it out.

Sometimes figuring it out looks like asking for help or tapping into your resources. Or sometimes it can mean taking your most educated guess in the moment with the information you have at hand.

There is no right or wrong way--right and wrong live in hindsight--and you can always figure out SOMETHING.

So let’s talk about you…

Let’s take a look at your 1-10 number again: Where did you rank your overall confidence? 

What happens when we shift into this new metric of trust-based confidence? Where would you rank your trust in your ability to always figure something out?

By this new metric, 10 out of 10 is available to you right in this moment.

You can walk confidently into any situation, knowing you can’t know what’s going to happen while being absolutely certain you will be able to untangle it when it arises.

You will not crumble to dust, even in the face of real tragedy—it may feel halting and reality-ending at times—but step by step, you will figure out what your next action will be.

You don’t have to know anything about the future, all that this version of confidence requires is your absolute trust in yourself and your ability to slow down, get creative, and figure something out.

I can’t even know who will be reading this email, and for you, reader, I know you’re a 10 out of 10.

You can always trust that you will figure something out. And if you don't know the answer yourself, you can always seek help. (Calling in reinforcements when necessary IS a way of figuring it out.)

So if you can figure it out from one moment to the next, what's stopping you from being confident right now? The choice you have to make is the metric by which you measure confidence.

All it takes is one simple shift.

You have complete confidence available to you right now.

Right now. Today.

Confidence doesn't feel like fireworks, it turns out.

Confidence feels extremely ordinary–dare I say boring, even?

That’s because it’s not something you have to discover or wait for… You’ve had it with you the whole time. 

All it takes is a willingness to deeply, truly trust yourself.