Want more confidence? Stop waiting for it

Have you ever found yourself waiting to feel more confident before you go ahead and do something?

Maybe you want to start dating again, but you’re too worried about what you should say on a date. So instead of going out and meeting people, you keep watching “just one more” video or listening to “just one more” podcast on how to attract a new partner. Or maybe you really want to join that class, but feel nervous walking in alone. So you tell yourself it’s not really that important, even though you’ve been thinking about it for months.

We usually want to feel more confident before we do something that makes us uncomfortable. So we might put it off by doing more research to help ourselves feel ready, or finding ways to avoid doing it altogether.

But in reality, confidence often builds through experience. You do something you weren’t completely sure you could do, you get through it, and your brain has new evidence: maybe I can handle this. New experiences can start to change what we believe about ourselves. You go on the date without having the perfect answers ready. You walk into the class even though you don’t know anyone.

Afterwards, you have something more useful than positive thinking – you have evidence that you did it. You coped. It was actually OK.

You don’t always need to feel confident before you start. Sometimes, doing the thing you’re waiting to feel confident enough to do is exactly what helps build the confidence.