I Spent Years Looking for Confidence perhaps I Was Looking in the Wrong Place

Imagine You go to an event with thousands of people. People just listen. Please be advised that there will be no audience participation.

No questions. Nothing. No pressure. Just sit back and relax.

So that’s what you do, exactly. You chill. You are listening. You watch. You’re just another face in the crowd.

Then all of a sudden things flip.

The host says people in the audience are welcome to ask questions

All at once a strange feeling rises up in your chest. Your heart is pounding more loudly. Your brain kicks into gear. You have a question?

A serious question?

A question you really want answered. But another voice comes into your head.

“What if it sounds stupid?” “What if they all stare at me? “What if I make a fool of myself?” What if people think I’m not smart enough?

To most people this moment will seem trivial. But for someone with confidence issues, this moment is huge.

And that’s exactly what happened to me.

Nothing out of the ordinary was going on from the outside.

People were listening . The guest speaker talked. The host smiled. The room was quiet.

But in my head a fight had started.

Half of me wanted to ask the question. The other side wanted me to be quiet. Funny thing was, I wasn’t afraid to find out. I was afraid of being caught. I was afraid I would get it wrong. I was afraid to draw attention to myself.

The fear was not grounded in reality.

It was coming from the imagination.

I already had thought up dozens of negative scenarios. The people laugh. Judging people. People thinking I was not smart.

None of these things had been done.

But my brain acted as if they were already real. I think a lot of people know exactly what I mean.

Sometimes we are not scared of reality. What we fear is the reality made by the mind.

I thought of saying nothing for a moment or two.

No one would blame me. No one would even notice.

I could just sit there, walk away like nothing happened. But then I thought of something else.

“If I don’t do it today, I’ll probably just procrastinate again tomorrow.”

Then next week.

Again next month. And before I realise it, fear will have made the choice for me.

What I discovered was...

Every time we run away from something because we are afraid, the fear grows. When we face something in spite of being afraid, fear loses its power. So I raise my hand.

I snatched the mic. I posed the question. Then something surprising happened.

No, not at all.

Nothing at all.

The guest replied. The host moved on. Somebody else asked a different question. The event proceeded just as it had been.

The world continued.

No one laughed. Nobody blamed. Nobody cared as much as I thought they would.

Inside, however, something had changed.

The weird thing is, I can hardly remember the answer to my question.

I remember the feeling after.

A sense of achievement. A sense of development. A feeling that I had just broken through an invisible barrier.

Days later, and I was replaying the moment in my head. Not because I asked such an amazing question or everyone clapped. But because I had done something I was afraid to do. And that’s when I finally understood.

Confidence is not lack of fear. Confidence is what you have when you do something in spite of fear.

For years I thought confident people did what they did because they were confident.

Now I think the reverse.

They do and so become confident. The action is first. Confidence will come later.

Then I did a lot of thinking.

I wanted to know why I was nervous even after reading books and learning so much about confidence.

I was surprised by the answer.

Knowing something does not just give you confidence. That’s experience. You can read all day about swimming. You won’t feel confident until you get in the water.

You can learn public speaking for decades. You won’t feel confident until you’re in front of people talking. You can watch motivational videos each night. But life will ask you to do something one day.

And that is where real confidence is made.

I realised that my lack of confidence was not because of lack of information. It was due to lack of experience in certain situations.

That made all the difference.

Most people fail because they try to be fearless in one day. That can’t be right.

Confidence comes little by little.

For me, one question was enough. To the world it was no big deal. But I think it was a big achievement for me.

That’s what counts.

Choose challenges that are just outside your comfort zone. It’s not so hard you give up. Not so easy that you remain the same.

Growth is somewhere in between.

Now when I feel nervous I ask myself one question:

What is the worst thing that can really happen?

In general, the answer is not that bad. Someone might object. Someone could laugh. Five minutes later, someone might forget about it.

The truth is often far less scary than the stories we create in our minds.

Most people are so self-absorbed they don’t spend much time thinking about your mistakes.

Confidence comes from evidence.

Every new skill you add to your repertoire is proof that you can deal with the unfamiliar. You don’t have to learn anything special.

Learn a small thing. Get conversations started Talk to strangers Pick up a new language. Take up a new hobby.

It’s not about mastery.

The point is to show yourself that you can grow up.

This may sound funny, but some things actually do change how we feel.

As for me, I like a watch or a good perfume that makes a subtle psychological change.

It makes me remember to carry myself differently.

That’s different for each person. Find your own.

Sometimes, confidence starts by changing your internal state before you change your circumstances.

The first time is the toughest. The first talk. 1st presentation. First Interview. Question one. The first refusal. First try.

All things seem bigger when they are strange.

Repetition replaces fear with familiarity.

The things that scare you today can be normal tomorrow. Not because you’re special or fearless.

Because you have been practicing.

In retrospect, I spent years searching for confidence as if it were hidden away somewhere.

I thought there was going to be a book, or a video, or a secret technique, or a magical mindset shift that would suddenly make me fearless.

But confidence didn’t hide out.

I was. I waited. I waited until I was ready. Until fear was gone. Until confidence came.

What I didn’t grasp was that confidence was waiting for me on the other side of action.

“The moment I put my hand up and asked that question, I didn’t become a different person. Except I got a little bit stronger than I was before.

And that is how you build confidence. Not in giant transformations.

Through small victories. Through awkward moments. Through things that seem insignificant to everyone else, but mean the world to you.

If you wait until you are confident to make a move, you may be waiting forever.

Act first. The confidence will come.

That’s the lesson I got.”

And honestly I wish I’d learned it years ago.