build genuine confidence
Without pretending to be someone you’re not
Part of the Learning Library
Why So Many People Feel Insecure
Everyone struggles with insecurity at some point, even the people who look like they have it all together. It’s a normal part of being human until you let it run your life.
We’ve all had moments where our hands suddenly get clammy, we feel that familiar tightness in our chests, or our stomachs are doing flips like an Olympic gymnast. For some, this fear might prevent you from applying to that job, even though you know you’re qualified. Or cancelling plans last minute because you’re afraid you won’t fit in. Maybe you use self-deprecating humor to hide the fact that you think you’re too much, or not enough. Sometimes this fear is so paralyzing that it causes feelings of hopelessness, and you feel stuck.
Whether or not it comes from childhood, insecurity is so common it’s practically an epidemic. It’s exacerbated by social media, as we constantly compare ourselves with unrealistic depictions of “perfect” lives. Have you ever wondered why those people crave constant attention and external validation? They’re insecure too. And advertising is a psychological manipulation to convince us that our lives would be so much better if we bought these products and services. Designed to make you think you need this to feel better about yourself, or to fit in. To scare you into thinking that you’re failing or unhealthy or ugly if you don’t buy these products.
And maybe we believe we’re less than because we’re afraid to face the deeper issues behind the insecurity. It’s easier to distract ourselves from feelings that seem too painful or difficult to look at. Sometimes the distractions look like superficial self-help advice that asks you to “fake it til you make it,” or “choose happiness,” or repeat these affirmations every day and you’ll be fine.
Why Most Confidence Advice Doesn’t Work
Positive thinking isn’t a switch you can turn on in your brain. And no one is just born with confidence, it’s something you build and work on throughout your lifetime. There’s a huge difference between telling yourself you’re confident and really feeling confident.
The problem with a lot of confidence advice is that it focuses on changing your thoughts without changing your actions. But your actions create experiences, your experiences become evidence, and that evidence is what gradually changes the way you see yourself.
Your brain builds beliefs based on patterns and experience. If you’ve spent years criticizing yourself, avoiding challenges, or believing you’re not enough, your brain has collected thousands of pieces of evidence supporting that belief.
That’s why so many people feel like they’re failing at self-improvement. They’re trying to replace years of lived experience with words alone. Real confidence comes from proving it to yourself, one action at a time.
The good news is that your brain is remarkably adaptable. Through a process called neuroplasticity, it continuously forms and strengthens new neural pathways based on what you repeatedly think, feel, and do. That’s one reason affirmations can be effective over time. But the strongest pathways are built when your actions support what you’re telling yourself.
If you tell yourself, “I’m strong and confident,” then speak up in a meeting even though you’re nervous, your brain begins connecting those words with real-world evidence. Each time you follow through on something that scares you, you reinforce a new belief about yourself. Eventually, your brain stops seeing confidence as something you’re pretending to have and starts recognizing it as something you’ve earned through experience.
Fun fact: just as you build stronger neural pathways, the ones you stop using become weaker and are eventually eliminated. It’s called synaptic pruning, in case you’re curious. (I’m fascinated by neuroscience)
How many opportunities have you let go of because you didn’t think you were good enough? I know I’ve missed out on more than I can count. And just a few years ago, I wouldn’t have had the courage to be writing this for you now.
The Hidden Confidence Killer: Self-Rejection
One of the biggest things that gets in the way of confidence is self-rejection. It’s the way your inner critic tells you that you screwed up again, you’ll never get it right, you’re too weird to fit in… I think you get the point. This is self-doubt living rent-free in your head.
The more you tell yourself you’re not good enough, or you can’t do it, the more your brain believes you. Your brain can’t differentiate between the good or bad things you tell yourself, it just retains what you repeatedly tell it. In that way, it’s similar to developing a new habit or skill.
Over time, constant self-criticism becomes behavioral. This includes self-sabotage, which looks like procrastination, avoidance, perfectionism, people-pleasing, or self-medication to numb the discomfort. You push people away so they can’t hurt you first. Underneath it all is that fear that you’ve been reinforcing. It might be fear of failure or even fear of success. And I know from experience how hard it is to break free from this mindset. Avoidance was my middle name, and I was so used to putting other people’s need before my own that I didn’t even know what my needs were.
This behavior feels comfortable in the moment, so we keep doing it because we’re avoiding the emotions that feel too hard to face.
Confidence Is Built Through Evidence
Just telling someone “believe in yourself” doesn’t work because the brain needs evidence, or actionable steps — actual behavioral changes — that build self-trust. So how do you change your behavior? It takes time and practice, so be patient with yourself.
You can’t wish yourself into feeling confident when your brain lacks the experience to back it up. In order to gain experience, take small steps, don’t be afraid to fail, and learn from your mistakes without tearing yourself down.
For example, that thing you keep telling yourself you’ll do tomorrow, but never do? Get up and do it. Get it over with and you’ll feel better. That’s evidence. Small actions like that are what start to break the cycle. Then, acknowledge your accomplishment, no matter how small it may seem.
Do things that make you uncomfortable! Take yourself out to brunch, lunch, or dinner. Afraid to go to the movies by yourself? Do it anyway. Afraid to go on a road trip by yourself? Do it anyway. Go to a yoga class. Smile at strangers, and if someone doesn’t smile back, don’t take it personally, maybe they’re having a bad day, keep smiling. Go to a coffee shop, sit down, and write down things about yourself that you’re proud of and the challenges you’ve overcome. Write down everything you love about yourself. Read a book. Put your phone down, take in your environment, and enjoy some fresh air. This is all self-care.
Once you get over the brief discomfort, the feeling of empowerment that follows is immeasurable, and you’ll be ready to do it again. Get to know yourself better. Learn to enjoy your own company, and that you don’t need someone else to be happy and have a good time. The first time I went to the movies by myself I felt weird at first, and very uncomfortable. But five minutes in I began to feel free and proud of myself. And because I felt more confident, I took myself out to dinner after the movie.
Challenge yourself regularly, to prove to yourself that you can do it. Follow through when you say you’re going to, and keep your word. Each time you do this, you learn to trust yourself a little bit more. This is what builds the experience your brain needs to help you feel confident.
Little things like making a conscious effort to stand up straight, hold your head up, and make eye contact when speaking with people, make a difference. Your body language signals to your brain that you’re comfortable and safe, which also helps your confidence.
In the past year, I’ve accomplished things I never would have attempted a few years ago. I wrote and self-published a book, built and maintained a website, created an email list, and dove head-first into all the social media platforms as part of my marketing strategy. I’ve written companion journals based on themes from the book to further help people. I’m learning how to use analytics tools to track my website traffic and measure the efficacy of my content. I’ve been exposing my vulnerability through essays I write for long form platforms.
I was terrified when I began to write the book. What if people actually read it? What will they think about the personal stories I share? What if it doesn’t sell?
I did it anyway. I had no idea what I was doing, and I learned as I went. Twelve months later, I own an ecosystem that I created by myself. Now that the foundation is solid, and I’ve taken the time to reflect on what I’ve done, I’m really proud of myself. I faced my fears, overcame obstacles, and built a little more confidence each step of the way.
Learning to Forgive Yourself
The key ingredient to building natural confidence is self-forgiveness.
This doesn’t mean excusing yourself from all wrongdoing or mistakes. Forgiving yourself begins when you learn to take accountability for your actions and behavior without punishing yourself, and without letting your mistakes become your identity.
The primary emotion most people avoid facing is shame. When the pain of shame becomes unbearable, we try to escape it through denial, avoidance, blame, or addiction. And, inevitably, we repeat the same mistakes. You may even think that if you don’t punish yourself, it means you don’t care. But you don’t get better by hating yourself.
Shame tricks us into believing that we are the mistake instead of we made a mistake. It focuses on identity and weighs us down emotionally. When we accept the idea that we are bad, broken, or damaged, personal growth feels impossible.
Guilt, on the other hand, can be healthy and motivate growth. It focuses on the behavior by acknowledging it and learning from it. It says, “I’m responsible for what I did, but that doesn’t define who I am.” Healthy guilt is a signal telling you that you’ve violated your own values, and includes genuine concern for how your actions affected someone else.
In order to begin letting go of shame, learn to recognize it as it happens. Pay attention to your emotions and how your body feels. Your stomach may churn, you may feel like curling up in a ball and sitting in a dark corner, or maybe you feel tense and in need of a distraction from the discomfort. However this feels for you, just notice it. Then name it. This is shame, but this is not who I am. It’s a temporary feeling, and it will pass. Naming your emotions reduces their intensity.
Then release the feeling by sharing it. You can talk about it with someone you trust, or write about it in your journal. Just stop holding onto it and express it! When I was learning to let go of shame, I didn’t have anyone in my life who I trusted enough, so I wrote in my journal regularly, and found it incredibly helpful. It’s like an emotional exorcism.
Shame robs you of self-compassion, so you need to take it back. Treat yourself like you’d treat someone you love. The goal is to replace that nasty inner critic with a kind and understanding voice. I know, it’s easier said than done, that’s why it takes practice and patience. Acknowledge your wins, no matter how small they may seem. When you make mistakes, remind yourself that you’re human and humans are beautifully imperfect creatures. Reframe your mistake as an opportunity: instead of getting frustrated or angry with yourself, ask what you can learn from that mistake.
Shame says, “I’m a failure.”
Guilt says, “I failed.” But then it says, “I’m learning from my mistakes, and I’ll do it differently next time.”
Accepting All Parts of Yourself
One of the hardest things for a person to do is to accept their flaws. Some even have a hard time accepting their good qualities. We waste a lot of energy hiding the parts of ourselves that we’re ashamed of, or shrinking the good parts to make others more comfortable.
When I say accept all parts of yourself, I don’t mean that you should accept your worst behavior or excuse harmful choices. Once you embrace the fact that you’re a human being with strengths, flaws, insecurities, fears, and contradictions, your confidence naturally grows. Let go of the urge to be perfect, and just be yourself.
Some parts of you might need healing, some parts need accountability, and some might need compassion. And that’s okay. Our lives are continuously evolving as we learn from our experiences. You’re not the same person you were 5 years ago, or even the same person you were last year.
I was mortified when I first took an honest look inward to examine the parts of myself that I avoided for years. I thought about the many times I overreacted, when I treated people harshly, avoided hard conversations, and when I allowed myself to be mistreated because I was afraid of confrontation. It almost made me sick to my stomach, and then I started treating myself with compassion. I forgave myself not once, but as many times as I needed to, on a daily basis.
Confidence Is a Daily Practice
You’re not going to just wake up one day suddenly feeling confident, especially if you’ve spent years running from uncomfortable truths. Part of self-compassion is being patient with yourself. It’s also important to remember that, as with any new skill, the more you practice, the better you’ll become. It’s similar to working out: it takes more than one visit to the gym to build muscle.
Some people want faster results. They want the six-pack abs or big biceps within a week, and when that doesn’t happen, they quit. Building confidence works the same way.
Your confidence workout might look like:
- Speaking up even when you’re nervous.
- Setting boundaries even when it’s uncomfortable.
- Trying new things even when you might fail.
- Being okay with failing and trying again.
- Treating mistakes as information.
- Forgiving yourself every day.
If you want to succeed at building confidence (or muscle), be dedicated to yourself. It’s not going to be easy the first time you speak up for yourself or set a boundary. When you’re breaking old patterns and learning new behavior it’s going to be uncomfortable. The key is to understand that the discomfort comes from doing something you’ve never allowed yourself to do before. It sucks, but it’s only temporary, so sit with it until it passes. Each time you do this it gets easier and, eventually, the discomfort is gone.
If you want to build genuine confidence, commit to yourself the way you would commit to someone you deeply love. Show up on the days you don’t feel like it. Keep the promises you made to yourself. Speak to yourself with honesty and compassion. And when you fall short, decide that you’re learning, not that you’ve failed.
There will be days when you doubt yourself, when old fears come back, or when you slip back into familiar habits. That’s part of being human.
Real confidence doesn’t need to prove anything. When you feel it, people can see it, and that won’t even matter to you. You’ll know that no matter what happens, you’ll face it, learn from it, forgive yourself, and keep moving forward.
Don’t give up on yourself.
The person you’re becoming is worth every uncomfortable conversation, every small act of courage, every boundary you set, every mistake you learn from, and every time you choose growth over fear.
One day you’ll look back and be proud of every promise you kept to yourself.
From My Desk
I spent decades being a doormat because I confused keeping other people happy with being a good person. Learning the psychology behind self-worth completely changed how I saw myself, and I hope it helps you see yourself with more compassion, too.
