I Thought Confidence Was Personality
Growing up, my best friend was called Claire. She was confident, outgoing and extrovert, while I couldn’t have been more different: shy, quiet and introvert. So for a long time, I thought confidence was something you either had or you didn’t. Claire had it. I did not.
That belief was confirmed at university when I had to deliver a presentation in front of the class. I was so petrified I couldn’t do it. Literally couldn’t do it, because I couldn’t get my head out of the toilet bowl beforehand. It was so bad that for my final assessed presentation I was given special dispensation and only had to deliver it in front of the lecturer.
So it was confirmed: I lacked confidence.
Fake Confidence
Then I started full-time employment and discovered that I could fake confidence by pretending to be my best friend. I would literally think, What would Claire do? and then try to do that. Of course this was completely fake, but I was clearly a good actress because I managed to fool a lot of people most of the time.
Most of the time.
However, while it worked in some situations, it completely failed me in others – particularly presentations and client meetings with more than a couple of people. There was something about speaking up in front of three or more people that sent my heart racing, made me shake with nerves and feel physically sick.
So I came up with what I thought was a brilliant strategy.
I decided I would avoid situations where I couldn’t fake how I was feeling on the inside (a nervous wreck). I avoided presentations and speaking up in meetings. And if I couldn’t avoid them, I would simply fade into the background and hope no one noticed me.
In theory, this was an excellent strategy, but in practice, it didn’t work very well because the more experienced and senior I became, the more I was expected to lead meetings, present to clients and have opinions. So suddenly I was exposed, and there was a big incongruency between the fake confident Jo who borrowed her best friend’s personality and the shy, introverted wallflower who appeared when she had to speak up.
I would like to say it was embarrassing, but humiliating would be closer to the truth.
So I had to do something about it.
Running Away Didn’t Fix It
I’d also like to say I did something magnanimous and truly self-transforming. But I didn’t. I quit my job and went travelling. Of course, I told everyone (including myself) that I went travelling to find myself, but I was really running away.
I thought changing countries might change how I felt about myself.
Unfortunately, I discovered that wherever I went, my brain – and the associated thoughts and feelings – followed me.
Eventually I had to come back, and when I did, I had three choices:
- Do something to change how I felt
- Continue being miserable and humiliated
- Or hold myself back so I never had to speak up (in other words, squash my potential)
Luckily I chose to do something, and in the process of learning about my mind and behaviour, I discovered something that completely changed how I think about confidence:
- The presentation wasn’t the problem.
- The meeting wasn’t the problem.
- The situation wasn’t the problem.
Something else was going on and that’s when I discovered something truly transformational:
Situations don’t create confidence problems, situations trigger patterns.
Under Pressure, We Don’t Choose Our Behaviour
This was a huge realisation for me.
I used to think confident people were just better in certain situations. Better in meetings. Better at presentations. Better at difficult conversations, but what I eventually realised was this:
Under pressure, we don’t choose our behaviour, we run our patterns.
When we feel judged, exposed, criticised, out of control, uncertain or uncomfortable, we don’t calmly sit there and logically decide how to think and behave, we run whatever pattern we have learnt for dealing with that feeling.
Some people have patterns that say:
- “I’ll deal with this.”
- “I’ll figure it out.”
- “I’ll ask for help.”
- “I’ll try.”
- “I’ll learn.”
- “I’ll be okay.”
Other people have patterns that say:
- “Don’t get it wrong.”
- “Don’t look stupid.”
- “Stay quiet.”
- “Avoid this.”
- “You’re not ready.”
- “You’re not good enough.”
Those patterns then create the thoughts, the feelings and the behaviour that look like confidence – or lack of confidence. So what looks like a confidence problem is often not a confidence problem at all.
It’s a pattern problem.
Which is both bad news and good news. Bad news because you can’t fix it just by telling yourself to “be more confident”. Good news because patterns can be changed.
You Don’t Lack Confidence – You Run Patterns
Over the years I’ve worked with hundreds of people who told me they lacked confidence, but when you looked more closely, they didn’t lack confidence at all.
They were intelligent, capable, hardworking, reliable and often more competent than the people around them.
What they lacked was not confidence, they were running ingrained patterns.
Patterns like:
- Don’t get it wrong
- Don’t upset anyone
- Work harder than everyone else
- Be responsible for everything
- Don’t ask for help
- Stay quiet
- Don’t look stupid
Those patterns don’t feel like patterns when you’re inside them.
- They feel like personality.
- They feel like being conscientious.
- They feel like being helpful.
- They feel like being hardworking.
- They feel like being careful.
But over time, those patterns quietly shape confidence, careers, relationships and lives.
The Strange Irony of Confidence
Here’s the strange irony:
The situations we avoid because they make us feel the least confident are often the situations that would build the most confidence – if only we understood what was happening inside our own head.
My biggest fear for many years was public speaking and yet, by slowly and reluctantly confronting the thing that scared me the most, something very unexpected happened.
- I didn’t just become able to speak in front of people.
- I discovered that I loved speaking in front of people.
- I discovered that I loved teaching.
- I discovered that I loved helping people understand how their minds work and how they can change their behaviour and their lives.
I can say with complete certainty that I would not have written books, built a business, created programmes or spent years speaking to groups of people if I hadn’t eventually been brave enough to confront the thing that scared me the most.
My biggest fear ended up pointing me towards my biggest passion and my entire career.
Where Do These Patterns Come From?
This is the point where people usually ask me, “Where do these patterns come from in the first place?”
That’s a very good question.
Most of our patterns were learnt a long time ago and made perfect sense at the time. They helped us fit in, succeed, avoid trouble, get praise, or feel safe.
The problem is that the patterns that helped us earlier in life don’t always help us later in life – particularly at work, in leadership roles, or when we need to speak up, set boundaries or make difficult decisions.
Understanding where these patterns come from, why they exist and how to change them is a big part of the work I do now – because when people change their patterns, something very interesting happens.
They don’t just behave differently, they start to feel different about themselves.
- They feel calmer.
- They feel more in control.
- They feel more comfortable in their own skin.
- They trust themselves more.
Which is why confidence is not just about thoughts and behaviour, confidence is also about how you feel about yourself.
Changing Patterns Changes Everything
Over the years I’ve taught many programmes on confidence, resilience, assertiveness, communication and leadership, and you absolutely can build these skills directly. People can learn how to communicate more clearly, speak up, set boundaries, manage pressure and have difficult conversations.
But what I have found is that when people understand and change the patterns underneath their behaviour, something very interesting happens.
- Confidence improves.
- Resilience improves.
- Courage improves.
- Communication improves.
- Leadership improves.
Because when you change the patterns shaping how you think, react and behave, everything built on top of those patterns starts to change as well.
So although you can absolutely build confidence, resilience and courage directly, they are also incredibly powerful by-products of changing your patterns, which is why I teach how to build confidence, resilience and courage and how to change the patterns underneath them.
Breakthrough Insight
Situations don’t create confidence problems, situations trigger patterns. And the situations that trigger us the most often teach us the most about ourselves.
Confidence doesn’t usually come from avoiding uncomfortable situations, confidence comes from understanding the patterns that run when we are in uncomfortable situations – and learning how to change those patterns.
Most people think they need confidence first in order to face difficult situations, but it’s actually the other way round. You don’t build confidence and then face difficult situations, you change the patterns, and confidence appears as a result.
Final Thought
If there’s one small thing I would want you to think about after reading this, it’s this:
- What situations do you avoid, dread or feel most uncomfortable in?
Because those situations are probably not just problems, they are information, they are feedback and they are clues. They are showing you something important about yourself.
And once you understand the pattern, you can change the pattern. And that is very often where confidence starts.
Next Steps
If this article resonates with you, this is exactly the work I do through The Confidence Breakthrough – helping people understand the patterns shaping how they think, react and behave so they can change them and build real, lasting confidence.
For Organisations
If you want to help your people build confidence, resilience, communication skills and leadership capability by understanding the patterns shaping behaviour at work:
→ The Breakthrough Framework™
For Individuals
If you want to understand your own patterns and build confidence, resilience and courage:
→ The Confidence Breakthrough Book
→ The Confidence Breakthrough Online Programme
→ The Breakthrough Cards