Confidence is Not Certainty

Daily Dose of Integrity

One major barrier people have when it comes to building confidence is they think the state of uncertainty (i.e. confusion or not being good at something) counts as not being confident.

This means their definition of the word “confidence” excludes any uncertainty; you only get to be confident if you’re knowledgeable, skilled and successful.

The problem with the definition of confidence excluding confusion and not being good at things is that these are normal human states and we're all going frequently to experience them for the rest of our lives.

In fact, if you want to be brave and constantly growing, you must consistently seek these states of being! You can’t learn or develop without first entering situations that are unfamiliar.

So if you want to be permanently self-confident, your definition of confidence has to include uncertainty, confusion and being unskilled.

And of course, confidence should be able to include these states, because confidence can’t be about things you can't control, like having knowledge you don't have or having skills you don't have, but more about how you react to that uncertainty.

Confidence is not about knowing everything and being good at stuff.

In fact, the most confident person in the room is the one being shameless about not knowing and about not being good at something; being unapologetic in expressing those lacks.

A confident person proudly proclaims, “I don’t know the answer, please teach me so I can become wiser!”

It’s the insecure person who claims to know it all already.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.