The Key to Confidence Building

To understand my professional journey as I became better and better at my job, I created a model that visualizes the different states I had gone through in where many times I was confident in myself and in other instances I had started questioning my abilities. This helped me better understand how to regain confidence and start believing in myself again.

The model — which we will call the confidence quadrant for now — consists of two dimensions and four states. The two dimensions describe whether you are confident or not and whether or not it is justified given your competence:

• The subjective perception maps whether you are confident in your abilities or if you feel that you still have more to learn
• The objective assessment is the verdict the world around you sets on your abilities. Regardless of your own beliefs, either you are competent at what you do or you are not

Here is a graphical representation of the confidence quadrant:

These are the four states of confidence:

• When you start a new skill you are in the non-confidence state as you rightfully understand that you are not particularly good at what you do, as do the people around you
• As you improve your skills you will eventually convince others that what you do is good enough. Since you still need some convincing yourself we call this state under-confidence
• If you however disregard what others think of your skills you risk falling victim to over-confidence as your perception of your talent does not match the assessment of others
• With more experience and feedback you will eventually realize that you are actually good at what you do. Once you gain the self-confidence you have reached the ultimate goal to all skill building

Before we dig deeper into each state, let us take an example which many might relate to — driving a car:

• When you sat behind the wheel for the first time you most likely realized that you were not good at driving the car. So did the teacher, naturally
• As you gained your experience, got the necessary training and learned about how to conduct yourself in traffic, eventually you passed the driving test. The driver’s license was proof that someone else thought you were good enough to actually drive a car by yourself
• Having said that, many young drivers might be overly confident in their skills which is why they are statistically more likely to be involved in accidents than older drivers
• In any regards, as you get more accustomed to driving the car the more skilled and self-confident you will be in traffic. Ultimately you will be a natural driver

Non-Confidence

Let us start with the blue box. Being new at a skill, you will hopefully get motivated to be better. There are three scenarios for your journey from here: either you get stuck on this state, or you go to the yellow box, or the red box. Now, theoretically you could advance to the green box but rarely do other people’s assessment of you and your own perception occur at the exact time, so either you will take the path of under- or over-confidence on your road to self-confidence.?

As individuals we are always curious of new experiences. We want to try new things and in many cases we find them stimulating and come back for more. However, there are also things we try that we find either too difficult, not fun enough, or both. This was true for me when I tried out golf one summer. Even though I enjoyed the company of my friends I never felt compelled to continue golfing as I was not good at it and felt embarrassed whenever I missed hitting the ball. Thus I got stuck in the blue box and never sought to get out of it.

If you however continue working on your skill you will eventually be good at it, leading you to the yellow box. It will require proper training in the guise of education (either self-studying or by having a teacher or trainer) as well as a good amount of practice (remember the driving classes before you got the license). With enough training and experience you will see the progress needed for others to realize and accept your newly acquired proficiencies.

It is important to distinguish between believing in your potential and believing in you having acquired your skills. The first feeling will get you motivated to get better while the other will get you over-confident in your skills. You might fall into the red box by simply being unaware of what others think of you or by being impatient about gaining the necessary skillset. In worst case, pure arrogance will definitely get you here if you could care less about what others think of your talent.

Under-Confidence

Moving on to the next state, the yellow box is where you will find yourself when you have gained enough experience and training to have people trusting in your skills. With that said, you will still be motivated to be better as in your own mind you have not reached the full potential of your abilities. The three scenarios here are similar to the previous state: you could get stuck, fall back to the blue box, or move on to the green box. Let us explore them one by one.

The lack of confidence can be a curse if you do not start believing in yourself. Many people get experienced in something for them to then not feeling appreciated or giving themselves credit for their achievements. They get stuck in the routine of doing the work without thinking twice about what potentials the skills can lead to. Oftentimes the yellow box is the state in which many get stuck when doing mundane work as a means of making a living and nothing much else.

If you are not careful, the lack of confidence can drag you back to the blue box. This could happen if your skills start stagnating either by you not improving or by you being overlooked by the prospects of other colleagues. In the worst of cases, the unachievable standards you set on yourself could lead you into depression if you do not start believing in yourself.

To reach the goal of the green box, you will need the encouragement from your surroundings, which is achieved by positive feedback from your managers and peers. Another way of moving past the yellow box is to start appreciating yourself and having a positive attitude. And finally validation such as promotions and other rewards will give you the proof that the skillset you have developed is something to write home about.

Over-Confidence

Another path towards achieving self-confidence is through the red box. This is the exact opposite of the yellow box and will often fall upon people with great beliefs in themselves. As expected, the three scenarios in this state are as follows: you continue your journey towards the green box, or you fall back to the blue box, or you dig yourself deeper into the red box.

Now, the red box is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, as long as you get out of it as soon as possible. This is achieved by receiving enough proper experience and training to get you to the green box, just like if you would have moved up from the blue to the yellow state. To break out of the mindset of the red box you also need to be humble and start caring about and taking in what others think of your talents. This journey is sometimes described with the ”fake it till you make it” mantra.

Another way out of the red corner is to actually move back to the blue box. This can happen if you get some insights into how you actually perform, for instance when receiving feedback from your surroundings. It can also happen through some setbacks and in the worst case a failure of great proportions which can take a toll on your confidence enough to pull you back to the starter box.

If all of the above fail, you will get stuck in the red box for a good while. Anyone who simply neglects the thinking and opinions of others and persists on knowing best themselves will remain over-confident. If you do care but start feeling unappreciated by your managers or peers this could be another sign of being stuck here and could lead to your resignation, both mentally and literally.

Self-Confidence

The final stage of confidence is the green box. As you receive more feedback on your skills and as you get more experienced, you will sooner or later end up in this state. A thing to keep in mind is that this state is massive and you might very well stay here for many years to come. However, if you are not careful you might slip back to the yellow box or in the worst case the red box.

To keep improving on yourself even when you are in the green box, you need to maintain your ambition to always learn more within your area of expertise. This can be achieved by taking on new challenges in adjacent areas to expand on your skillset. Naturally a sense of curiosity needs to always linger with you as you always need to keep yourself updated on the latest developments. You definitely don't want to be left behind as the world around you constantly evolves.

As with the other states, there is a small risk that you will fall back to a previous state even here. A lack of confidence — sometimes labelled diffidence — could drag you back to the yellow box. This could occur if you experience depreciation, meaning you suffer from unduly criticism or disapproval from your surroundings. It could be a new position or a new manager that sets you back and requires building trust anew.

If you however maintain your confidence but get too comfortable you might at some point find yourself in the red box. This can happen with a sense of complacency which is when you have an exaggerated satisfaction in your own achievements. Or you might end up being indifferent about maintaining your skillset and lose the motivation to keep them up to date. A final pitfall is the sense of irresponsibility where you start blaming everything and everyone else for your shortcomings and lack of progress.

This All Makes Sense, Haven’t I Seen This Before?

Hopefully by this point you see the logic in the four states and understand how one would jump from one box to another. Naturally when creating the model I took inspiration from other work.

One of those is the four stages of competence. The difference with that model is however that it focuses on learning and your consciousness in your skill building where the final step is your skill becoming second nature (like driving a car). What my model focuses on is rather the motivation behind the skill building and how it can be to your advantage or disadvantage as you struggle to get the required skillset and the confidence that comes with it.

Another model that I have studied is the Johari window which is designed to help people better understand their relationship with themselves and others. This technique also consists of four boxes but focuses on having greater knowledge of oneself by opening up to other people and listening to their feedback. Finally, a noteworthy model I can recommend reading up on is the Dunning-Kruger effect wherein people with low expertise in a skill tend to overestimate their ability while high performers tend to underestimate or trivialize their own talent.

The psychology of confidence is a fascinating field to me and I hope to contribute to the amazing work of others with the confidence quadrant. It is still a work in progress and I would gladly appreciate any feedback on it so I can make it even more understandable, relatable and relevant. Feel free to leave a comment in the section below and thank you for sticking around until the end!