How do you get confidence or how do you become confident. I’ve seen and read many things that treat the cure for lack of confidence like a miracle pill. Do the recommended mind exercises and you will become confident. Fake it till you make it.
It never works.
The person seeking the confidence puts themselves in a situation, where they are totally unqualified to do the task. They pretend they are confident and fail. This then dents what real confidence they did have. So, what is a real way to increase your confidence? To start let’s define confidence and look at the roots of the word.
What does confidence mean?
Confidence is a feeling of self-assurance and trust in one’s own ability and skills. I like to look at the meaning and etymology of words, because I believe this contains the truth. The etymology of the word confidence shows us its Latin roots. Com meaning With and Fidere meaning To Trust.
From that we get Confidere, which therefore means With Trust. From this we also get to confide, i.e. I trust you enough to tell you something in confidence. This information would therefore be confidential and you are my confidant. It would therefore also mean I have confidence in you.
Over the centuries the word passed through old French and eventually into modern English. It evolved in meaning to include times when I trust you enough to do something, not just to keep some information secret. For example, I would delegate a task to you because I trust you to complete it. It is then a short step for this to also include areas where I am certain of your abilities. I trust that you will do this thing because you are also able to do it. I have confidence in you.
Confidence Trick
Someone could however betray my confidence in them. They could make me trust them and believe that they would do a certain thing, but then not do it. There are also people who will actively betray people’s trust in the pursuit of financial gain. They are confidence tricksters. The confidence trick is called a con for short.
In modern English confidence can also be exuded, or it is something we see displayed in others. He is a confident speaker. She writes with confidence. It therefore follows that confidence is something we can display. Here we get to the heart of the matter. How can we display confidence if we don’t feel confident?
How do we get confidence?
If we go back to the original meaning, then we should trust ourselves. How can we trust ourselves? Let’s take an example of driving. I remember my first driving lesson; I was not confident and rightly so. I had never driven a car before. The instructor talked me through the controls and how to turn the engine on. He told me how to drive the car. This information did not make me a driver. No, I first had to get the car to move smoothly and change the manual gears without stalling. Eventually I graduated from the Tesco carpark to driving in a quiet backstreet. By the end of the lesson, I was confident in my abilities to control the car. Was I a confident driver? NO way. I then had to learn to drive on roads with other cars on them!!!
Eventually after around 6 months of lessons and practice, I was considered safe enough to be able to drive safely on Her Majesty’s Highways and Byways. I had passed my driving test. The second time around, if you were wondering. Was I now a confident driver? No. Thirty seven years later, however, I do consider myself a confident driver.
So, we gain confidence through practise, correcting mistakes, improvement and experience. We slowly begin to trust our own skills. We are confident in that specific area.
General confidence
If we can gain confidence in a certain skill, does it mean that we have general confidence? If we are skilled in one area, can it rub off in other areas. Yes, it can. For example, in my sales career I have dealt with so much rejection, that I am confident to make cold calls. I do not fear rejection. This can spread to other areas, such as being able to strike up a conversation with a stranger. It can also help with public speaking. I still get the butterflies before a big presentation, but I know this is just an adrenaline dump, to help me perform.
Read my post Skills and Mastery, where I breakdown how I built up my skills around cold calling.
False confidence.
We’ve all seen those people, haven’t we. You know the ones, they seem to go from one disaster to another. They rise up the political ladder and at each rung they confidently implement some new policy, which looks and sounds impressive. In effect though, they leave a trail of destruction. They are promoted higher and higher, never staying long enough in one position to take the blame. Eventually they reach the point of total incompetence – this is The Peter Principle. False confidence catches up with them. Real confidence comes from real capability.
Going too far
History is littered with examples of leaders going too far with misplaced confidence, which turns into arrogance and hubris. Napoleon’s campaigns in Russia were disastrous. He felt confident he could quickly march on Moscow, knock Russia out of the war and then turn his attention to the rest of Europe. His fall was as swift as his meteoric rise.
Stay Humble, Keep Growing
Confidence isn’t a switch you flip, it’s a skill you build. It comes from practice, persistence, and the willingness to fail, learn, and improve. True confidence isn’t about pretending; it’s about knowing. Knowing that you’ve put in the work, that you’ve earned your trust in yourself.
So start small. Take the first step. Then another. Build real confidence, brick by brick. And as you grow, stay humble, because the moment you think you’ve arrived is the moment you stop moving forward.
The journey never ends. Keep going.