My #1 Secret for Confidence

People are often surprised that I am quite insecure. When I share my insecurities with people, they tell me that I often seem so confident and fearless. They site examples from my solo-travels cross country and in Europe and my experiences with jumping into new careers and leaving the safe path behind. 

Yes, I did all those things. But I’m also human, so I am not immune to feeling fear and insecure from time to time. 

But that also means that I’m human and if I can find a way to be confident in the world, then so can you. 

So what’s my big secret to confidence?

Confidence comes from evidence.

We can feel more confident if there is evidence of what we are trying to do. 

And you can find evidence in a number of ways, and I’m going to share a few of the ways that work for me.

Borrow evidence from others

I am a voracious reader and extremely curious about people who do things that I want to do. I knew that I wanted to travel solo long, long before I actually did it. I watched documentaries, read books and articles, joined email lists and listened to blogs. I absorbed everything I possibly could about traveling, especially about traveling alone as a woman.

I read and read until I felt like I had fully absorbed the advice and I could live it without hesitation. 

I could also learn from other people’s experiences. I love memoirs and biographies and love hearing the stories of struggle. How did that person cope? What was their path? If there is something that I can learn from what they did, then I want to know! I do not want to make the same mistake twice, and if I can learn from someone else’s mistakes then I can go make new mistakes of my own.

Get competence before confidence
Competence often comes before we feel confident. We want to know everything we can possibly know, and sometimes this is where we get stuck. We think we don’t know enough so we have to learn more or become more of an expert. It’s hard to measure competence.

Competence comes from learning and doing. The best thing you can do is to learn, then try it out, and then teach it to someone else. We learn much faster if we teach what we are trying to learn. You will see the areas where you need to improve because those are the areas that are hard to teach. 

Start small
 

My first solo trip was not a multi-week commitment or extravagant abroad adventures. Nope. I did small weekend trips in my car and did a solo road trip where I also spent time visiting friends. By planning small trips I was able to manage my fear and also grow my skills. I learned my weaknesses (I get lost extremely easily, I always take longer to get somewhere than expected, and I get easily sidetracked with fun side trips) and started to learn how to plan for those. By learning myself I could create a plan to deal with any expected trouble. And when unexpected trouble came up I could deal much more easily. When I missed my connecting train in Germany and delayed my arrival with my host family, I kept my head on straight and did my best to communicate. There was nothing that could be done, so I just tried to keep my cool. 

By giving myself a small dose earlier in my life I could learn how to deal with common problems.

 

In my experience, confidence cannot be faked, which is why I hate the phrase “fake it till you make it.” When you try to fake confidence, more often that not you are coming across as fake. You’re trying too hard and your heart isn’t in it so it doesn’t feel authentic. 

You will more reliably build your own confidence if you try one of these methods. 

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