Confidence: A Two Way Street

Confidence is more than just a feeling.

Courtesy of Red Bull Content Pool.

Confidence is a lot like motivation. It’s great when you have it, but it sure sucks when you don’t. That’s because confidence, like motivation, is often described as a feeling. It’s often thought of as the key to performing well. And while this is true to an extent, there’s no rule out there saying that you HAVE to be confident in order to execute. At the end of the day, performance is a behavior. You can be scared, AND still execute at a high level. Feeling confident and acting confident are not mutually exclusive. Yet, we often find ourselves feeling stuck and waiting to act when we don’t feel as confident as we’d like, which leaves us stuck, frustrated, or feeling down on ourselves.

There are two definitions of confidence.

1. A feeling of certainty or assurance.

2. An act of trust of reliance.

The first definition might resonate more deeply because our society often focuses on confidence as a feeling. It’s natural for humans to want to feel certain and assured, especially when tasked with performing under stress.

The second definition describes confidence as an action and brings into account the Latin root of the word for confidence—confidere—which literally translates to “with trust.” This definition emphasizes what you are actually doing when you feel confident: demonstrating trust and reliance in oneself (or others) to execute.

To illustrate the difference between confidence the feeling and confidence the action, I like to do this thought experiment from Russ Harris.

1. Take a minute to think about what confidence really feels like for you. Where does it reside in your body? What are the thoughts that are going through your head?

2. Now, imagine you had all the confidence in the world, but nothing else changes. The only thing that’s different is that you feel more confidence. Your performance doesn’t change, your relationships don’t change, your goals don’t change, and everything else stays the same. What impact would that have?

3. Now imagine you had all the confidence in the world. How would you act differently? What would you do? What would you say? How would you treat yourself differently? How would your interactions with others change? What would you start doing, and what would you stop doing?

The reality is that confidence might feel good, but as Harris says “we don’t want confidence just for the sake of having it.” Rather, Harris suggests that the point of confidence is to help move us closer to our goals, but if you wait around to feel confident, you may never actually take the next step forward.

In some cases, we might only have one or the other, but there are ways of developing feelings of confidence and trust in our abilities. Let’s first look at strategies for feeling more confident.

Four Sources of Confidence: Strategies for Feeling Confident

Albert Bandura was one of the first psychologists to study confidence, or more specifically, self efficacy. Self efficacy is a situation specific form of confidence that refers to one’s belief in their ability to perform a specific task. In his book Self Effiacy: The Exercise of Control, Bandura discusses four primary factors that contribute self efficacy:

1. Emotional/physiological arousal.

2. Verbal persuasion.

3. Vicarious experiences.

4. Mastery experiences

Each of these factors serve as avenues for taking action to establish greater feelings of confidence.

Let’s take a look at how.

Emotional/Physiological Arousal

Emotional/physiological arousal refers to the level of “upness” that we have either cognitively in our minds or physically in our bodies. This essentially translates to how physically or mentally ready we feel to execute.

The “right” level of arousal is going to depend on the individual and the task. The individual has to decide what is right for them and what is appropriate for the given performance. A ballet dancer might find that being calm and relaxed is preferable, while a Olympic weight lifter needs to be amped up.

One of the most effective ways for moderating your level of arousal is with the breath. If you are feeling too aroused (e.g., jittery, racing thoughts, having trouble focusing), then long slow breaths can help you find a calmer state. Emphasizing a long exhale will help calm your nervous system so you can feel physically relaxed and help you gain more mental clarity, making it easier to let go of any cognitive anxiety or racing thoughts you might experience.

Box breathing is a popular technique that follows a specific cadence and helps bring about this sense of physical and mental relaxation. Try this pattern for example: breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 2 seconds, out for 4 seconds, hold for 2 seconds. Or try in for 3 seconds, hold for 1 second, out for 3 seconds, hold for 1 second. The exact length for each in breath, out breath, and time spent holding the breath doesn’t really matter, just find what’s comfortable for you. This visual guide let’s you adjust the cadence to a rhythm that’s comfortable. Deep breaths into the diaphragm will be most effective.

Breathing can also help increase your “upness” if you are feeling sluggish. Try picking up the pace of your breathing. This doesn’t mean fast and shallow—this leads to hyperventilating and is not going to deliver oxygen to the parts of the brain and body that you need (and you might pass out). Instead, continue to focus on deep breathes into the diaphragm, but at a faster pace. Try 2 seconds in, one second out, no holds in between. The idea is to mimic the body’s state when it is physically exerting itself. This sends signals back to the brain that it’s go time, sending oxygen to the extremities and other parts of the body that are needed to perform.

Being intentional about our breath is an action that we can take to moderate how we feel. But there are a variety of other ways to help you find the right level of arousal. Music, stretching, meditating, or using a particular warmup routine are all ways to fine tune your level of arousal. Whatever approach you take, just remember to keep it simple, keep it flexible, and try to involve both your body and your mind.

Verbal Persuasion

Verbal persuasion refers to someone else’s statements of confidence in you. Phases like “You’ve trained for this”, “I’ve watched you perform this hundreds of times”, or “You are ready for this” are all examples of what you might here from a coach, teacher, or mentor inspiring confidence in you. Research indicates that verbal persuasion is a particularly helpful when it comes from someone you see as significant. A coach, a best friend, a parent, your team captain, a veteran player are all examples of significant others. The actual title of the person doesn’t necessarily matter as long as you really believe in what they are saying. Persuasion from others that are important to you can inspire confidence in your competencies.

But what happens if this person can’t always be there? Perhaps doubts start to creep back in and you start to second guess yourself. “Am I ready? Are you sure? But what if…” This is where self talk becomes important. Bandura argued that verbal persuasion can also come from oneself, meaning that our inner dialogue can also serve as a source of confidence. We’re talking to ourselves all the time inside our head. The key is recognizing if what we’re saying to ourselves is helping or hindering us in the present moment. If what we’re saying is helpful, then carry on and use that to help establish feelings of confidence. If it’s not helpful, you have two options.

1. Change it. Unhelpful self talk can be replaced with a mantra or affirmation. Ideally, this phrase is action oriented and something you truly believe in. For example “I will perform with poise and grace.” You can also reframe any unhelpful thoughts to be more helpful. Choosing to see threats as challenges is a popular and effective way to change unhelpful thoughts and feel more confident in the moment.

2. Let it go. I have a hard time changing thoughts in the heat of the moment. I’ve been more successful with simply acknowledging them, and letting them go. Self talk statements like “Hm. Thanks brain” or “That’s just my mind doing it’s thing” are two ways that can help you let go of unhelpful thoughts and refocus on the task.

Vicarious Experience

Others’ attainment of success influences our own beliefs and feelings of competency. You can gain a sense of confidence by watching others perform well. The example I always think of is watching people around me do something that feels scary or unnerving. Watching someone go on a rollercoaster, jump off a high rock into the ocean, drop into a difficult ski run, whatever it may be, can help me feel more confident in executing the task myself. Social learning theory (also developed by Bandura) posits that humans learn by watching each other. That’s how we develop skills and learn to navigate different circumstances. The same goes for our confidence. We gain confidence by watching others model success. 

But we can also gain confidence by observing ourselves. 

Imagery is a powerful mental tool that can be used to develop confidence. The Blue Angels are famous for their use of imagery to practice their aerial acrobatics before actually performing them. As they go though their debrief, watch them act out (physically and in their minds) the mechanics of their flight.

Imagery can be done using your “minds eye”, in which you see yourself performing from your own first person perspective, or from a third person perspective in which you are watching yourself on a movie screen. First person is typically better for refining and perfecting a skill, while third person is typically better for developing new ones. In either case, you want to make your imaginative experience as sensory as you can by involving what you can see, smell, hear, feel, and even taste. You can tell from narration in this video how realistic and technical their imagery is. As you progress and your imagined scenes becomes more clear and your ability to control them improves, you can also incorporate the feelings and emotions that would accompany the performance.

Film is another way to use vicarious experience to build feelings of confidence. Film serves as visual confirmation that you can perform what you’ve set out to do. When we lack confidence, our mind fills with doubt. We question ourselves. You can help rebuild this sense of confidence through visual observation. Observing yourself succeeding, even if it’s just in one aspect of the performance can help reaffirm feelings of confidence that might have been lost.

Mastery Experiences

A mastery experience is a previous experience of success. Bandura argues that mastery experiences are the most powerful sources of confidence because they serve as genuine evidence of your competency. But more than imagery, and more than observing, mastery experiences are genuine evidence of you masterfully acting out what you’ve set out to do. 

This seems logical enough. If you’re studying for a math exam, nailing practice problems is a form of mastery that would inspire confidence. Rehearsing a presentation or speech until you feel you’ve mastered it is another example.

But what about something that you’ve never done before? Or something that literally can’t do until it’s time to perform? It’s not right to think that in order to feel confident about running a marathon you have to run a full 26.2 miles beforehand. In these cases it can be helpful to focus on the smaller parts that you have already mastered. Maybe you’re longest training run was 19 miles. Knowing that you’ve mastered 19 of those 26.2 miles can be a source of confidence when you step up to the starting line. A skier who knows they can dominate a blue run might use this as source of confidence when as they get ready to drop in on their first black diamond. Focusing on these smaller components that you have mastered and bringing the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you have gathered along the way can garner feelings of confidence for the whole performance.

At the same time, this might feel like one of those those “looks good on paper” kind of situations. But the reality is you may not feel confident about running those last 7.2 miles, because after 19 that seems like a near impossible task. You might be scared as hell drop into a black diamond filled with moguls and steep lines. I know I was.

Confidence is more than just a feeling—it’s an act of trust in your abilities too. If you want to improve in anything you have to get out of your comfort zone, even if it feels scary. Rather than saying “I want to drop in, but I feel scared” confidence is saying “I want to drop in, AND I feel scared.” Confidence is allowing fear to go along for the ride, but not letting it take control of the wheel.

This video is titled “The Power of Not Giving Up” which is certainly appropriate. But it’s also a perfect illustration of confidence as an action. The child falls and gets up 9 times before finally landing on the box. Do you think they feel confident every time before jumping? It’s hard to say for certain, but I’d argue that failing over and over at something that’s important to us can leave us feeling doubtful and uncertain. This box might represent many things in your own life: public speaking, sending a new trick, paddling into a bigger wave. Whatever it may be, there’s likely going to be a situation in which your feelings of confidence are virtually absent.

And that’s perfectly fine.

We are often told we need to feel confident in order to perform, and yes! that is helpful. But it’s not a rule. It’s not a law. The feelings of confidence and the actions of confidence are not mutually exclusive. Rather than thinking of them as either or, think of the feelings and actions associated with confidence as complementary to one another. Confident feelings lead to more confident actions, and vice versa. It’s a two way street.

As Rich Roll states, “Mood follows action.” This is why mastery experiences can be so powerful. Therefore, I also want to consider how the actions of confidence can lead to the feelings of confidence.

Trust in Yourself: Building Confidence Through Your Actions

If you want to gain confidence through your actions, one way you can help yourself is through goal setting. When we look at what goal setting does for us, we see that it’s rather action oriented. Goal setting inspires us to take action, and in doing so, we take steps closer to achieving our goals, which leaves us feeling pretty good. Of course the key is in the goals that we set.

Three core reminders when setting goals:

1. Be specific.

2. Make them challenging, but not unrealistic.

3. Make them time bound. Refer to #2 for guidance on appropriate time boundaries.

Goal setting means getting outside your comfort zone, but not to a place where you’re more likely to fail than succeed. Master the small things, assess your progress, and get adjust as needed. This is what Russ Harris refers to as the Confidence Cycle.

An essential aspect of the cycle, however, is the practice that you put in. Complementary to goal setting is a concept known as deliberate practice, which means practicing intentionally. Mindless reps won’t get you anywhere. Practice needs to be done in a focused manner on a specific component of performance. Ideally this is done in a sequential manner, starting with the basics, and gradually moving toward more complexity and integration of performance demands.

So often we think of practice as just a way of building skills. But when we think about building confidence as an action, practice is also an opportunity to build our confidence. Each time you practice these skills, you are demonstrating an act of confidence, an act of trust in yourself. And as you build these skills, gradually mastering them one by one, you can help build your confidence too.

Confidence Thieves: Barriers to Taking Action

Being able to recognize confidence thieves can help us understand when, why, and how our confidence is waning, and take the appropriate action to regain it. Harris outlines a few below.

1. Excessive expectations. This goes back to goal setting. Recognize when your goals are unrealistic, too challenging, or just not aligned with your values anymore. A commonly overlooked aspect of goal setting is goal adjustment. When other uncontrollable factors get in the way, allow yourself to adjust what is realistic and work toward that. Remember to keep it challenging.

2. Harsh self judgement. Mastery takes time. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Instead, focus on small aspects of your performance that you have mastered. Try letting go of unhelpful judgements, or reframe them to be more self compassionate (see Kristen Neff’s work for more on self compassion).

3. Preoccupation with fear. Fear is normal, especially in challenging situations. Yet, you can be fearful and still perform. It come along for the ride, but it doesn’t have to drive.

4. Lack of experience/skill. It’s not natural to expect to feel confident for something we haven’t done before. The same goes for the skills you are developing. Accurate goal setting and deliberate practice can help speed you along.

If you find yourself casting doubt on your abilities, take a moment to see if one of these thieves is responsible. Developing an awareness of your obstacles can help you navigate your way to success.

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When it comes to performance, feeling confident and acting with confidence go hand it hand. Breathing, encouragement from others, self talk, imagery, and nailing practice sessions are all ways of generating more feelings of confidence. And while these feelings are certainly nice, but they might not always be there. There are going to be times when you have to leave gut feelings behind and lead with your actions, trusting in yourself and in your training to get you to your goal. I’d venture to say those feelings aren’t going to be too far behind.