Confidence: How Do You Hold It, Lose It, and Re-Build It?

Photo by Miguel Bruna

A quiet girl is seated on the backside of her bed, leaning against pillows, staring out into the nothingness of her room. The space she holds is minimal. She is absorbed in what ifs and whys. She often finds herself moving through life alone as if standing in the middle of a road while life zooms past. High school is no different. She keeps to the back of the class when she can, just like she keeps to the back of her bed. She finds safety and security in being able to see everything and everyone in front of her so that she doesn’t miss something.

This girl is afraid to be herself. She has reduced herself to a speck on the social scale and would rather hide than step forward and take up space. She would rather barely exist.  

This girl was me.

She wasn’t always me, but she was me from twelve to about nineteen. Even now, when I find myself engaging with people from that era of my life, I fall back into those quiet patterns of being obsolete and small.

This version of me was afraid to be herself. She was afraid to speak her mind and too afraid of what others would think. This version of me held no confidence.

I was engaged in a conversation with some coworkers about doing activities alone and my brain started piecing together how I got so good at being on my own. I am rather impeccable at doing things by myself. I take myself to the movies, the beach, comedy clubs, bars, coffee shops, restaurants, different gyms, and the list goes on. This skill was learned. It did not come naturally to me. It was like my pre-programmed confidence wiring had short-circuited and I was still waiting for the technician to come fix it.

If we run it back a bit, it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I started to explore the idea of doing things on my own. One day I took the chance. I stepped outside my comfort zone and edged my way into the confidence zone.

Beyond my personal experience, I started to ask myself a few questions. Where does confidence come from? Why does it sometimes slip away? And how do we keep it?

Where does confidence come from?

Have you ever stopped to think about it? Did it develop over time or have you always just had “it”? That feeling of overwhelming courage to do what you want to do or have thought about doing without a second thought to follow. You were just certain it was right and certain that it wasn’t going to be a mistake.

There is a debate in the world of psychology about the origin of confidence and how it comes to be. Initially, it was thought to be a subjective feeling built by beliefs about the world stemming from experiences and the beliefs of those we grow up around. The only way to access this sense of confidence is through introspection – taking the time to reflect on your own beliefs. If you believe something to be true you are more likely to act in accordance with it (Ott, Masset, and Kepecs 2018).

The most common example used is driving. You come to a T in the road on your way home, a road you have driven so many times before. You know if you go right you will get there and if you go left you will not. Imagine sitting in the car with a friend and they tell you how to get to your house. They say go left. Your thought response might be instant. Absolutely not. You’ve been driving this road your whole life. It’s never been left and that wouldn’t change now. You are confident in your answer and choose the direction you have proven to be right over and over again.

This is statistical quantity. This is the likelihood that a belief is correct based on the constant reinforcement of being correct every time the same decision is made (Ott, Masset, and Kepecs 2018).

Now imagine they are doing construction work on that street and you have to take a detour. To get home you have always gone right, but now you have to go left. You’re less certain of the directions after that since it is not a route you have been taking your whole life. You know the roads to some degree but you’re slower to respond to the following consecutive turns, second-guessing each one in the hopes you remember correctly. You are inherently less confident.

Confidence builds itself into the orbitofrontal cortex, the space in the brain where reward value is represented. Amongst several other areas of the front of the brain, these spaces are key for computing situations and acting in confidence.

Why does confidence sometimes slip away?

Imagine you are at work and you are going to send a fax to a major account for your office. This is one of those accounts that can make or break the company and if they don’t get this document they will lose thousands of dollars. Sending a fax is something you have done hundreds of times. Recently your office acquired a new fax machine, one you have not used yet but since you have used several throughout your work life, you can’t imagine there are any major differences. When you go to send the fax you learn later that you missed a button and the fax didn’t go through. This machine required one extra step you hadn’t learned. You were so confident in the process that there wasn’t a second thought.

Not only does the receiving party lose money, but your office loses the account altogether for the mistake. Your job is on the line and suddenly this simple act you’ve been doing forever is terrifying. Your confidence is gone.

You now double and triple-check whether the fax was sent and follow up with clients multiple times to make sure they received it. You find a small amount of panic holding your body every time you are asked to send a fax.

This can happen in a multitude of ways and when it does, it sucks. This happens when we get overconfident. When we commit so hard to an idea or a practice or a thought that we blind ourselves to any other possibility. We almost start moving through life on autopilot in those areas and that’s where mistakes can happen. That’s where we watch our confidence falter. Once it starts to teeter, it doesn’t take a lot for it to disappear, but it takes a lot to build it up. So…

How do we keep it?

You know those people that are unabashedly themselves. That will make a mistake and frame it as a ‘whatever’ and ‘it’s not a big deal’. Those people that will still stand back up the next day and preach the next thing and just be committed to what they think they know even if they are wrong?

When you’ve been rattled it’s hard to come back from it. It’s hard to maintain an ‘it is what it is’ attitude and move on, especially if that’s not who you have been.

So how do we keep our confidence even when it’s been challenged?

Let’s go back to the fax machine example. The natural reaction for someone with low confidence is to retreat, maybe even quit. But what if in that moment you were able to look your director in the eyes and say “I made a big mistake and I’m so sorry.” Instead of letting the mistake own you, you are owning the mistake. You are releasing the shame of what happened by taking it head-on. This builds confidence.

This is the start of how you become a grounded, confident individual. This one small action of owning it grows your confidence. Next time you go to send a fax, you are going to check and confirm it went through. Then if your office gets a new fax machine, you are going to double-check the instructions on how to send one. You are going to make sure you know because you already made that mistake. Your confidence initially moved into overconfidence and that is where the mistake was made.

Confidence may be built into our DNA or it may be something we can build and learn. We may stumble and fall and lose the confidence we once had due to overconfident moments. We may build it back through repetition and owning our part in where it went wrong.

I believe there is a line with confidence. If we go too far, we jeopardize others. If we don’t give enough, we jeopardize ourselves. But if we fall right into that perfect balance, we can maintain the most important level of confidence. The one where you stand tall, shoulders back, and are totally unabashedly yourself.

Love always,

Riss