What it really means to be confident

We all want to be confident. 

It’s arguably the most desirable quality we seek in ourselves. 

And this makes sense: if we can become truly confident, we can change many aspects of our lives for the better, from how much money we earn to the type of partner we attract.

But what does it mean to be truly confident?

Many of us imagine our confident self to be an unwavering, calm in 

all situations, charismatic, amazing looking’, and ‘successful’ person. Someone that nails every meeting, every presentation. Someone with zero flaws, who lives as a picture-perfect human.

It goes without saying that, these days, social media and celebrity culture feed us with an image of what confidence looks like, although we all also know on some level that this is an illusion. 

Unfortunately, chasing this type of perfection forces us to be what we think we need to be, instead of choosing to be ourselves. 

So in our efforts to become more confident, we actually become less authentic. 

At the School of Connection, our approach has always been rooted in choosing authenticity over ‘confidence’, regardless of how it looks. 

We believe that true confidence is the ability to accept and take ownership of our insecurities and imperfections, instead of trying to hide them.  It takes a lot of courage to do this after many years of conditioning ourselves to believe that we need to be something else.

In his book The Transparent Self, Sidney M Jourard sums up this sentiment nicely when he says:

“We camouflage our true being before others to protect ourselves against criticism or rejection. This protection comes at a steep price...we are misunderstood. When we are misunderstood, especially by family and friends, we join the 'lonely crowd.' Worse...we tend to lose touch with our real selves”.

So how do we move away from this ‘camouflage’ and into a place where we can be more authentic? 

One of the first things we ask students to do in our public speaking courses is to purposely be vulnerable. We get them to talk about their struggles, their insecurities, their shame, and there is a tremendous power in doing this. 

By expressing themselves in this way, students are forced into authenticity. They are forced to take down their masks and reveal themselves in front of others, sometimes for the very first time!

Brené Brown describes authenticity as ‘letting go of who you think you should be’. Vulnerability holds the key to letting go.

So why do people feel the need to cover up who they really are? The main reason is that they don’t believe they’ll be accepted by others and that people will judge them as no good. This belief is at the root of all anxiety around speaking in public.

But, the paradox is, the more you show yourself and show all parts of yourself, the more acceptance you’ll get. By revealing who you are, you allow people to see you, and see themselves in you too.

Now, there’s something we all love about really “outwardly” confident people. We admire them, in part, because we wish we could be more like them.

But we feel a different kind of admiration for those people who can be vulnerable in front of others and not hide who they are. And this admiration is different because we can relate much more to that person. We see that they’re human, just like us. 

I always love it when I hear people I admire talk about having the same insecurities that I have. It inspires me to think that if they can achieve great things in spite of their anxieties, then I can, too.

I once read an interview with actor Joaquin Phoenix where he talked about his nervousness before filming:

“Every f***ing movie I feel like it’s my first. I’m uncontrollably shaking, physically nervous. No way am I like, ‘Yeah, I got this’. Every time feels f***ing terrifying. They have to put f***ing pads in my armpits because I sweat so much” 

I found this so empowering. Here is one of the greatest actors of our generation describing how I feel most days of my life - suddenly I felt less alone!

Confidence is fully embracing who we are, including our insecurities. It’s having the courage to be vulnerable, to take down our masks and go beyond the fear of rejection. It’s the willingness to make a fool of ourselves, to be different, to be judged. 

But ultimately it’s about self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is a journey - one that we’re all on. And it’s a journey that should take us from being less worried about how we appear to the rest of the world, into being more focused on how we appear in the world as ourselves.

To find out more about our training, head to our online and in-person course pages.