What is Confidence?

I recently heard someone define confidence as the genuine belief in your ability to accomplish a goal or a task. I would add that confidence includes an overall belief in yourself, your unique gifts, your power, and your strengths. In a nutshell, it’s trusting yourself.

We so often look to external factors to formulate what confidence is and what will help us get more of it. We view other people as examples of confidence, not knowing what lies beneath the façade they might show us. We think if we can just get one more degree, promotion, or accomplishment under our belt, that might help us feel we’ve earned a seat at the table. We look for praise or external validation to help build us up, or think if we could just lose 10 pounds, the confidence would come. You might even believe that the act of doing something, whether you feel confident or not, will help you build that muscle.

But what if you felt confident first? What if your confidence in your ability to take on a tough project at work, was the very thing that helped you nail it? What if your confidence in knowing how beautiful you are, is the missing piece that helps you finally shed the extra weight that’s bringing you down? What if your confidence told you, Yes! I can try this new thing and I won’t fail, therefore being a self-fulfilling prophecy? The rock solid belief that you are fully capable, could be the very thing that helps you succeed.

It might be a classic story of the chicken or the egg, and that’s quite possibly true. But if so, which do you think comes first?