Written by: Eszter Zsiray, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
When I was 30 years old, I moved to Spain on my own. I did not really speak the language (even though I thought so), I knew no one in the country, and it was one of the most terrifying experiences to get on the airplane with my only suitcase and just go out to the unknown where no one was expecting me on the airport. Yet, it became the most significant experience in my life, it changed who I was, what my future became, and how is my life today – I often think that I became a completely new person thanks to unleashing so much potential of myself with this move and with all the consequences it meant for my life.
Now, was I confident when all these happened that it was supposed to turn out well? Hell no, often I had no clue what I was doing, I was lonely and lost at some moments, but on the other hand, it was a beautiful adventure, I loved all the discovery of a new culture, the country, the language, and the discovery of a new me, and I learned so much on this journey. Following this experience though, I was travelling to unknown continents completely alone with way more confidence and courage than ever before. We could also say that I got trained at travelling and finding my place in any country. Or, symbolically, I got more experienced in how to get the most out of any new situation. I became confident.
We all would like to be confident and strong and brave when it comes to the challenges we have in our daily lives when we are trying to figure out what to do with our career, or how to improve our relationships or just get the courage to speak up on a meeting. But there is a very important annex written in small letters that we all need to be aware of: to be successful, to get out of our comfort zone, to do something that looks scary, you simply just don’t need to be confident. Yes, that is right. Confidence is an outcome. Not a requirement.
Obviously, if you were confident always and with everyone, life could be amazing, you could forget all the fears and self-doubts, and that is a brilliant goal to work towards. However, you don’t need to be confident to accomplish your goals. As Nike said, you need to just do it. So you gather all your courage together and just do it, despite the fears and doubts, believing that hard work, experiences and trying out new things will always bring in the results. This is how it all starts.
And now comes the million-dollar question. If you don’t need to be confident to thrive, how can you still be bold enough to just do it, to take that initial step, to get out of your comfort zone?
Acknowledge the above message, and forget that you can’t thrive without being confident. It is perfectly normal and okay if you are scared and if you second-guess yourself at the beginning of your journey, or halfway, or at the end, or at all phases, continually. It might not be visible, but everyone has doubts all the time, that is just part of the process. Ignore the feeling and keep on working, perseverance will be your guarding angel to help you to succeed.
Get rid of your fear of failure that might paralyse you or might bring up some great excuses why not to do it or why not now is the best time. Failure simply doesn’t exist in life, as Nelson Mandela said, we either win or we learn. If you think back to your life, did you often regret actually doing something or is it rather NOT doing something? What if you could look at life as a long learning journey, where you try out new things all the time and there is no such thing as a failure but missed opportunities?
Use your fears wisely and turn them into opportunities to motivate you to achieve even more. What if you got 1 million dollars if you had achieved your goal but for that, you need to work on it immediately? What options would become visible for you if you change into a problem-solving mindset?
Put in the work needed. Confidence will come on the journey when you start to see what are you capable of and it will exponentially impact your whole life, it will make you bolder in all life areas and more and more doors will open up for you as you start to see more options possible – but you need to continue working on your goal and work and work.
Fake it till you make it. There is a wonderful TED talk by Amy Cuddy on how faking confidence and tricking your own body by standing in the power pose works, so use it as a tool for yourself. When you don’t have the confidence and you really feel that you need it at that moment, in that situation, you can either imagine how a confident person would react or act, or you can simply stand up in the power pose for a couple of minutes and let your body emit all the hormones and chemicals that will help you to succeed the challenge.
Very often lack of confidence is due to fear of visibility. We are afraid of what others would think, or say about us. First of all, this might come as a surprise, but everyone is busy and they don’t really care about what you are doing. If they do, it is either because they care about you, which is great, then they will just accept you and your actions as those are, or, alternatively, they simply project their own fears, problems, and limitations to their environment, so whatever they say or think, it won’t be about you anymore, but about themselves. So if you limit yourself because of what will others think, you limit yourself based on the emotional maturity of your environment.
Get a mantra. Sometimes you can’t wait until you finish your project and you will get experienced and will hopefully walk full of confidence. In those cases, grab your Wins sheet. List a couple of positive achievements that make you proud of yourself – we all have such things when thinking back to our lives – and use the strengths of those memories to feel what you are capable of when it is needed! You are exactly the same person who accomplished all those fantastic things, so why wouldn’t you be able to be brilliant on this challenge?
Talk to people who look very confident. Ask them, how did they get where they are today in life, how was it when they just started a project, and how confident were they? Most probably they will all tell you that they knew nothing at the beginning of their journey. They were not confident at all, and still, by working on their dream projects for endless months, and years, by putting in the effort they built up a successful world for themselves. Still, it is nice to see how our personal heroes are also just as human and insecure at some points as we are.
Remember, you were not born with 5 kilograms of confidence and that is it. Confidence is a dynamic thing, it changes and fluctuates depending on the situations, the people surrounding you, and your own emotional or physical status so for example if you have slept and rested enough, if you have taken care of your wellbeing, etc. Still, you can observe yourself and find some interesting patterns in what situations you typically have a lower confidence level and in what situations do you feel yourself more strong and secure and you can work towards a better balance with a life coach.
If you are one of those with Impostor syndrome, the most important thing for you to know is that a lot of people feel the same, that they are not good enough, and that they will be discovered one day and they will be called on as a fraud. This is something that you can learn to live with, mainly by acknowledging that this is also normal, and it literally doesn’t mean anything. The most successful, talented and amazing people also might have Impostor syndrome, and still, they are accomplishing jaw-dropping results. I recommend you to listen to another very entertaining TED Talk by Mike Cannon-Brookes that might shed some light on how common this syndrome is.
Finally, I would like you to reflect a little bit on the question: who could you be by being more confident? What would you do differently? What are the risks you would take on easier? What were the consequences if you were a confident person? If you were confident to be more visible, what would you do differently?
Whatever the answers for you to those questions are, you can choose to take the leap and just do it. Even if it is scary. Even if it looks like a total disaster. Your confident and self-doubting self is not that different in the end. They are exactly the same personas, with the same skills, and competencies, and actually, both can just make the decision and step forward into the unknown!
Eszter Zsiray, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Eszter Zsiray is a Certified Life Coach, author, blogger, and creator of the program VELL©, supporting her clients on three continents to successfully transform their lives. With 17+ years of leadership experience, she is passionate about human potential and growth. Her research areas are ownership & responsibility, self-sabotaging behaviors, the positive impact of confidence and empowerment, growth mindset, and healthy habits for mental and physical wellbeing. As a mother herself, she is committed to serving women and mums, and she created a special program for new mothers to adjust to the new life challenges and a program for women entrepreneurs to shift into the proper mindset and to thrive in their professional and personal lives.
