4 Myths About Building True Confidence
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Gather round friends!
Today we’ll be discussing all of the myths that surround confidence and confidence-building. When you think confidence as a concept or think of the first person that comes to mind when you envision a confident person, what comes to mind? What traits do these people share?
It’s important to draw this vision up in your mind because in my humble opinion, there are a TON of misconceptions surrounding what true confidence looks like. From my point of view, true confidence isn’t loud or boastful. It is one of those things where, “if you got it…you got it.”
True confidence is about knowing yourself. Understanding who you are and what your value is. A truly confident person doesn’t quake when asked “what do you bring to the table?” and pulls themselves back from negative self-talk and doubt spirals when challenges arise.
By no means am I saying that getting to this place is easy. Self-discovery is a never-ending process and I firmly believe that we’ll always be on this path of figuring out who we are in each season of our lives. As we elevate, grow, and evolve we’re inevitably going to face new challenges that will require us to adapt. However, confidence to me is the common thread that allows us to do this in one piece.
This is especially important to discuss in the context of being a Black Woman or Woman of Color. The way that confidence is projected and perceived by others is not assigned equally. It definitely varies based on the way that we look!
So now that we’ve discussed what confidence is, let’s discuss what it is not.
Myth #1: Confidence looks one way on everyone
This could not be further from the truth. As someone who identifies as an introvert, I cannot stress this enough. Confidence reads differently from person to person and because we draw our energy from different sources, its impossible to define confidence in a monolithic way.
With that being said, I also don’t think that we can stereotype introverts or put people with this trait in a box! Introversion does not equate to social awkwardness or being antisocial. This is one narrative that I believe we should all move away from.
What introversion vs. extroversion can affect is working style. Some people have brilliant ideas but work better in isolation. This doesn’t mean that they can’t work in groups, it simply means that preparation time serves them best. Whereas others thrive off of the presence of others – and being asked to do something off the cuff doesn’t affect them at all.
Neither one of these people is a “superior” employee, student, or partner to the other. All this says to me is that it would serve us on the whole to think of ways that we can better account for these working styles, creativity and leadership styles in professional and interpersonal settings.
Myth #2: Becoming truly confident is simple
Let’s get real besties! You can read as many cute Instagram graphics as your heart desires but the only way to truly grow and develop real confidence is by putting yourself in situations that make are unfamiliar and make you feel uncomfortable.
You’re not going to know what you can and can’t do if you’ve never actually done it before. Growth requires experience.
True confidence is something that goes beyond the surface! It goes beyond putting a nice outfit together or beating your face. (between the two of us, that NARS foundation will only do so much wne you’re put in a situation that tests your sense of self-worth or self-belief) But if you can cultivate true, deeply-rooted confidence, that is what will project and shine through! It will be the thing that cna ground you in the toughest of situations.
Myth #3: You have to be loud and talkative to be confident.
Think about what I said previously about introversion + true confidence. The loudest person in the pack doesn’t always say the right things! Think about the people you know who love to talk about themselves for hours on end, talk over people, and brag unprovoked: how do you feel about them?
This isn’t always a positive trait to have and can sometimes be a red flag, signaling a need for validation. You can find comfort in saying “what needs to be said” or demonstrating your impact where its needed rather than forcing others to hear or understand your point of view.
Myth #4: Confidence is something that you’re either born with it or you’re not
Let’s get over this myth that confidence exists in a binary! Confidence does not exist in these crazy extremes! Perfectionism will hold you back from winning! I asked this question in Chroma Radio Episode 7 and I’ll ask it again: why do you need to be the expert now?
We put so much unnecessary pressure on ourselves to be amazing at things off-rip and it’s pretty unnecessary! All this does is causes you to put extra-pressure on yourself and then become self-denigrating when you don’t meet the marks you set for yourself (which were probably set a bit too high in the first place.
Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle! The things that you think people are good at, probably only appear that way because they put in the time and effort required to be “good”. They learned, practiced, failed, and perfected – then repeated this process all over again!
So instead of wasting time trying to figure out why you aren’t “good” at something, Just take action instead!
