Confidence: What if you don't need 100% of it?"

"The realisation that you don't need to be 100% confident to do a really good job."

I was speaking recently with a colleague who runs our company's Toastmasters club. As often happens when discussing public speaking, the conversation turned to confidence.

People join organisations like Toastmasters because they want to become more confident. But that raised an interesting question:

What exactly is confidence?

Most people describe it as belief in our abilities, trust in ourselves, or certainty that we can succeed. Yet when we stop and look for confidence, where do we find it?

Is it a thing? A feeling? A state of mind? A judgement we make about ourselves?

And perhaps more importantly, who gets to decide whether we are confident or not?

Confidence Is Rarely Binary

We often talk about confidence as if it is either present or absent.

"I'm not confident." "I've lost confidence." "She's a confident person."

But is it really that simple?

When I play tennis, there are times when I lose confidence in my serve. Sometimes my forehand isn't working either. Yet I can still compete well, enjoy the game, and perform effectively.

Have I lost confidence?

Or have I simply lost confidence in one specific skill at one specific moment?

Too often we take a local dip in confidence and apply it globally. We conclude that because one thing isn't working, something must be wrong with us.

But confidence is rarely a single thing.

It is more like a landscape, made up of many different resources that we can draw upon.

The Confidence Battery

One way to think about confidence is as a battery.

Confidence grows through repeated experiences. Small successes. Practice. Preparation. Learning. Training. Experience.

Much of this work happens unnoticed. Nobody sees the hours of preparation, the mistakes corrected, the lessons learned or the skills steadily developed.

Yet all of those moments are contributing to your confidence battery.

The interesting thing about batteries is that they don't need to be fully charged to function. Most of us don't panic when our phone reaches 50%.

So why do we expect ourselves to perform only when our confidence feels full?

Perhaps the better question is:

How much confidence do I need for this task?

If the battery is running low, recharge it through preparation, learning, rehearsal, or experience. If it's already holding sufficient charge, maybe it's enough to simply trust what is already there.

The Confidence Observer

Another useful question is: Who is measuring your confidence?

You? Your family? Your colleagues? An audience?

As humans we often judge ourselves against an imagined standard that nobody else is using.

The reality is that people are usually paying attention to different things than we are.

While we are focused on our nerves, they are focused on the message.

While we are worried about a mistake, they are noticing what is going well.

Understanding the perspective of the observer can help us develop a more realistic measure of confidence.

Sometimes we don't need to feel more confident.

We simply need to stop measuring ourselves so harshly.

The Confidence Landscape

From a Cognitive Hypnotherapy perspective, confidence can be viewed as a resource rather than a fixed personality trait.

Most people can immediately think of situations where they feel confident and others where they do not.

This suggests confidence isn't missing. It already exists.

The question becomes: Where is it and how can we access it?

Perhaps you feel confident as a parent, leader, friend, professional, athlete or problem solver.

Perhaps confidence shows up in your experience, knowledge, sense of humour, resilience or ability to connect with others.

Imagine confidence as a landscape containing many different resources. Some areas are strong and easily accessible. Others feel blocked or disconnected.

Instead of focusing on what is missing, explore what is already available.

You may discover that confidence from one area of life can be transferred into another.

Confidence Barriers

If confidence already exists somewhere within your landscape, what prevents it from flowing where you need it?

Often there is a barrier.

Past experiences. Fear of judgement. Perfectionism. Unhelpful expectations. Old beliefs about who you are.

These barriers usually developed for a reason. At some point they may even have been helpful.

The challenge is that they may no longer serve you.

Rather than fighting against them, become curious about them.

Understand what purpose they were trying to fulfil.

Once understood, many barriers begin to lose their power.

And as they do, confidence can start flowing again.

A Final Thought

Perhaps confidence isn't something you need to find.

Perhaps it is something you already possess in many different forms.

The real task is recognising where it already exists, strengthening it through experience, and removing the barriers that prevent you from accessing it when you need it most.

You don't need to be 100% confident to perform well.

You just need enough confidence to take the next step.

And often, that is all that was ever required.