Confidence, Certainty and Doubt

How many times have you heard: “he or she knows their stuff, but they just lack confidence..”? Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Surely confidence comes from “knowing your stuff”? Or does it? We’ve all experienced a lack of confidence from time to time, despite that, haven’t we? Either in others as well as sometimes in ourselves. So what is this “confidence thing”?

To me, confidence is developed over a period of time as one gathers knowledge and experience and develops that into wisdom. Not just knowing, but doing. It comes from preparation and practice. Agree? So why can we still lack confidence, despite all that?

Confidence can be defined as: “a feeling of assurance, especially of self-assurance”. Oh, assurance of self? Wow. Could that have something to do with my conditioning? Could that mean if I lack confidence about something that could have something to do with my beliefs? As in belief in myself? As in sometimes allowing my self-talk to doubt my capability?

Interesting. Remember Henry Ford’s famous cliché: “whether you think you can or you think you can’t – you’re dead right”. Infuriatingly true, isn’t it? So then perhaps it is often up to what I believe to be true, even in the presence of sufficient facts?

I’m sure all of you reading this will agree that confidence isn’t something we can easily just switch on or off. Or the lack of it being something we can address in a short blog, such as this. I‘m sure we all experience a lack of confidence at certain points in situations, in our life and work. As a coach, I often work with clients to identify and overcome certain “blind spots” and often need to help them address their ability to build and maintain their confidence, particularly in challenging situations.

What this has taught me however, is that on that path of assisting clients to “raise your game, to get on top of and stay on top of your game and ahead of the rest”, that where there might be a lack of confidence, we can overcome that in the short term through acting with certainty. Let me explain.

The Thesaurus defines certainty as “something that is clearly established or assured”.

Mark Twain called it: “the emphasis of a certainty that is not impaired by any shade of doubt”. ” So if the Thesaurus defines doubt as: “the state of being unsure of something”, then certainty and doubt must be antonyms? And to me that means that by choosing and emphasising one, we can do that at the expense of the other. Certainty then can be a decision.

It is a requirement for being a successful professional today. I used to hate the term “fake it until you make it” and some of you might be cringing right now as you read that, however there is some truth in it in the context of what I am talking about here.

By consciously choosing to act with certainty, you can help yourself overcome fear or doubt. First your certainty needs to be greater than your doubt. You can achieve that mentally through the right self talk or affirmation.
Then your certainty needs to be greater than their doubt – that of those who you are talking or presenting to.
And when that’s worked a few times it can buoy your confidence.  Or you can learn from that and judge the feedback to fine-tune it for next time.

Its often like an out of form cricketer – a couple of good boundaries in an over and they grow taller and think “this game is just too easy”.

As a professional, I believe you owe it to yourself to act with certainty, always. Confidence will grow over time.

Why don’t you find some opportunities this week to “try it on” and see if it makes a difference for you?