Confidence is "doing it anyways" - I read this somewhere but it didn't sink in until I found myself in the exact situation that required me being confidence even though I had no idea what I was to do or how to do what I should do. There is always going to be a first time for every action we decide to take, and most of them don't always need prior education or experience, confidence!
The confidence that only you who is to take the action, can feel. I would even say Confidence isn't a feeling but just a thought. One that you either think negatively or positively and it all goes down to why you must take that particular action, even when you don't know how yet. Countless of us learnt to make money not because we knew how to at first but we quite understood the reason to.
If the "why" is strong enough, the "how" will show up" - I also heard this saying in a podcast I was listening to, when a man was teaching about building self. From my studies about confidence, it's not a one-time mastery but one you have to build over time and yes, it starts with doing it scared, doing it unsure because you have all the reasons to do it, that is, you have a strong "why".
It's really crazy how we get so good at something we've never tried before, I'm sure everyone of us have had one or two things we tried for the first time and somehow, we just did it so well like a pro. There is this level of confidence that will build up from that realization but for the first step, that is where many of us tend to run away from or just conclude that we can't do it well.
"Our brain is made to protect us from the hard things" - I've said this before and it's from my research about the human mind in hopes of understanding myself. One of the hardest things for humans to do is actually doing something we know may never benefit us but we do it anyways because we have at least one reason to do it. It still goes down to asking, why am I doing this?
A personal experience I had recently that thought me more about this is, when I decided to go on a face call with a lady who is supposedly, a researcher and on a quest to understand how some people do their regular activities in a particular aspect of remote works. She didn't give me any details of what the call will be about, just requesting for my presence and dropped the link.
I spent hours to actually get myself to schedule a suitable time for the video call to happen because she let me take my time with it. I spent that much time thinking of the right time because I didn't think I'd have anything worth sharing when she begins asking me questions. There were no prior training or guide, just a mind interested in understanding how I do my things.
It was hard for me because I've never had to talk about what really concerns me with a total stranger, and on a video call? It was like I was being called to go for a war. But what made me pushed the schedule button was the "why" I am to do it. I wanted to see how much I know about what I profess I do and I wanted to see how she would react to how I answer all her questions.
Focusing on the "why" gave me some confidence I didn't feel I was having at the time the video call started, I just flowed with everything that happened on the call and at the end, I felt even more confident in myself and in the possibility of such a situation coming up again in the future.
So the point is, Confidence is real but it's not something you gain miraculously or out of force. It is built and must start from taking that first action with your good or strong reason to. But, continuous learning even when you don't need to, boosts confidence long before you may need it.
Images used are AI generated.