Confidence is a skill: what genuinely confident people actually have in common

I remember a client once saying to me, "I just want to be more confident." I had to pause. Confidence is one of those words we use all the time, but the answer wasn't obvious to me. So I told her I would think about it.

I started thinking of the people I consider genuinely confident. I thought about a former colleague, a true hustler but always maintaining a calm, caring demeanour; my mentor Judith, who could show real emotion and vulnerability while somehow simultaneously remaining regulated and loving; my father, who could sit in a room full of high-level politicians or bankers and introduce a completely contrary idea to the crowd; my favourite YouTuber, who can make a fool of himself, laugh at himself and apologise when he's wrong; and a friend of mine, a busy mother and business owner, who remains peaceful, curious and able to listen to others even in the midst of all the demands of her own life.

Then I looked at my own life. When I was younger, I definitely didn't think of myself as confident. I compared myself to others constantly and placed a lot of importance on performing well, being smart, and proving myself to my parents, teachers or former bosses. I struggled to say no and couldn't always distinguish between what I was feeling and the emotions or energy I was picking up from somebody else. My head was filled with the noise of doubt, judgement and self-criticism. I don't recall exactly how it felt, but it surely must have been very tiring.

Then I went digging through the work of some of my favourite thinkers who have written about confidence, the Self and fear: Russ Harris and his book The Confidence Gap, which challenges the idea that we need to feel confident before we act; Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS), who distinguishes between living from the Self and living through our protective parts, with confidence itself being one of the key qualities of Self; Steven Kessler, whose book The Five Personality Patterns argues that before we can have self-confidence, we first need to have a felt sense of Self; Alain de Botton and The School of Life's On Confidence, with its more philosophical approach, from our fear of looking ridiculous to our expectations of difficulty and mortality; Epictetus, my favourite Stoic, who in works such as The Discourses and The Enchiridion repeatedly returns to fear, freedom and the distinction between what is and isn't within our control; and, last but not least, the New Testament, which has shaped my understanding of courage, humility, identity, surrender and what it means to live purposefully for as long as I can remember.

What follows is my attempt to bring together wisdom from my own experience and these brilliant thinkers about the path towards a more confident way of living. My hope isn't to hand you a set of miracle tools that will leave you feeling confident by the time you finish reading, but to shift the way you think about confidence itself.

Internal safety and Self-leadership

For me, there is no confidence without being able to feel safe in my own inner world. This means learning to genuinely accept and trust myself, transforming my inner critic into more of an ally than an enemy, and being able to give myself grace when I struggle, fail or fall short of my own expectations. It doesn't mean self-criticism has totally disappeared, but rather that it has gradually turned into healthier introspection and self-reflection, creating a much friendlier atmosphere in my mind.

But what is this place from which I can experience internal safety, self-trust and acceptance? The hint lies directly in the word self-confidence: before confidence, there has to be a Self.

Kessler describes having a Self not as an intellectual or social idea of who we are, but as a felt sense of ourselves. He talks about experiencing this through the body's core and developing an energetic boundary that allows us to distinguish what is ours from what belongs to somebody else: what am I feeling, what do I want and need, what is my energy, and what am I picking up from the person in front of me? He also makes the distinction between being present and grounded in ourselves and unconsciously operating from one of our personality patterns. This embodied ability to know what is me and what is not me is fundamental to having a solid sense of Self.

Through an IFS lens, Schwartz describes Self through eight qualities: calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity and connectedness. Confidence is therefore one of the qualities of Self, and, like Self itself, this confidence is remarkably quiet. This contrasts with the louder parts of us that need to impress, please, compare, control, defend, seek validation or prove themselves, or that become overwhelmed by fear. In IFS, the goal isn't to eliminate these parts, but to recognise them, understand their roles and progressively integrate them, with Self taking the leadership role. Schwartz has compared this Self-led state to qualities embodied by figures such as Jesus: loving, compassionate, courageous and present.

Throughout years of learning and practice, it has become painfully obvious to me when I act from a place of Self, when I perform an old personality pattern, or when one of my parts is in control. It has also become much easier to see this distinction in other people. Very few people seem consistently grounded in themselves and operating from Self.

Before we can change these patterns, we need to notice that we're in them. Awareness of our thoughts, sensations and emotions, through mindfulness, somatic practices or prayer, helps us hear and distinguish our inner critic, fearful voices and other parts without automatically merging with them. The point isn't to silence or eliminate them, but to distinguish them from our Self and create enough distance between what they say and how we respond. As this discernment strengthens, so do self-trust and Self-leadership: we begin to create an internal order in which Self increasingly leads, rather than being unconsciously pulled around by every thought or remaining stuck in our personality patterns.

Emotional resilience and discomfort tolerance

When I look back at my life as a teenager or younger adult compared with now, the difference isn't that I have fewer problems. If anything, the problems I deal with today are objectively bigger than many of the things that felt like the end of the world when I was fifteen. The difference is my increased, albeit still imperfect, ability to stay present with discomfort, particularly with "negative" emotions such as sadness, anger or fear.

To really know ourselves also means becoming aware of parts and feelings we may have spent years trying to suppress. We have endless ways of emotional avoidance: excessive busyness or overworking, over-exercising, over-explaining, intellectualising, scrolling, withdrawing, using substances, or simply filling every minute of our lives with something that distracts us. These may give us short-term relief, but they also reinforce the message that whatever we escaped was too much for us to handle.

Confidence is about doing the opposite: experiencing pain instead of numbing it, understanding why it's there, learning from it, and building our capacity to stay with it.

In IFS terms, this is the difference between being blended with a part and being in relationship with it. When we're blended, a part's fear, sadness or anger becomes the whole of us; we don't feel afraid, we simply are the fear, with no Self left large enough to hold it. Unblending doesn't mean pushing the part away, silencing it, or forcing it to calm down before we're allowed to move on. It means enough Self stays present, curious and compassionate that the part no longer has to carry its burden alone, or convince us we're in danger by taking over completely. Learning to recognise a vulnerable, anxious or frightened part, and to get curious about what it's carrying rather than immediately reacting to it or trying to suppress it, is one of the most direct ways I know of building this kind of resilience.

Fear is probably the emotion people associate with lack of confidence the most. A Self-aware person can remain present and Self-led with a frightened part without allowing fear to be in charge. Fear can show up as self-doubt, fear of rejection, impostor syndrome or simply the conviction that we're not ready. None of this necessarily means that something has gone wrong.

We're also remarkably good at fearing things we cannot control. Epictetus repeatedly points out that other people's opinions, what we might lose, what might happen tomorrow and the eventual outcomes of our actions aren't ours to command. What is ours are our judgments, choices and actions. The Serenity Prayer puts it simply:

In the New Testament, Jesus repeatedly tells people not to be afraid. When the disciples are terrified, he tells them, "Take courage... do not be afraid" (Matthew 14:27). In John 14:27, he tells them not to let their hearts be troubled or afraid, while 1 John 4:18 tells us that "perfect love drives out fear," specifically in the context of fear of judgement and punishment.

To me, none of this means that fear disappears entirely from a confident or faithful person's life. Fear simply doesn't need to be in charge. We can notice it, stay with it, discern where it's coming from and whether there is something for us to do, act on what is within our control, and surrender what isn't to God.

Values and identity

Once I can distinguish between Self and my parts, recognise when I'm present and when I'm operating from a pattern, stay with difficult emotions, become aware of my thoughts, and discern what is within my control and what isn't, the next questions are: Who am I, and what do I stand for?

Confidence has also meant becoming clearer about my identity and separating it from the need to perform, achieve and gain other people's approval. The Christian notion that I don't need to perform well enough to be worthy of God's love, because His love comes first, has been tremendously helpful. My value doesn't come from how well I perform, what I achieve or don't achieve, or how I'm perceived on any given day; it's already given. De Botton points towards the fragility of building an identity in the opposite way, around status, competence, success or other people's perceptions. If I need to remain intelligent, successful or impressive in order to know who I am, every failure becomes more than a failure: it threatens my identity.

Once I have a clearer sense of who I am, I can reflect on what actually matters to me. Harris distinguishes values from goals: values are desired qualities of ongoing action, while goals are desired outcomes. He uses the metaphor of travelling west. West is the direction, the value, while the destinations along the way are our goals. If health is a value, for example, becoming stronger or running a 10K might be goals. We can reach one destination and set another while continuing in the same direction.

Then come habits, routines and repetition: the repeated actions that allow us to move towards those goals and actually live our values. How we treat our bodies, structure our environment, spend our time, choose the people around us and maintain our relationships matters. So does honouring the commitments we make to ourselves rather than repeatedly treating them as optional.

Living this way also requires healthy boundaries. If I know what matters to me and what I'm trying to build, I need to be able to say no, disagree when necessary, and protect the time, energy and attention required to live accordingly. Confidence grows when there is less distance between who I understand myself to be, what I value, what I choose to pursue and how I actually live.

Growth mindset

It's one thing to stay with difficult emotions; it's another to take action while they're present: speak up despite fear, take a risk despite uncertainty, try again despite feeling like a failure, or participate despite feeling like an impostor. For me, a growth mindset means being willing to act without guarantees, learn without self-punishment and keep going without needing to be perfect first.

The problem arises when we decide that we need to feel confident before we can act. Harris calls this the confidence gap: the belief that confidence needs to come first. His argument reverses that order. We build confidence through acting despite the presence of fear, doubt and uncertainty.

Harris identifies five common reasons for lacking confidence: excessive expectations, harsh self-judgement, preoccupation with fear, lack of experience and lack of skills. Excessive expectations, judgement and fear can all come from parts of us that we need to recognise and understand rather than automatically believe. Realistic expectations about difficulty mean accepting that setbacks, awkwardness, slow progress and periods of not knowing what we're doing are normal parts of anything worthwhile. And sometimes lack of confidence is much simpler: we're new at something, we don't have the skills yet, and we need practice.

De Botton takes this further by questioning our expectation that at some point we should become competent enough to stop looking ridiculous. We won't. We have all been idiots, we have all been absolute beginners, as Bowie would put it, and inevitably will be again. This is also one way of loosening the grip of impostor syndrome: realising that uncertainty, comparison and doubt aren't uniquely ours. I know there is an enormous amount I don't know, including plenty that I don't know I don't know. The same applies to everybody else. Some doubt is probably healthy.

This makes releasing perfectionism and becoming more comfortable with good enough considerably easier. Harris's confidence cycle is simple: practise, apply, assess, modify and repeat. We don't need proof that we're brilliant before we begin, and we don't need every attempt to confirm that we're good enough.

Even when we do everything well, we may still not get what we want. Epictetus reminds us that the outcome isn't entirely ours: what belongs to us are our choices, actions and responses. The apostle Paul makes a remarkably similar distinction: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth" (1 Corinthians 3:6). We are responsible for planting and watering, not for controlling the growth.

The Bible also offers an important counterweight to perfectionism through humility. If our worth isn't something we earn through flawless performance but is grounded in being loved by God, being wrong doesn't make us unworthy. We can admit that we don't know, ask for help, fail, learn and change our minds. Humility and confidence aren't opposites: we can do our part as well as we can and surrender the outcome we were never able to control in the first place.

Life purpose

By now we know how to distinguish when we're operating from Self and when an old pattern or one of our parts has taken over. We can predominantly stay with difficult emotions. We're clear about our identity and values, and we act despite fear, uncertainty and impostor syndrome. But what if all this awareness and inner work doesn't actually go anywhere? What if our relationships don't deepen, we don't create anything meaningful, we don't serve anyone, and nothing about how we participate in life actually changes? Harris asks us to imagine having all the confidence we think we want but doing nothing meaningfully different with it. Would that actually satisfy us? For me, the answer is no, and that's because feeling confident was never really the goal.

Once we're clear about who we are and what we value, we spend less energy continually renegotiating every decision. This is when purpose has space to find us.

I don't think purpose is necessarily something we can aggressively search for through enough introspection. The more obsessively we focus on finding our purpose, optimising or "healing" ourselves, or becoming the best version of ourselves, the more our attention remains fixed on ourselves. Naval Ravikant has called this kind of self-preoccupation the "me-me-me disease." His point: the happiest people, or the people who seem most fully themselves, tend to love something more than they love themselves.

We have more space to love, create, serve, build, teach, help, raise children, care for people, contribute to our communities, give away our time or resources, or simply become more available and kinder to whoever is in front of us.

Purpose doesn't have to be enormous. We sometimes imagine it means building a successful company, writing a blockbuster book, changing thousands of lives, earning a lot of money or accumulating an audience. My former mentor once told me it can be as simple as loving God and loving people. When Jesus is asked which commandment matters most, his answer is: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matthew 22:37–39). If this doesn't resonate, try imagining living like that for just one week. Listen properly when somebody speaks. Smile at a stranger. Give somebody a sincere compliment. Pick up rubbish you didn't drop. Give to somebody who needs it. Call the person you've been meaning to call. Be more patient with the people closest to you. Just try it and see whether something opens up in the way you understand purpose.

De Botton points out that inaction isn't cost-free. We worry about failing, embarrassing ourselves or making the wrong choice while forgetting the cost of never really entering our lives at all. Our lives aren't infinite, and none of us knows how much time we have left. Confidence was never meant to make life feel completely safe. It was meant to create an internal state that frees enough of us to participate in the world more fully and meaningfully while we're still here.

Confidence as a skill

Looking back at the people I first thought of when my client asked me about confidence, their confidence doesn't look the same. One can disagree with a room full of people. Another can apologise when he's wrong. Another remains loving when emotions run high. Another stays peaceful and curious in the middle of a chaotic life.

What they have in common, I think, is a way of living. Confidence is a skill of knowing our Self and allowing it to lead, staying with difficult emotions without letting them run our lives, knowing who we are and what matters to us, acting despite fear and uncertainty, failing and persisting, and turning our attention outward to live a more purposeful life.

Perhaps only these days I'm realising that one of the deepest expressions of confidence is the ability to surrender. Harris points out that the older meaning of confidence comes from com and fidere: "with trust." We learn to trust ourselves enough to lead from Self, trust ourselves enough to act, and at the same time recognise that controlling every outcome, every other person's behaviour and life itself was never meant to be our job.

Which brings me back to the client who started all of this. Perhaps instead of giving her a list of everything confidence might consist of, I would now answer her question with another one: