I’ve been preparing to do a podcast with Anna Farmery at www.theengagingbrand.com in the U.K. on the topic of confidence. It dovetails nicely with the new book I’m finishing, The Encore Effect: How to Give a Remarkable Performance that Makes People Want More (Currency, January 2009).

Too little self-confidence results in timidity and too much in arrogance. The amounts aren’t absolute so one person’s healthy self-confidence might be interpreted by another as arrogance. It is good to remember what Lou Holtz and John Heisler said in The Fighting Spirit: “You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.” A little modesty is a good thing for even the most competent professional.
What is confidence? I define it as competence coupled with certainty. It is foolish to think yourself competent if you’re not and of little value to be competent if you don’t believe you are.

Often there is magical thinking around confidence: just believe you can! Maybe not. You might believe you can ski a double diamond run, but if you haven’t developed expert skier skills you’ll find your positive thinking face first in the snow.

Interestingly the opposite is true: if you don’t think you can, you probably can’t. Having the skill set without the belief that you are capable doesn’t work much better than magical thinking. Someone once said that it isn’t what you are that holds you back; it’s who you think you’re not.
So where does competence come from? It comes from learning and practice. Natural talent can be a terrible thing if it prevents one from learning the basics. I’ve always believed that before you can break the rules you’ve got to know what the rules are.

A lack of confidence is often the result of an unwillingness to prepare by learning the basics and practicing them until mastered. We live in the age of the ATM and we want everything fast, including competence and mastery.

Here’s a way to instantly gain more confidence: prepare harder. Investing more time in learning, practice and preparation will increase the level of confidence you can reasonably possess.

Ultimately confidence comes from doing, whether that is practicing or performing. And here’s a myth to be debunked: we do things once we become confident. Nope. We become confident from doing things. If we do something and learn from it, a positive feedback loop is created.

A negative feedback loop results from attempting too much too soon. Confidence is acquired in tiny doses. Before you ski the double diamond you ski a few feet without falling on the kiddie hill. Then you ski a few more feet and eventually take the lift to the top of the kiddie hill…you get the idea.

Think about an area of your life where you lack the confidence you desire. Learn more about what you want to do, from books, courses or people who already know how to do it. Then practice the basics until you’ve achieved a level of competence. Apply that competence in “tiny doses” and learn from process.

As you do these things you’ll gradually gain the confidence you desire to ski down from the top of the hill.

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