6. How to Grow Your Confidence

Confidence is built through action

Welcome back. We've explored how self-doubt shows up and redefined key concepts that trigger our insecurities. Now let's get practical with specific strategies for building genuine confidence. Here we are at chapter six, how to grow your confidence. Here's something crucial to understand. Confidence doesn't come from achieving. It's built through taking action. You don't become confident by waiting until you feel ready. You become confident by taking action despite not feeling ready and then building evidence of your capability through experience.

Internal shifts that build confidence

So let's start with the internal work, how you relate to yourself. Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small. Most leaders are terrible at this, let's be honest. We immediately move on to the next challenge without acknowledging what we just accomplished. Speak to yourself with compassion, especially in moments of difficulty. Pay attention to your internal dialogue. Would you speak to a colleague the way you speak to yourself? Stop obsessing over others and their credentials. Comparison is confidence's worst enemy. There will always be someone with more experience, better credentials, or different strengths.

Appreciate the fact that you are taking action. That's progress. The willingness to try, to put yourself out there, to take risks, that itself is worth celebrating. Set realistic, sustainable goals. Confidence grows when you consistently meet the commitments you make to yourself. Don't compare yourself to others. Compare yourself, if you must, to the person you were yesterday. Not 10 years ago, but yesterday. Small, consistent progress builds lasting confidence.

So let's look at these internal shifts and choose one of these to focus on this week. For example, if you chose celebrate achievements, commit to writing down one thing you accomplished each day, no matter how small. If you decide to choose speak with compassion, notice when your internal voice gets critical and practice reframing it. And if you chose stop comparing, catch yourself when you start comparing and redirect your attention to your own progress. So go ahead and pause here and write down which internal shift you'll focus on and how you'll practice it.

External behaviors that signal confidence

And again, these exercises are available in the workbook. Here we are at exercise 13. Like I mentioned in this chapter, things just don't change on their own. It's all about the action that you take to make the change happen, which is why the corresponding workbook for these courses is so important. Don't just ignore it or listen to me drone on. Actually take the time, pause the video here, fill out the activity, and then come back and join us.

So now let's look at some of the external behaviors that signal and build confidence. Practice strong posture, eye contact, and steady breathing. Your body language affects not just how others see you but how you feel about yourself. Speak slowly with pauses. Confident people don't rush their words. They trust that others will wait to hear what they have to say. Speak confidently about yourself to others. Practice articulating your strengths, accomplishments, and value without downplaying them.

Earlier in this course, I told you about how I used to have trouble speaking up in meetings, especially when executive leaders were in the room. I had to make both internal and external shifts. Internally, I practiced catching my, I don't know enough, thoughts and replaced them with, I have a valuable perspective. Externally, I practiced speaking slower with pauses and not letting my nerves get the best of me. The combination of internal and external is powerful. Not only did others start paying more attention to what I was saying, I also started feeling more confident in my expertise. So I think everyone should try practicing speaking confidently about themselves.

Evidence and imperfect action

Now I want you to write down three specific accomplishments you're proud of, two strengths others consistently recognize in you, and one unique perspective or experience you bring to your role. Once you have these defined, you should practice sharing these in a clear, confident way, not bragging, but just owning the value that you have. And again, these are also available in your workbook. This is exercise 14. So go ahead, pause the video, do the exercise, and then come back.

And here's an important reminder that I want to share. Confidence is about being rooted in who you are, even when the outcome is uncertain. True confidence isn't about having all the answers or never feeling doubt. It's about being grounded in your values, clear about your strengths, and willing to take action despite uncertainty. Confidence can include saying, I don't know, but here's how I'll find out. Or, I'm not certain, but based on what we know, I think we should do this. Your leadership becomes much more authentic and effective, and your team will trust you more because you're real with them.

And remember, confidence is built through evidence. Evidence that you can handle challenges, learn from mistakes, and recover from setbacks. So think about your leadership journey over the past year. Write down evidence of your capability. This could be challenges you've successfully navigated, times you've learned from mistakes and improved, situations where you've helped others or added value, or moments when you've stood up for your values or beliefs. You should keep this list handy for moments when self-doubt creeps in. Your past evidence of capability is one of the strongest tools against future doubt. And again, remember this is your time to pause the video, go into the workbook, and complete exercise 15.

Because when we're talking about building confidence, the most important thing you can do is to take imperfect action. What this means is speaking up in meetings even when your idea isn't fully formed, applying for opportunities even when you don't meet 100% of the criteria. This means having difficult conversations even when you're not sure exactly what to say. An imperfect action means making decisions with incomplete information when waiting longer won't significantly improve the outcome.

Each time you take one of these imperfect actions, you build evidence that you can handle uncertainty and imperfection. And this evidence becomes the foundation for genuine confidence. Building confidence is an active process that requires both internal work, how you think about yourself, and external practice, how you show up in the world. The key is consistent small actions that gradually build your evidence of capability. And in our final chapter, we're going to explore how to create a culture of confidence within your team and organization. See you there.