Why gaining confidence is not as easy or straight forward as it seems

The more I observe in this life, the more I’ve realised there is actually nothing more powerful than a confident woman. However, it does also feel like society conspires to keep women from reaching a point of peak confidence. This is because not only is it very powerful, it’s much feared.

Attending a confidence workshop at work recently, it struck me as very interesting that much of the attendees were female. Why does low-confidence seem to be quite a gendered issue, disproportionately affecting women more than men, I wondered?

Often, instead of seeing a confident woman and being in awe and admiration, instead people will judge. Where’s her humility? She’s a bit cocky ain’t she? We see this often even in female characters/ trope portrayed in the media – from Mean Girls’ Regina George, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) in Devil Wears Prada to Serena and Blair in Gossip Girl. Confidence, particularly in women is often associated with bad character and, consequently, danger or misfortune. I mean, Regina George gets run down by a bus, for goodness sake!

Such quick judgements and misconceptions around female confidence make it more of minefield to navigate, which is why many women don’t try to at all. Period. After all, why be loud and confident when you could just be in the low-confidence zone, quietly mind your business and be free from the judgemental eye of others?

A cultural taboo

Speaking as someone from the UK, it’s quite deeply ingrained that talking about oneself is quite un-British. I remember writing my personal statement (university application, to non-Brits) and thinking, wow, I have to write a whole page about me and just me? Well, that’s weird. Even, many years later when I’ve found myself applying for jobs and I have to talk about how I did this and I achieved that, when in actuality it was a team effort, it’s still very weird to get used to.

It’s not even just talking about oneself that can feel quite taboo – even accepting compliments can be quite hard. Anything that draws attention to you almost has to be swatted like a fly and stopped in its tracks. If you’ll pay attention, you’ll often notice it – especially with women. You compliment someone ‘Oooo that new haircut really suits you!’, and they’ll never directly accept it. Often it will be met with a semi-self-depreciating reply like ‘Oh, my cousin cut it actually – I didn’t even go to a proper salon!’. That way, the compliment is heard but kept at bay and you can fake a sort of fake humility that people love so much.

Pushing on and through

Truthfully, I suspect, like for me, that sense of uneasiness when a moment requires confidence, never really leaves you. Originally, I thought confidence in adulthood would be more of a linear journey, and perhaps for some people it is – many influencers do talk of it as such. Over time you perhaps build confidence, maybe in similar way to how Mario collects gold coins in the original game, until you (bingo) reach a point of completion and you’re suddenly confidence royalty. However, I’ve found it’s more like ocean water – it ebbs and flows for me; there are moments where I will be full of it, and other times when I won’t. The difficulty is getting better at controlling that ebb and flow so confidence can be demonstrated at the moments it really counts but may not come naturally.

When you’re asked to lead a workshop

When you have to be honest with a toxic friend or colleague

When you have to attend a large family gathering

When you have to perform at an important function or recital

…the list really goes on!

The key to confidence

Let me not sell you dreams since I’m trying to figure that out myself! But some quick tips that might help:

1. Self- examination; what is often at the root of your low confidence? And is it something you can actively start working on? Perhaps you need to confront a friend who has been making sly digs at you and knocking your confidence. Or perhaps you need to rejiggle your timeline and start following new people on social media.

2. Bad habits – time to undo them. It’s not possible for everyone to go from 0-100 straight away when it comes to increasing confidence but we can always slide up the scale slowly by undoing one bad habit at a time. Maybe, like my previous example, you find it hard to accept compliments. If so, you can make that a point to work on.

3. Prayer – my ultimate confidence comes from God, so prayer has always been important. When the time comes to step your confidence game and you’ve done all the prep (or worrying!) that you can, a prayer can always be calming. It centres me and reminds me everything is under control.

Do you have any tips to share growing in confidence or overcoming fear?