5 steps to enter your confident era and become the most authentic version of yourself

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"I'm just not a confident person" - how many times did you tell yourself this sentence? 

In today's Friday Coffee Chat, we dive into the common struggle of feeling confident and the limiting belief that confidence is something you either have or don't. The truth is, confidence is a skill—one you can cultivate and grow over time.

Key take-aways:

• Confidence comes with experience, not the other way around

• Confidence is not about always feeling certain and never having doubts, but rather about knowing that whatever happens, you will figure it out

• Confidence is staying true to yourself

If you loved this episode and are excited to continue joining our Friday coffee chats, subscribe to never miss a chat and recommend the podcast to a friend!

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro & welcome
• 3:01 We have to talk about confidence
• 5:05 Why it feels so difficult to build confidence
• 9:14 Myth #1: Confidence is something you are born with
• 11:33 Myth #2: Confidence means never experiencing uncertainty or doubt
• 14:54 Myth #3: Confidence means being extraverted
• 18:44 Myth #4: Confidence means you never need help
• 21:41 Myth #5: Confidence comes from external validation
• 24:47 Recap
• 26:24 See you next week!

Transcript

If you want to see your most confident self, just check out your childhood photos.

Or the videos.

Or the videos and you will see that you have it all within you. That is so true. Hello, everyone. 

You're listening to The Happy 9 to 5 Podcast where we invite you to join our Friday coffee chats and talk about everything work life balance, well-being, confidence and creating a healthy, happy and fulfilling work life. We are Eleni and Tina,  founders of The Happy 9 to 5, Work Psychologists, Besties and hosts of this podcast. So sit back, grab your favorite brew and enjoy. 

Welcome back everyone, to another Friday coffee chat. We hope you're doing well. We're sitting here. We're having a Yorkshire tea. Tina just brought some fresh mud lands that are filled with chocolate.

I think they're filling that.

That's the best idea you had this morning

So I think they're filled with chocolate. I think one of them is also Hazel, not chocolate. But we'll have to try and see.

I'm so excited. I have another trip to Midland that is.

That is filled. No, me neither, actually. Just like we only had the plain ones. But they are nice.

Yeah, and it's difficult to find good ones. Yeah. I'm really, really curious. I mean, you guys, what better way to start a Friday with a Friday?

Coffee, chocolate pastries.

And a chat?

Yeah, I actually. The best way to start a Friday. This is actually one of our probably one of the earliest times that we actually have recorded, I think. Yeah, right.

Yeah, Yeah. It's a.

Vibe. It's a vibe, though. I like it. You start the day with something nice. I like it. How are you, Eleni?

I'm good. I'm good. I'm doing well. I'm getting closer to having my deadlines done. The ones that, you know, took away my summer vacation. So you know what it's like. It's nice to see your work coming together after such a long time. So I'm super excited for this to be, like, wrapped up. Big tick. Nice. Done with it.

How are you?

I'm also good. It's been a bit of a roller coaster, I think, but not necessarily in terms of workload, but more about like the emotional load, you know, and just things start to pile up and.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of like, you know, periods where, you know, the imposter syndrome kind of, you know, gets into.

Creeps.

And creeps in. Yeah. And gets into my brain and. Yeah, but it's sometimes things that are like that and you know, just kind of have to go with the flow and wait for the storm to pass, I guess, which fits very well with our top topic today perfectly.

Because today we will be talking all about stepping into your confident era and becoming the best version of yourself. And you guys, this podcast episode is a little bit different because what we really want you to take away is that you actually already have all the wisdom within you to be the confident person that you are and to show up for yourself.

You know, oftentimes we focus so much on looking for advice and looking for others to tell us what to do. But actually a lot of quick fixes. But a lot of the wisdom is actually within ourselves and it is within you as well. And this episode is going to be about bringing this wisdom to the forefront and learning how to access that wisdom.

Because honestly, if I think about it, I feel like if you look at children, they they are so great at doing this right. They just trust themselves. But I feel like with time sometimes we lose that. We forget about how to access the wisdom that is inside us and like, listen, listening to our gut, for example.

Now for sure. And, you know, and when I look at, you know, social media in general and the advice that you get there about confidence, sometimes this advice doesn't apply to everybody. And sometimes this advice is something that feels very foreign. And this is exactly what you are also talking about, that you have it all within you like you are whole.

You know, there is nothing wrong with you and there is nothing that you need to fix within yourself to show up as a more confident version or you know, there's nothing wrong with you. So the idea behind this episode is basically to show you that you have all the necessary ingredients to be confident, but you just need to tap into that, basically.

And we were thinking, planning this episode, we were thinking, why is this actually the case? Why is it so difficult to tap into this wisdom that we have? And why is it so difficult to build this confidence?

I think to go back to what you said in the beginning of the episode that basically, you know, when we're children, you are probably your most confident self. You know, up until you get to see the social dynamics either at school or kindergarten. And this is where you kind of start, you know, comparing yourself with others. This is when, you know, you start being compared with others based on your performance, let's say at school with grades and everything.

So it really starts very early and we kind of summed it up into three points that first of all, you start feeling not good enough. So this imposter syndrome starts to creep in and yeah, you start comparing yourself with others and just seems like everybody else is doing better than you are. And this then your confidence takes a hit for sure.

Absolutely. And also just trying to fit in, right. I feel like when you were young, like when you were young, we really don't care about we are just like the main character of our lives. And then.

I remember, if you like.

It's kindergarten stories you want is you started understanding the value of fitting in. And yeah, it goes to an extreme. I mean, like sometimes, as you said, like.

Bro, if.

You were carrying yourself trying to be liked and so on. And of course with time, this has an impact on our confidence and not necessarily the best one.

If you want to see your most confidence off, just check out your childhood photos.

Or the videos.

Or the videos and you will see that you have it all within you. That is so true. You have it all within you. Like if I look at the photos that I like, what I look like as a child in photos, I was such a main character.

Yeah, see.

I used to, like, not care at all and I felt like I'm on top of the world.

So. Hello. Say, I'm so grateful that my dad did a lot of video recordings. So, you know, we have a lot of video tapes from like back in the nineties inside and yeah, when I was a child. And it's so true because like years later you look at it and it's like, Oh damn, I like this person. This, this used to be me.

And like, you see, it's actually quite crazy how much personality you already see in like little children.

Yeah. And they're, they're just completely themselves completely authentic. They don't care how they're going to be perceived. They don't care that, you know, other people are doing better or worse than them. And it almost feels like everybody has enough space. Yeah. To show up and to be in their confident era. And that's okay. And this is kind of what we forget to do, you know, when we grow up.

This is something that it also it's also the best down by some of the people in general. You know, life.

Happens.

Insecurities. People don't like necessarily seeing confidence. You know, they feel threatened by it. So there is a lot to unpack here. And the way that we want it to structure this episode to kind of give you more insight into why you have the confidence and the only thing you need to do is to channel it. So we're going to talk about the myths of confidence, the myths that have been kind of imposed to us by society or whether by our own limiting beliefs and try to debunk them.

Because once we understand certain truths about confidence and we debunk certain myths about confidence, we can step into our confident era and actually show up for ourselves just the way we used to do that when we were three or four.

Yeah, and these myths are really what are keeping you maybe from being your most authentic self. So let's dive right into the first one, which is that confidence is something that you are born with. And we hear this so much. We think we talk about people. We say this is a confident person. This person has always been confident and I could never be this confident.

It's just not me. This is not who I am. So we really use this narrative of either you all.

Apply very determined or you're.

Not a confident person and there is no way of learning it, which is wrong because actually confidence comes with experience and is a skill and that makes it learnable.

For sure. Yeah. I feel like, you know, with confidence in general, there is this deterministic view on it that we look at people and even the way we say it, you are confident?

Yeah.

We don't say you behave confidently. Yeah, you know the language, even the language that we're using is very deterministic. It's either you are or you aren't.

Yeah.

But that's not necessarily true. When we look at how confidence is formed in general and you know how confidence is actually backed down because we are all born with a lot of confidence. Yeah, it's just that over time we get to see the realities and we get to compare ourselves. And of course we live in a in a social environment, so other people will be there.

But it is really about relearning it almost. Yes. Getting back to.

Yourself. Finding back to yourself right now. Yeah, absolutely. And it really reminds me also of this notion of having a fixed mindset or having a growth mindset. And we know from research that a fixed mindset really just keeps you where you are. It holds you back. It imposes limiting beliefs on you, and honestly, it's really not helpful. Whereas a growth mindset where you see that, you know what, maybe I don't know something yet, but I can get there, I can grow, I can learn things and I can move towards the person that I want to be.

And this really, really helps me so much because many of the important things in life we can actually learn.

The second myth that we wanted to talk about when it comes to confidence, besides the fact that, you know, confidence is something that needs to be relearned that we just forget about and we just need to find the way back to ourselves is the fact that confidence people who are confident seem like they know it all, that they have a lot of certainty.

And that's not necessarily true because you can be both confident and trust yourself, but at the same time experience a lot of doubt and uncertainty. And that's okay because basically the whole myth, this myth about confidence, really kind of goes into this idea that, you know, all these people, they just know it all. They're really certain. They always have a plan.

They always know what's going to happen. They seem like, you know, they're on the straight path to success. But if you really ask these people, do you feel doubts? Do you feel uncertainty? They're definitely going to say yes. But what differentiates them from people who kind of give in to this uncertainty and give in to this doubt is the sheer belief that they're going to be okay?

Yeah. That they'll deal with it.

Absolutely. I mean, we're all human. We all experience highs and lows. We all have strengths and weaknesses. And being confident, as you said, does not mean never feeling doubt, never feeling uncertain. So again, it kind of goes to this very deterministic narrative that we see around confidence where it's either all or nothing. And that just is not the case.

And as I said, it goes back to the self-efficacy believing that you can figure it out, even if you feel uncertain at times.

Yeah. And I feel like, you know, when you are surrounded by these people who just tell you I'll deal with it, this is inspiring. Yeah. Because then you really understand what confidence really means. Everybody goes through hurdles, everybody goes through challenging times where it's just life, right? But it really is about how you deal with it that shows whether inside you are okay with yourself, that you are confident.

And the mindset plays a huge role.

Here. Again, that's the mindset.

It's about growth mindset. It's also it also depends how you choose to interpret certain things, right? If you choose to interpret difficult situations as something that is hindering you, something that is keeping you, oh, like far away or away from achieving something and you choose to just focus on that, This will not help you. But if you reframe difficult situations as challenges that you can overcome.

You're going to get rid of the helplessness. Exactly. You're going to get rid of the helplessness. You're just going to feel feel like, well, okay, this is a bit tough. But I've dealt with other stuff that was tough, and I'll deal with this one too. And this is real confidence, not being certain all the time and always having a plan and always looking like your success is linear and you're going towards your goals without any challenge in between.

The third myth is that confidence means being outgoing and extroverted. And you guys, as someone who is an introvert, I Yeah, I'm so ready for us to.

Debunk this man.

I'm so ready to do this. Because here's the thing Confidence is not about being outgoing or extroverted. It is about staying true to yourself, whether you are shy, whether you are introverted, whether you're extroverted. It doesn't matter. It's about being happy and secure within yourself and being your true self and allowing yourself to be the true self for sure.

And then, you know, when you think about, you know, extroverted, outgoing, introverted, these are all personality traits.

Yeah.

You know, confidence is not a personality trait. It's a skill. Confidence is a skill that we all have within us. So it doesn't matter if you're an introverted person who doesn't really enjoy being very outgoing and a lot of like social interactions, you're confident for sure, because you are staying true to yourself, and that's the most important thing.

But I also think it kind of goes to a bigger goes back to a bigger problem, and that is that we really assign a lot of value to the loudest people in the room. Is the stereotype. It's such a stereotype, but oftentimes we don't take a minute to think about, okay, a person is loud. What does this actually say about them?

Does it mean that they are right? Does it mean that they are confident? Does it mean that they are feeling incredibly secure and.

The other way around?

Or. I am sure that, you know, at least one person in your life who has a very big presence in the way of they're very loud, maybe they laugh very loud, they talk a lot, and so on and so on. But actually they're really not confident at all. Yeah. And oftentimes, you know, people deal in very they cope in very different ways when it comes to feeling insecure.

And one way of coping with it is actually to try to mask it and to compensate.

It's a compensation mechanism. Right?

Exactly. So, yeah, just being outgoing and extroverted does not necessarily translate into being confident. We need to be a bit yeah, we need to use less heuristics here. I feel. Oh yeah, for sure.

Confidence is quite a complex phenomenon if you think about it. But like, imagine I don't know if you've ever been in the in the surroundings of such a person, but you know, and there's people who they don't talk a lot. They're not very outgoing, but when they enter a room, you know that they're they're.

Like this very quiet cause they just.

Fill it up. And these kind of people, they're so okay with themselves. They just radiate this confidence without needing to show it to others. Absolutely No fun.

Fact, by the way. I don't know if this is true. Right. I read I read it somewhere a while back, but apparently say is exactly this person. So she has a credible, you know, presence on stage. But apparently if you meet her privately, she's not like super dark, She's quiet, but she has this quiet, confident, maybe.

Some which is say.

And magical. Yeah. You guys, we will let you know. We will follow up on this if we ever happen to meet her manifest thing, we will share experiences. But I found that very interesting.

The fourth myth that we really wanted to debunk, and I think this is something that affects us in daily life in general, especially at work, is the fact that confidence means you never need help. And that is so, so not true because we all make mistakes. We all need support. Sometimes. And confident people, they know that they don't know it all.

And this is key.

Yeah, yeah. And this really ties into the second myth, right? That confidence means always being certain and that this is not the case. So, you know, it really ties in very well with this fourth myth as well because indeed, how can someone know everything and never needing help that is so unrealistic and there's so much strength again in being very self aware and knowing what you are great at and also knowing where your weaknesses are and having being brave and having this confidence to ask for help without worrying about maybe seeming being seen as incompetent or something like that, because that really is not.

The case in the case. Right. And you know, these people, I feel like they don't even need to act like they know it all. And this is something where, again, they are staying true to themselves. They're very aware of their, you know, strengths. They're very aware of areas that they have to improve. But one thing that is really, really interesting when it comes to this specific myth is how confident people deal with making mistakes.

Yeah, because we kind of tend to assign confidence with like this. Oh, they're perfect. They're so confident, they're perfect. They never make any mistake. They're so, like, competent, you know? But that's not necessarily true. The thing that differentiates confident from, let's say, people who need to still find their confidence and be aware of themselves and get into this growth mindset is the fact that confident people, they can own their mistakes.

That is how they.

Feel okay with apologizing. Yeah. And they just want to learn how they can improve and be better while also being okay with who they are.

Yeah. And how much nicer is it to be around a person who can own their mistakes and just be honest and solution oriented rather than, you know, trying to act like they are perfect?

I think the one of the most uncomfortable situations is when you kind of you know, when people say sorry, just to say sorry, but they actually perceive it as an ego threat.

Yeah.

Because they're not secure with who they are.

Yeah.

And that's just like, you know, your sorry doesn't matter.

Fair enough. So the fifth and final myth is that confidence comes from external validation, such as praise. And this could not be further from the truth. You guys and I feel like that is a very, very dangerous myth to believe in because actually confidence is about your relationship with yourself. It doesn't include other people. It's about how you sing about yourself and how like in peace you are with yourself and forgetting that and kind of making your confidence dependent on other people, praising you or validating you is so dangerous because it really makes your confidence dependent on others and it should never, ever, ever be dependent on others because it's so such a fragile like.

It's a volatile space, right? Yeah. Yeah. You need to have a very, very strong foundation when it comes to your confidence. And again, we're talking about, you know, us as children, as three, four year olds. That foundation is there. You just need to get back to it. We just have like all of this experience with, you know, negative feedback, which we've all received at least once, you know, and then, you know, kind of the imposter syndrome part where regardless of how much positive feedback you get, you are going to focus on the negative feedback and you're going to have this negativity bias that is going to make you feel like you're incompetent or is going

to make you feel like you're not good enough. And that confidence is not about that. Confidence is about taking the pros and cons. It's really kind of linking back to number four. You know, it's about, okay, looking for support whenever you need it. But again, it is about your relationship with yourself, not about others. And to set this very strong foundation, you really need to kind of look back in in the past and also look inside you.

Yeah, it really ties back to what are your values, you know, Do you see yourself as someone with integrity? Like are you happy with your choices? Like truly happy? Are you content? And this is what will build a very strong foundation of your confidence if you are aligned with what is important to you.

So you guys, we hope that this episode really, really made you feel empowered and really showed you that you have it all within you. And there is just a lot of noise that comes from our surroundings, that comes from our environment, that tried to kind of kill this, let's say, seed of confidence that we all have. But in reality, you can all tap into your own confidence if you stay true to yourself and you find the path back to who you are.

To recap the myths and actually maybe the opposite of those myths, because this is what we want you to get out of this episode is that, first of all, confidence comes with experience. The second one is that confidence is not necessarily feelings certain all the time, but you can feel doubt and uncertainty, but confident people are going to be okay with that because they will have the self-efficacy to think that they will be able to deal with it.

The third myth was related to being extroverted. So again, this whole personality trait situation where confidence is not a personality trait, it's a skill, and both introverted and extroverted people can show confidence as long as they stay true to themselves. The fourth myth was about never needing help, which is of course not a characteristic of confident people because confidence people know that they don't know it all and they're okay with owning their mistakes.

They're okay with apologizing and they're okay with asking for help and support. Whenever they need that. And finally, confidence is about your relationship with yourself. And if you want to build a strong foundation of confidence, you should not focus on the external validation, but rather think about you, about who you are, about your relationship with you. The way you talk to yourself, the way you approach your own successes and failures, and focus on that so you can build a strong foundation of your confidence.

So you guys, we really hope that we have inspired you to step into your confident era starting today. And if you've been enjoying this episode, you can choose to support our Friday coffee chats by buying us a coffee. You can find a link to support the show in the episode Description and we will see you next week for another Friday coffee chat.

Bye. 

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