Confidence isn’t your starting point. Courage is.

Confidence isn’t your starting point. Courage is.  

I get asked about confidence a lot.

How can I be more confident?
Why don't I feel more confident?
How do I lead like I have confidence even when I don't?

And here's what I always say: you're asking the wrong question.

I was talking about this recently with Randi Roberts on her podcast Fulfilling Career Happy Life, and I wanted to go deeper on it here — because it's one of those distinctions that sounds simple but changes everything. 

Because confidence isn't the starting point. Courage is.

(If you want to hear the conversation first, press play below…)

Confidence Is a Result of Taking Risks. It’s Not a Requirement to Get Started.

Here's the thing about confidence — it ebbs and flows. It's not a fixed trait you either have or don't. And high-achievers who are used to being good at things, we've built our confidence in the areas where we're already competent.

So when we want to uplevel — go after the promotion, leave the job, start the thing, have the hard conversation — confidence isn't available yet. Because we haven't done it yet.

High achievers are so used to being really good at so many things that when we are staring down the barrel of something we've never done before, everything in our body tells us to run in the other direction.

But you can't uplevel without trying new things. And you can't try new things without courage.

Courage is what moves you before confidence exists. Courage is the decision to act despite the fear, because what you want – for yourself, your career, your life – matters more than the guarantee of a perfect outcome.

And once you do the scary thing and survive it (or even thrive from it) – that's where the confidence gets built.

What's Actually Blocking Your Courage

So — if courage is available to all of us, why does it feel so hard?

In my work as a leadership coach, I see the same blockers come up again and again.

Perfectionism.

The need to know exactly how it's going to go before you're willing to try will never work when it comes to trying new things. And not trying is the only guaranteed path to failure.

Fear of the outcome. 

The "what if I can't make it happen" spiral. The worry that trying and failing is worse than not trying at all. (I promise you that it isn't. Not by a long shot.)

Caring too much about what other people think. 

Conflict avoidance. Not wanting to disappoint someone. Worrying that stepping up will cost you a relationship or a reputation.

Here's what all three of these have in common: they feel like protection. They make you feel like you're being realistic. They are, in fact, your monkey brain just trying to keep you safe. Safe = stagnant or stuck; and that isn’t what you want.

The discomfort you feel when you think about trying something new is not a warning signal. It's actually a sign that you're growing.

I've trained myself to read that fear as confirmation that I'm headed somewhere worth going. It doesn't make the fear disappear. But it does change what I do with it.You can learn to do this, too. 

How to Work With Fear and Stop Fighting It

So what do you do when you're standing at the edge and your whole nervous system is screaming "DON'T!!!!"?

Here's the process I use, with myself and with clients.

First: Name what you're actually afraid of. 

And then keep asking yourself "and then what?" until you get to the bottom of it. What's the actual worst case scenario here?

Then: Sit with that worst case. Really look at it. 

Because what I find, almost every time, is that when you actually examine the worst case scenario, you realize you can handle it. You've handled hard things before. You would be able to handle this too. And the alternative – staying exactly where you are, waking up three years from now still wanting the same thing you're not going after – is often scarier than any worst case.

Next: Check in with your body, not just your brain.

High achievers live from the neck up. We think our way through everything. But your body has its own intelligence, and it's worth listening to.

There's a tool called the internal navigation system that I learned from another coach named Megan Hellerer. Think about something you love, something that feels expansive and right. Notice how your body feels when you think about that. Not just what your brain thinks — but what happens in your body.

Then think about something you really do NOT like at all and notice how your body feels when you think about that.

Apply that same body-awareness to decisions you have to make. Imagine yourself a year from now, having done the thing. What does your body say? Now imagine yourself a year from now, having not done it. What does your body say?

It works remarkably well — especially for people who've spent years overriding their instincts in favor of doing what they feel they "should" do or what is expected of them.

The Science Experiment Reframe for High-Achievers

Here's another reframe that will really change things for you: stop treating your outcomes like tests of your worth and start treating them like experiments.

A scientist doesn't assign moral weight to a result that doesn't go as planned. They gather information. They iterate. They carry what's useful into the next attempt and let go of what isn't useful. They don't throw out the whole project because one round didn't land the way they hoped.

What if you did the same?

When you take a courageous step and it doesn't go the way you'd hoped (and it won't always), that's not evidence that you shouldn't have tried. It's data. It's information about what to adjust. It's proof that you're in motion, which is the only place from which anything meaningful actually happens.

The first step doesn't have to be big. It just has to be a step.

Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Courage is not comfortable and that’s the hardest part of this. There is no courage without discomfort. Courage is just the decision to notice the discomfort and move through it anyway.

Our culture sends the message that discomfort is bad – something to be avoided, managed, numbed. But there is no growth without it. Harvard professor and author Susan David put it perfectly: Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.

So the question isn't how to get rid of the discomfort. The question is: what do you want badly enough to be uncomfortable for?

That question is where leadership actually begins – not with the strategy, not with the plan, but with the honest answer to what you really want and whether you're willing to be a beginner in pursuit of it.

Because the alternative – waking up in three years (or twenty or fifty) still wanting the same thing and still waiting to feel ready – is the most uncomfortable outcome of all.

And if you want to hear more of this conversation, Randi and I went deep on all of it — perfectionism, fear, the science experiment reframe — on her podcast: Fulfilling Career Happy Life.

If you're ready to start practicing courage, my free Inner Critic guide is a good place to start — it'll help you identify the voice that's been keeping you stuck and what to do when it gets loud.