Sure You Can Fake Confidence, But It Will Not Last
One of the things that most bothers me when I mentor or coach people, is when they say: 'I'm not confident - never have been, never will be'. It's like they think there's a 'gene' for confidence - which they don't have.
It bothers me because if you don't believe confidence is possible, you give up.
Or you try too hard.
You either become invisible, or show up everywhere 'performing' your confidence to anyone who'll watch.
Neither strategy works.
What bothers me even more is when people - mentors, gurus or 'the latest sensation' - sell 'quick fixes'. You know the sort of thing:
'LEARN THESE THREE TRICKS AND ACE ANY INTERVIEW'
or
'FIVE FAIL-SAFE TECHNIQUES TO DOMINATE THE ROOM - EVERY TIME!'
or
'DO THIS ONE SIMPLE THING AND LIVE A PERFECT DREAM LIFE THAT'S BETTER THAN ANYTHING EVER ANYWHERE (AND MAKE ALL YOUR FRIENDS REALLY JEALOUS)'
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People Who Lack Confidence are Easy Targets for Frauds Without Morals
The truth?
Quick fixes don't work. Faking doesn't work (except right at the start of something).
In fact not much in life works, unless you put in the time to MAKE it work.
Is anyone else annoyed by adverts for Japanese kitchen knives? Apparently all you have to do is buy some shiny knives and you'll dish up meals like the dude in the video! And have an amazing kitchen. In a funky apartment. All you need do is buy some really expensive drop-shipped knives…
When, foolishly, I fall kicking-and-screaming into my Facebook feed, (like, as a child, I once fell into a farm's cesspit), I get shown lots of 'art supplies' adverts. I suppose because I draw and paint. Apparently if I buy a new set of coloured charcoal pencils I'm going to be able to draw REALLY WELL!!!!!! Straight away! That's what the advert says!
All I need is the tool they're selling. Not skill. Not competence. Not the dedication to become really good at drawing. Just buy the goddamn pencil set.
Buy the shiny new thing and forget the years of dedication that go into mastering anything.
What the advert doesn't say is that the person who drew that amazing sketch spent years learning how to draw amazing sketches. They dedicated their time to becoming excellent.
You want cook well? Spend time learning to cook. Nice knives help, but they don't do the cooking for you.
I'm not saying the right tools don't help. The right tools can make a huge difference. If you put in years learning how to be a carpenter and then work with blunt chisels and unsharpened saws, your work will look shoddy.
Though right tools help, without the self-discipline to learn how to use them - to practice, and fail, and practice again, and improve - you'll never be an expert. You'll be using your great set of Japanese knives, to slice a Domino's pizza.
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Learning Good Mental Tools is Really Important
It's the same with confidence. Learning good mental tools is really important. Become present, authentic, self-accepting. It WILL make a difference.
The tools are not the answer though, they're the starting point. Becoming 'more confident' is not a magic bullet - especially if you don't develop competence to backup your confidence.
Telling yourself you're confident repeatedly doesn't make you good at anything. It just gives you the energy to start - to risk failure as you follow your path to competence.
Unless you commit to actual growth, you're just kidding yourself - and defrauding anyone gullible enough to trust you.
To become really confident - to earn your confidence - means learning to use the tools of your chosen profession.
Quick-fixes sound nice, but they don't work. When the pressure's on, they'll fail you. Faced with genuine challenges, fake confidence collapses and, like the emperor in his 'new suit of clothes', you'll be naked. You'll kow it and so will EVERYONE else.
When I'm working with someone who says they could never be confident, I tell them it's not true. They could be. Anyone can learn to be more confident - authentically confident. It's a mental discipline. A technique of thinking.
Adopting the mental discipline to be confident is a choice. It's 'faking it' in some ways. It's finding the energy to risk entering a place where you feel insecure.
Then comes the real work.
The Mental Disicpline of Confidence Lets You Turn Up
Turning up creates opportunity to practice the tools of your trade. That way you gain authentic confidence.
Competence breeds confidence. Authentic Confidence is based on competence.
These days I train and mentor Artists to teach performance workshops. Teaching Performance - beyond the simple passing over of performance techniques - is a life-changing, community-enriching, humanity-saving vocation.
Too many artists stop themselves from serving potential students through lack of confidence. They don't get in front of the room. They don't raise their hand and ask to be heard.
However, there's also some who, having found the confidence to get in front of the room, think they've made it. Having found the confidence to teach, they think there's nothing more to learn.
No! Getting in front of the room means you have the chance to deepen your skills. Every workshop is a chance to learn better how to develop genuine craft and technique - to understand pedagogy, psychophysicality, the process of learning - whatever it is that is your particular area of fascination.
Confidence is not enough. First develop the mental skills of confidence. Then develop the competence to become authentically confident.
Confidence requires competence.
Nothing makes you more confident than knowing you're good at what you do! Especially when the going gets tough.
Developing deep skills in any area of life means learning to value an activity for its own sake, not just for the rewards it brings. It means valuing intrinsic over extrinsic rewards.
Ironically, the primacy of intrinsic over extrinsic motivations is at the heart of running performance-training workshops.
It's what we teach. To excel, get the right tools. Then learn how to use them. Tools plus time. Confidence plus competence.
Neither on their own gets you where you need to be. Put them together, and you're unstoppable.
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