“Confidence isn’t what you think it is”.
I’m constantly learning how to improve what I do as a coach and online communicator and, where I’m always working on both, it’s fair to say that I’m secure in my competence as the former but my confidence in the latter is lacking.
When I scrolled into Elizabeth Rose’s strong spoken hook on TikTok, I stuck around for the entirety of the video to learn what she had to say.
Confidence isn’t a feeling, it’s something you do.
Quoting Mel Robbins – to whom I’ve also linked below – Rose talks about how the more competent people are at things, typically, the more confident they appear to be.
You might have heard of and even experienced depressive thought cycles, where a negative idea triggers a further negative thought, which can then lead to rumination and logic traps. Not much fun.
In the other direction, though, is the virtuous cycle, which I think Robbins’ idea chimes with, whereby more competence begets more confidence, which can make the process of becoming more competent more enjoyable or motivating, which, you guessed it, could result in greater confidence, and so on.
I’m a confident coach because I have over two years of professional experience alongside my own fitness journey to show for it: I have the competence to match the confidence, or, more simply, I can walk the talk.
Global pistols™ this one just off Railay beach; to my mind, pistol squats are the perfect mix of task competence (here, strength and co-ordination) and the confidence to just give them a go/trust you won’t fall to your death into the crystalline ocean below! Video by Jeriel.
My social media presence, however, is bang average.
I’ve not yet figured out how to communicate my love for health and fitness as well on screen as I do in my sales calls and 1-2-1 coaching. I understand the concepts – like Rose’s “hook” (“confidence isn’t what you think it is”) but I haven’t reliably executed these ideas and tactics to attain – or indeed create – anything like what I feel I’m capable of.
For the most part, I’m a confident person because I’m a competent person but I’m insecure about my social media presence because I currently have limited evidence to suggest that how I communicate can resonate with people who don’t know me personally or through a partner, friend or family member.
Confidence comes from being willing to learn (and fail)
There’s a lot to be said for the people that just give things a go.
Whether it’s in competitive sport or in relationships or even making dinner, the people I see have the most “success” are the people who have put themselves into risky or non-obvious positions most often.
In football, you have the fearless finishers and temerarious tacklers who’ll risk an injury to score or prevent a goal; as a young adult, I found that the people who scored most at nightclubs weren’t always the best looking, rather they were the ones who said “hello” most – and, importantly, were turned away as often as they pulled but were willing to play a numbers game; lastly, the incomparable cooks typically nail the classics and then make them their own through iteration and, often, mistakes!
In a gym setting, my clients can go from absolute beginners to slick intermediates in three months in part because of the sometimes hundreds of tiny mistakes they make in their first couple of weeks. Rather than seeing these moments as shortcomings or failures, however, we regard them simply as features of getting better, and, in turn, becoming more confident as gym goers.
Your ability to lift weights, like your belief that you’re strong enough to lift them is built rep by rep and set by set, hand in hand over time.
The confidence gap
From one male-dominated space into another, as many of you will already know, there appears to be a significant “confidence gap” in the work place too, where gendered business psychology studies and surveys show that women who feel they don’t meet job specifications exactly are less likely to apply for those jobs than similarly – or even less – qualified men.
“[O]ne study found that people were more likely to lie to a woman than a man in negotiations, because the woman’s perceived lack of confidence was assumed to reflect a relative lack of competence [7]. Conversely, research has suggested that appearing confident can lead to an attribution of greater competence than actual competence might achieve. Put another way, an over confident man with average competence would be more highly regarded than a more competent (but less confident) woman [8].”
Futurelearn, “The Confidence Gap”
Faking it until you make it and just doing it are great maxims to get your foot in the door; at some point, however, all of us will benefit from doing the work too.
At a systemic level, it’s not enough to be aware of the confidence gap existing; on a personal level, I would like to close the gap between mine and my clients’ belief in our abilities and our ability to get things done.
In fact, something I regularly read from my female clients is how excited they feel to “finally” be working out in the “big boy” area of the gym, using the machines and dumbbells that are commensurate with their strength, rather than minimising the space they take up and limiting their performance by using the pilates (read “girly”) weights.
Where do we go from here?
Just as I’m working on improving my social media presence by studying and practicing, you can boost your confidence in the gym by consistently showing up, learning, and being willing to make mistakes. Plus, working with a coach like me can help you overcome these blockers faster.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably interested in expanding your repertoire. If you do make a change or give something different a go, I’d love to hear about it.
For me, I know that not posting videos online is a sure fire way to fail as an online coach. Nonetheless, recognising that I don’t know everything – and being motivated to learn a lot more – I’ve worked with a handful of people further ahead of me to understand where to go next.
Confident in my competence as a student, I’m now going to commit whole days in August to study my heroes, learn their approaches and implement them into mine.
If you see my videos, I’d love it if you watched them to the end and liked, commented on or shared them if you found them worthwhile, and, if you don’t take anything from them, I’d love some honest critique. Trust me, no feedback is worse than critical commentary!
Reading
“Confidence isn’t something you are, it’s something you do”, Elizabeth Rose on TikTok, accessed 8 August 2024.
“The confidence gap”, Futurelearn, accessed 8 August 2024.
“The confidence gap”, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, The Atlantic, accessed 8 August 2024.
“Toolkit for confidence”, Mel Robbins, accessed 8 August 2024.
Big shout to Beth for pushing me to write and research this one.
Much love and I’ll see yas in a week
Jack x