Confidence! The one thing so many of us want, and yet it can elude us. 

But does it really? Are there ways we can grow in confidence and feel more satisfied across our lives?

Feeling confident is having the belief or trust that a person or thing is reliable. Having self-confidence means you trust in yourself to achieve the things you want to, now and in the future. 

Self-confidence is not the same as self-esteem, which is an evaluation of one's worth.

We are not born confident. Nobody is. We develop confidence as we move through life and find ourselves successfully handling new situations and environments. Confidence is an outcome - a willingness to try.

What the statistics say about the differences in confidence between genders at work:

New research suggests that men are far more comfortable with self-promotion than women are. According to Christine L. Exley, of Harvard Business School, “the gender gap in self-promotion is not driven by a gender gap in confidence.”

The research found that women consistently rated their performance lower than men — even though men and women had the same average score on the test. In a nutshell, at work men tend to show more confidence than women do. Which has additional negative impacts on women reaching executive leadership roles in the workplace and growing to their full career potential.

Confidence Myths: According to Forbes magazine, there are three major misconceptions about confidence.

Misconception 1: Either you are confident, or you aren’t.

Confidence, like many things, comes and goes, rises and falls. Which means it’s not something steady. In short, it is a habit and skill we can cultivate if we try. Even those people who we believe ooze confidence experience fears and self-doubt, just like we all do. But they don’t dwell on these negative thoughts. They acknowledge them and move on, never giving them additional airtime.  

Misconception 2: Confidence only happens when you are successful. 

Confidence does not result in our success – it’s the outcome of taking action in the first place to achieve what we want - that’s success. The more we do it, the more confident we become over time. Failing can lead to improved confidence if you see it as a learning process. In other words, you learn from your failures and don’t repeat them.

Misconception 3: Only experience gives you confidence.

Doing something repeatedly can help our confidence grow, but in today’s fast-moving world, we don’t always get that opportunity. Look at your strengths and what you do well. Even if you fail at times, like we all do, you can learn from these situations and put them into your toolbox of learning. Integrate all these new experiences into your life and build on them. You may not get them right each time, but at least doing something to try to succeed is better than doing nothing.  

Do we get more confident as we age? Research shows that the older we get, the more self-assured and content we become. In fact, those in their sixties are more likely to be happier and more self-confident overall than most of those in their younger years.

Researchers Zenger and Folkman collected valuable data from more than 4,000 women and 3,000 men since 2016 and found that only 30 percent of women 25 years or younger felt confident. About 50 percent of men said the same.

By age 40, women and men rate themselves equally as confident. By age 60, women surpass men in confidence on average.

Ways to grow your confidence

1. Confidence is a skill that you can develop over time. It’s not part of your personality.
2. Watch out for social comparison because it’s a definite way to erode your confidence. The more you stare and compare, the lower your confidence falls.
3. Focus on your strengths. Yes, we all have them - in bucket loads. Although people with low confidence may not agree or see theirs.  
4. Take the strengths you possess with you when you face new challenges (or old ones). In truth, we all have solved many problems in our lives, and mostly successfully, so why don’t you believe you can now?
5. Get a life coach to help you grow in areas you feel you need to.
6. Give life a go. You may be surprised at how successful you are.

Think more about your confidence and ways to improve it.