Resource · ~6 min read
How to be more confident.
In short
Confidence is trust in your ability to handle things, and it usually follows action rather than coming before it. You build it by taking small steps before you feel ready, collecting evidence of what you’ve handled, answering the inner critic with fairer thoughts, working up a ladder of challenges and gradually dropping the safety behaviours that keep self-doubt alive.
Rose Markotic · Anxiety Skills Coach
Rose’s path here runs through more than a decade of clinical training and practice — graduate training at Santa Clara University and years inside Dr. David Burns’ TEAM-CBT group at Stanford, the home of the measurement-driven framework.
Why do I lack confidence?
Low confidence often comes from a mix of past experiences, a harsh inner critic and avoidance. When you avoid what scares you, you never collect the evidence that you could cope, so the doubt stays. It often dips after big changes too: a new job, a new country or a new stage of life, where your old track record isn’t visible to anyone around you.
Six skills to build confidence
1. Act before you feel ready
Most people wait to feel confident before they act. It usually works the other way: you act, it goes acceptably, and confidence grows. Pick one thing you've been putting off and take the first small step this week.
2. Collect evidence, not compliments
Confidence built on other people's praise is fragile. Keep a note of things you handled, problems you solved and times you coped. Read it before the situations that usually shake you.
3. Answer the inner critic
When "I'm not good enough" shows up, write it down and look for the thinking traps in it, such as labelling or discounting the positive. Then write a response that is both kinder and true.
4. Climb a ladder of small challenges
List situations that knock your confidence, from easiest to hardest. Start at the bottom and stay with each one until it feels manageable before moving up. Confidence is built in steps, not leaps.
5. Drop one safety behaviour
Over-preparing, staying quiet in meetings, apologising before you speak: these feel protective but stop you learning that you'd manage without them. Drop one, once, and see what happens.
6. Stop comparing your inside to their outside
Other people look confident because you see their surface and your own doubts. Many of them have the same doubts. Compare yourself with where you were a year ago, not with someone else's highlight reel.
If the doubt is about being found out, see imposter syndrome. If the critic is relentless, see self-compassion and cognitive distortions. If self-doubt shows up as jealousy, see jealousy. If it’s less about what you can do and more about how you value yourself, see low self-esteem.
When to see a licensed professional
If low confidence comes with low mood that lasts for weeks, strong anxiety in social situations that stops you working or seeing people, or thoughts of harming yourself, please see your GP or a licensed professional. Coaching teaches skills; it isn’t a substitute for clinical care. The crisis resources page lists 24-hour lines for the UK and across Europe.
Frequently asked
Common questions
- How can I be more confident?
- Take small steps before you feel ready, keep a record of things you've handled well, answer self-critical thoughts with fairer ones, and work up gradually from easier to harder situations. Confidence grows from evidence and action more than from positive thinking.
- What is the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem?
- Self-confidence is trust in your ability to do things; self-esteem is how you value yourself as a person. They often move together, but you can feel confident at work and still have low self-esteem, or the other way round.
- How do I stop doubting myself?
- You rarely stop doubt completely, but you can stop it running the show. Notice the doubting thought, check it against the evidence of what you've actually done, and act anyway in a small way. Each time it goes acceptably, the doubt has less to stand on.
- Can a coach help with confidence?
- Yes. Building confidence through small experiments, evidence and fairer self-talk suits coaching well. Rose works online, in English, across the UK and Europe. The first 20-minute call is free.
Next step
Confidence, one step at a time.
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