I Don’t Want False Confidence, I Want Genuine Confidence
I have been writing a lot recently about my low confidence and how I am struggling to get it back.
While pondering this, I realized that I might be getting stuck in a negative perception of confidence and should instead seek a healthy self-assuredness.
For me, too often I have experienced people (including myself) having false confidence. That is, confidence in themselves or others that is not warranted.
When the situation does not work out, I think this false confidence turns into debilitating doubt as you realize how wrong you were. False confidence backfires while genuine confidence grows progressively.
Self-assuredness gives a sense of internal reassurance that you can find the right path, despite previous mistakes. It feels like an inner knowing, not something that I have to prove to others. It gives a feeling of “I trust myself to figure things out even if I don’t know now”; whereas false confidence gives me the feeling of “I know” even if that isn’t true, which gives me a pit in my stomach.
I need to learn to recognize true vs. false confidence in myself so that my faith in myself doesn’t crumble again.
Messy Bun Book Lover
(Originally posted on Mar. 26, 2025)