You Don’t Need Confidence to Start Your New Project

Too much of it can be detrimental to success.

‘I need to build more confidence first,’ I said. ‘It’s the only thing holding me back from coaching people and doing mindfulness workshops.’

I was sitting at the front porch of a mountain lodge where I used to work for three summer seasons. There, I made a transition from a housekeeper and waitress to the writer I always wanted to be. I did a lot of things for the first time in that place — from finding my first freelance client, to leading a guided meditation.

Next to me sat the owner of the place, Caroline. She was my coach and mentor while I lived in the mountains. As she listened to my talk about how desperately I needed confidence, she smiled and said:

‘Confidence isn’t something you can have before you start. It grows as you do the things you want to do. You can’t be confident about what you haven’t done.’

We tend to think that confidence is a character trait we must develop to succeed. We assume that first, we build it. Only when enough confidence is in place, we act.

But if you look closely at how confidence is created, you’ll see this is misguided. As Caroline said, you can’t be confident about what you’ve never done. That’s because confidence is a result, not a prerequisite of your actions.

And it’s perfect this way. Otherwise, you wouldn’t even be able to learn from your mistakes.

Why It’s Great To Start With No Confidence

I get it. It would be easier to start working on your project if you were more confident. You’d probably feel stronger, more determined and clearer on the outcome you want.

But just because it would be easier to start, it doesn’t mean it would be easier to succeed. Actually, having less confidence in the beginning may set you up for better results in the long run.

Why? Imagine you’re starting a business with absolute confidence. You simply know that your idea will work. You feel it in your bones. You also assume that you know the way to get there.

You’re confident that the price you’ve set for the product is just right. You’re confident that you know what your customers want. You’re absolutely positive that you have everything it takes to build that business!

So you go ahead with the strategy you believe will work. Then, when it doesn’t, you look for the cause of your failure everywhere but in your own approach.

Caroline told me how she tried to run her hotel with such a narrow mindset for many years. She didn’t question how things were done around the house, or what kind of experience her customers were looking for. She exhausted herself and her team by stubbornly doing things that didn’t work.

Only when she stepped away for two years and admitted that she had no clue how to run this business, she began to learn. She stripped her attitude of the unfounded confidence and saw what was actually required to make things run smoothly.

When you set off to start a brand new project with too much confidence, you run the risk of being ignorant. Because you think you know what you’re doing, you stop asking questions or listening for obvious signs that you should pivot.

Starting with just enough confidence to know that you’re able to adapt is your best shot. Excessive confidence as to how things should be done can hold you back, rather than help.

Do It Once, Change Your Identity Forever

Permitting yourself to start with little confidence is the first step. But you can’t continue with no idea what you’re doing forever.

You will need confidence as you move forward. But to build it, you have to shift your perspective. Confidence doesn’t exist as a prior competency that allows you to just go for it. Rather, it’s developed through going for it in the first place.

The good news is that to build the “confidence momentum,” you don’t have to be an expert. If you look closely at how your mind works, you’ll discover something amazing.

The critical step to build confidence is to just do this thing you want to do once. Now, bear with me so I can explain.

When you do something you’ve never done before, your self-image changes irreversibly. Benjamin Hardy, PhD sometimes calls it identity upgrade. To make a shift from a person who’s a complete newbie to someone who’s already done it is the biggest step you can take to build confidence.

To me, doing scary things I’ve never done before was always a game-changer. Last month, I coached someone for the first time. I probably didn’t do a great job and I still know very little about coaching. But that’s not the point.

The point is that it changed how I see myself. I transitioned from someone who’s never coached anybody to someone who’s done it. If I wanted to launch a coaching career now, it wouldn’t be a question of starting anymore. I would already be focusing on improving my coaching skills compared to how I did in the first few sessions.

When you’re just starting with a project, you don’t have to do it perfectly. Heck, you don’t even have to do it well. What matters for your confidence is that you have a memory of doing it at all.

The rest is a matter of learning, practising and testing. These become easier as your confidence and self-image start matching what you’re already doing.

Confidence Builds Up As You Keep Moving Forward

Confidence is a result of what you’ve done, not a prerequisite to action. It doesn’t exist in a void.

The only way to have more of it is doing things you don’t know how to do yet. Through trial and error, you establish a new identity — the you who’s already done it.

As Benjamin Hardy reminds us:

“[…] you have to own that everything you do is impacting your confidence and thus, your identity. Every little choice you engage in shapes who you are. Who you are shapes your future.”

Believing that you can have confidence before you act is futile. Even if you managed to build it, it would most likely be useless for what you want to do. It would make you risk overlooking your mistakes and impeding the learning process.

And can you imagine succeeding at anything if you’re not a dedicated learner?

From this perspective, you may even find gratitude for not having much confidence. Its lack is precisely what allows you to stay curious and adopt the attitude of a beginner — which are necessary to move things forward.

More necessary than lots of confidence, anyway.