Rules for building real Confidence!!
─ · · Do the thing before you feel ready. Confidence is not a prerequisite for action. It is a consequence of it. The feeling of being ready almost never arrives before you start. It arrives after the first attempt, or the third, or the tenth. You have been waiting for a feeling that is only generated by the activity you've been waiting to feel it before doing. Break the loop. Act first. Feel capable second. Every single person you find intimidating got there by doing things before they felt qualified.
─ · · Stop letting failure be the story. You tried something and it didn't work and now you're treating that as a permanent piece of evidence about your capacity. It isn't. It's one data point. It tells you what didn't work this time in these conditions with this approach. It tells you nothing about what's possible with a different approach or more practice or better conditions. The most capable people you know have failed more than you, not less. They just stopped filing it under identity.
─ · · Collect evidence deliberately. Your brain defaults to remembering the times you fell short and glossing over the times you came through. This is not neutral. This is a bias that compounds over time into a deeply inaccurate self-image. Start actively noticing when you do something well. When you handled something difficult. When you said the right thing or made the right call or got through the thing you thought would break you. Write it down. Your confidence needs a record to draw from. Give it one.
─ · · Stop outsourcing the verdict. You are waiting for enough people to confirm that you're capable before you'll allow yourself to believe it. That number keeps moving. Every time it's met you raise it. The external validation you're seeking is not coming in a quantity that will ever feel like enough because the need is internal. You have to decide. Not feel, decide. Decide that your assessment of yourself is valid. Decide that you don't need a unanimous vote. Decide that you are enough to start with and capable of becoming more. Then act from that decision. It is available to you right now.
