I’ve been leaning on the Being Boss podcast[1] and book[2] lately. Kathleen Shannon and Emily Thompson—they’re some pretty kick ass creative entrepreneurs. They’re movers and shakers, and sharers. They’re doing their thing, dropping the knowledge, advice and being themselves—running successful businesses, balancing life, kids, etc. And I’ve been leaning in. Picking up what I can of what they’re laying down, and feeling grateful to have a community, direction, and a kick in the pants—even if virtual. I take motivation and tribe where I can get them these less-traditional-work-life days (i.e., not having my ass in a chair at an office 9am to 5pm in a sea of worker-inhabited cubes).

 

One thing the “Boss ladies” share is that confidence is a practice. That made me pause—no eye roll, no thinking this is so trite or cliché. Just pause. And consider—the kind of considering where you find yourself staring at absolutely nothing and 3 minutes later and you’re not sure where you’ve been, but you know it was definitely not in this stratosphere. Here’s the full quote from their Being Boss book on confidence:

 

Confidence is standing in your truth and claiming your right to take up space and be happy even when your circumstances or feelings are a little shaky. Confidence is owning who you are and what you value, without apology. It’s taking responsibility for your victories and mistakes alike. It’s trusting yourself to figure out what’s next, and having your own back along the way (p. 53).

 

Confidence is a practice. Yoga is also a practice. Commence teenage eye roll (for me). And yeah, I’m not a flexible human (in the muscle sense) and not particularly good at yoga, and sometimes it’s hard to like things that you’re not very good at. But, I promise, my eye roll has little to do with yoga itself. Yoga is extremely valuable, and I wish that I did it way more of it than I currently do. No, the eye roll comes from this overwhelming sense of “I’m over it.” Not yoga, just the whole concept of “it’s a lifestyle.” Everything is a lifestyle. You can literally flip through the dictionary, land on a page and a word, and plug it into the sentence. Eating is a lifestyle. Exercise is a lifestyle. Life is a lifestyle. Style is a lifestyle. See? It loses all meaning.

 

But confidence. As a practice? I was intrigued… and then smacked upside the head with a not-so-flattering self-truth. I view confidence with a very fixed mindset. You’re either born with it or not. You either exude it or you don’t—as if it were a check box on a birth certificate. Baby A, check. Baby B, nope. Good luck in life, Baby B, you’ll learn to fake it eventually.

 

Or, say you’re adult. It would be a personality trait such as introversion (I) or extraversion (E). We all know the Meyers Briggs inventory is meant to be a spectrum or a scale where you land somewhere on the line closer to the E or the I. But let’s be honest, we all pretty much treat it as a defining (singular) data point, and thus claim ourselves to be extroverted or introverted.

 

For today’s post, we’ll define confidence somewhat narrowly as “a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.” If we throw that on a spectrum, we’ll call that confidence C. What’s on the other side of the “self-assurance scale”? It’d probably be something like doubt in, uncertainty about, or a somewhat negative self-perception of one’s own abilities or qualities. We’ll call that U for uncertainty.

 

Where do you fall? Instead of seeing it as a full spectrum, I tend to damn myself into the U category. As a general statement. I’m good at stuff and confident about my abilities in certain areas, but overall, I make myself a U. Fixed. Set. Safe.

 

What I like about the Boss ladies’ confidence statement is that it jolts me out of that mindset. I am not a U. I may sometimes feel uncertain or question my abilities, but I believe that makes me human.  Feeling and being are not the same thing, and way too often they get confused. (For more on this, check out my Medium article called “The Truth about Lies about Truth: Separating Fact from Crap”.)

 

Confidence is not something you’re born with. But. And here’s the big but. Not butt, settle down. The big but is that it’s not a destination either. It’s not the ultimate stop of the train of life, personal growth and development. The point of your existence and the measure of your worth is not whether you creep from U to C on the spectrum to get to the pinnacle of Maslow’s Hierarchy of self-realization. OK, enough examples; you get the point. It’s a journey. A hero’s journey. And if you want to roll your eyes at that, feel free. My internal eye-roller is strong, I get it.

 

Carol Dweck[3] is the guru of the concept of “growth mindset” (and author of the Mindset book). More than just the flip-side of the fixed mindset, growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Brains and talent are just the starting point. It views the brain as a muscle—one that you can strengthen with deliberate practice. The Boss ladies make the case that confidence is also a muscle, or something that can be practiced and developed. And wait for it… there when you need it.

 

The other part of the confidence quote that I love is confidence as “standing in your truth and claiming your right to take up space.” It makes me stand up straighter, fill my lungs with air, and own the space my physical and mental body take up on this planet. We can tend to fade. To disappear. To diminish and minimize ourselves. At work, at home, in our friendships, marriages. We fill roles and hide behind them. We play small.

Somehow, I think women are more susceptible to this. So, stopping a moment and reveling in my right to take up space… that sounds pretty damned good. Owning myself. Owning my personality, my abilities, my work. Stepping into my own big shoes and realizing they fit just right. Remembering to consciously do that. That’s a practice. That’s the practice of confidence.

 

And guess what? Practicing confidence is pretty great. Avoid the stigma that you may self-impose, or, that others may impose on you when you do practice confidence. Remember, “being confident isn’t the same things as being an egotistical asshole” (p. 53). Preach, boss ladies.

 

My advice to myself (and you, if you’d like to receive it)? Go on with your bad-self, bigfoot! You’re not a fixed data point. Fill your shoes. Show up. Take up space. Fill the space you take up. Play big. Practice flexing that confidence muscle. Even if you find yourself back on your ass for a minute, get up. And know that shaky is OK too. You have your back, and your knees, legs and feet. Stand up. Take a deep breath. Practice confidence.

 

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Notes & References

[1] Being Boss: A Podcast for Creative Entrepreneurs. https://beingboss.club/podcast

[2] Shannon, Kathleen & Emily Thompson. Being Boss: Take Control of Your Work and Life on Your Own Terms. Running Press, 2018.

[3] Carol Dweck’s Stanford University bio: My work bridges developmental psychology, social psychology, and personality psychology, and examines the self-conceptions people use to structure the self and guide their behavior. My research looks at the origins of these self-conceptions, their role in motivation and self-regulation, and their impact on achievement and interpersonal processes.