Is Confidence a Requirement for Success?

Have you ever looked at someone and thought wow, they are so confident? They are so successful because they are so confident? I know I have. And while I have been part of these thought processes I like to explore instances that show the opposite, let me explain.

There is a book I read some time ago called the Confidence Code. If you have not read it, I highly recommend it. Anyway if I remember correctly there was one common finding in there… they interviewed a lot of successful people for this book. They found that despite their success these individual sill felt like frauds. They still felt nervous. They still prepared above and beyond for their roles and tasks… just so they were not found out.

There are also one stories… one I reference in particular… I used to get so nervous before I would photograph someone. I would be nervous that I would mess up or I would forget a camera setting and the person would hate their pictures. I was a person that had built my life on praise and awards from others. I had defined that as success.

Something that really helped me move past that was to discover that one of my favorite photographers mentioned in a speech that he was nervous photographing President Obama. He was so nervous that alot of the pictures came out blurry. This really helped me to realize… that people at the top get nervous too. They might not be confident in every situation. So if they can do it and still be nervous… can I?

Here is what I did. As I mentioned already I used to define success as accolades from external sources. I had to redefine to myself what success looked like. What if success was the fact that I actually tried something? Even if I failed? What if success was that I did a little better than yesterday- but still not perfect? What if it is that I say no to something- not because I lack confidence but because I want to remain sane with all that I have on my plate?

I don’t know that I have landed on a specific definition of success to communicate it to you. But what I would offer is take a step back and think about a few things. I watch my daughter want to not try something, or quit immediately because she is not perfect. The first thing I want to point out is this is very human. We don’t want to look bad or not perfect. So instead of not trying- we quit before we have even failed. It is very human to not want to fial. We don’t want rejection. We want to be accepted into our tribe. So if we stay in our safe zone and don’t go out very much we don’t give ourselves much opportunity for failure.

But then you have to ask yourself- what kind of life is that? There is a whole big world out there to experience and learn. I feel that life has become so much richer the more I participate. The more I fail. It is okay because I am learning. Life becomes richer when I engage.

The second thing about not having confidence for something. It is uncomfortable to move outside your comfort zone. You don’t know the exact steps because you have not done them before. You don’t know the moves because you don’t have the muscle memory. The struggle here is that you very much need to step outside your comfort zone or you will not learn very much.

So what you do here is learn to be okay with being uncomfortable. I think I have mentioned this recently but will mention it here again. I have been fairly uncomfortable photographing at model classes. I am not in my element. I don’t go out of my way for an extravagant wardrobe. I rarely wear make up. I am not skinny… definitely out of my element. But I went anyway. I knew it was not my element. But I knew it would be an incredible opportunity. I learned information that changed me as a photographer.

So all of this to say maybe confidence is not about the destination. Maybe it is more about about the steps, the journey. Maybe it is confidence in yourself to be uncomfortable for a minute so you can go do something that just might be amazing. And the good news here is that more you get used to being uncomfortable with stepping forward for an opportunity- the easier it gets.