What comes First? Courage or Confidence?
There is something I have told myself for much of my life… that I also hear alot from other people. I do not have the confidence to do that. Or I hear that statement in some similar form.
Then it was a few years ago when I was reading up on confidence and something struck me that was pretty huge. Confidence is actually something you have after you do a certain task. The reason for this is especially if you are doing something you have not done before- how can you have confidence in something? Especially if you have not done it or had proof of some type of success. An example of this is recently I was with my sister in California and we took a glass blowing class. I had zero confidence in my abilities because I had never done it before. But I was willing to try because we had a great instructor and it was not my first time working with my hands.
Another story that comes to mind was a few years back I had the opportunity to attend Coco Rocha’s model camp back in New York. In case you don’t know who Coco Rocha is she is called the Queen of Pose for a reason. She is amazing at modeling, a fierce advocate for models rights and expanding the industry knowledge and a super kind person. I was a little nervous to go because I figured I would probably be the oldest person there, and the biggest. Both of which turned out to be true. Then when I got there was the biggest surprise- I found out I would have the opportunity to photograph Coco Rocha on photo day.
Up until that point I had taken several posing, lighting and general photography classes. I had never photographed a professional model. It would be accurate to say I was anything but confident going into that opportunity.
However, havling learned about courage as a precursor to confidence I told myself I could do it. I also have learned to judge a situation accurately and come away with the bigger picture. The bigger picture here was that I was getting an opportunity that not many other photographers get. And if I learned something from the opportunity- that would be my win. It also helped knowing that one of my favorite photographers had many pictures of Barack Obama come out blurry because he was so nervous. I don’t know why… but knowing that others struggle to me is always helpful.
So anyway… I went to camp, in the middle of a pandemic. I did not come home with COVID. I did come home with hours of experience. I got to direct Coco Rocha in a photoshoot where I had led the artistic direction. She was beyond amazing, as always. I got to watch hours of photo sessions by a professional photographer and Coco as they photographed all the attending models.
Courage Before Confidence
I did not go to camp with confidence. I didn’t even come back from camp with maximum confidence. And yes, many of my pictures were blurry (professional models move fast and eye tracking focus was just coming out). But I had more confidence in posing. I had more confidence in encouraging models to play. I had more confidence in myself. It was a first step of many I would take over the next few years.
I think the interesting thing here is to remember that confidence is kind of the final product. If we think of confidence as what we need to get to our destination- we will never get there. The reason we will never get there is we will not have the confidence without the confidence building experiences. And those confident building experiences will be so much more valuable- if we are willing to fall, get back up and see the bigger picture.
Back to the book I mentioned- it referenced courage as what is needed. Courage to take that first step. I would offer there are alot of other skills you can work on that can help- self compassion, self realization, self image and so on. But it has been much easier to look at a destination and start seeing the courage steps I take to get there. Once I break it down, the confidence does not seem so overwhelming. And one confidence experience only builds to the next.
What is your first courage step you need to take next?