Confidence: Can You Fake It? Should You Fake it?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your confidence?
Has it wavered over the years? Has certain events in your life knocked your confidence score down? Typical confidence-rattling events include:
- Lay-offs/unplanned retirement
- debt
- Divorce
- Health issues
Or, have you had to bust through barriers to build it back up? Issues like:
- Unemployment
- Ageism
- Celebrating another birthday with a zero
Are you struggling to build ladders to get your confidence back up to a record-shattering and goal-conquering levels?
If you’ve answered yes—thank you. And thank yourself. Recognition of the situation is the first step to building those ladders.
I’ve recently been intrigued by Katelyn Ohashi’s story. Perhaps you’ve heard of her. She’s the UCLA gymnast that is busting multiple 10s in the floor exercise. You’ve probably seen the video circulating through social media channels.
That particular video has 35+ million views. Want to know why? Her confidence! Read through the comments; you’ll find several comments like this one, “I’ve never seen someone with so much confidence.”
Her performances are extremely popular, not because we want to bounce back up from a split, but because we want to exhibit Katelyn’s level of confidence.
The comfort of You Aren’t Alone
But dig deeper into her story. Katelyn didn’t always feel that way. She explains in this video: I was unbeatable until I wasn’t. She battled her desire to be herself as everyone was criticizing her for not doing better.
Can you relate to that? I certainly can! And like Katelyn, I continued on, faking joy while doing what needed to be done to reach my goals—and the expectations of others. My tolerance crashed in 2016. My confidence score at that time was MAYBE a 4. If I felt particularly optimistic that day, I would nudge it up to a 6. Ironically, I had to display a confidence score of 8 or 9 because so many people relied on me and the only way to do that was through faking it.
However, like Katelyn, I reached a point that I couldn’t continue unless serious changes were made. This required changes that would upset the status quo and sometimes resulted in further attacks.
For the sake of confidence and well-being
Despite the challenges and fear of change, I continued on.
The result:
- rediscovering what is most important to me
- redefining my business and my purpose
- a website rebrand.
- finding a stronger, more niched audience, that fit my business and my purpose
- bigger opportunities that are more fitting to the ME I am meant to be
And like Katelyn, my confidence level is climbing the charts. It takes time. It requires changes, but the results are extraordinary!
How are you bouncing back?
Kristen Edens
Related reading:
3 Mantras for a Stress-Free Second Act
When Caregiving, Sacrifice, and Love Collide
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