The Confidence Guy

Wired into Truly Confident Living

Aug 19

Real Confidence is Trusting Your Gut

Confidence building

To infinity and beyond!I’ve been reading a couple of posts featuring the one and only Buzz Lightyear over at 6 Weeks and Men with Pens, which did 3 things:

1. Made me grin at the thought of a cracking good film.

2. Made me want to be a Space Ranger when I grow up.

3. Demonstrated what real inner confidence is all about.

What Buzz had was rock-solid self-belief. He knew he could fly, even though he couldn’t really. He knew he had to live up to the principles of a Space Ranger, even though there was no such thing as Star Command. He knew he was special, even though there were tens of thousands of Buzz Lightyears sitting on toy store shelves.

Then of course, there’s the moment where Buzz sees the truth. He isn’t a real Space Ranger. He’s a toy. T-O-Y, toy.

He sees the TV ad with shelf after shelf of boxed-up Buzz’s. He sees that he’s nothing special. His mouth falls open. He gives up.

Now this is enough to break this 37 year old guys heart, but then something interesting happens. A challenge comes along. Buzz’s friends are in trouble and they need him to be the old, special Buzz who can make things happen. In the face of huge challenge, Buzz reconnects with what he has 10,000 feet down inside him and his self-belief comes blazing through.

Trust your gut to be really confidentWhen challenged, he trusts himself.

Where I disagree with Brett over at 6Weeks is that this is not about faking it. If you fake confidence all you’ll be is a big faker, and if you’re not careful it’ll only increase your awareness of your current level of confidence versus the level of confidence you haven’t yet achieved.

There’s a big difference of focus between faking it and trusting yourself.

Faking it:
- means going forwards with the aim of getting away with it, scraping through or fooling people.
- is knowing you have shortcomings and trying to convince people that you don’t.
- is being aware that you don’t have what it takes and carrying on with a bluff.
- Is pursuing a course of action that doesn’t mean much to you.

Trusting yourself:
- means going forwards knowing that you can deal with whatever happens.
- is knowing that your strengths more than outweigh your weaknesses.
- is being able to choose your behaviour with complete trust in that behaviour.
- Is choosing a course of action that genuinely matters to you.

Buzz didn’t fake it. He didn’t try to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes and didn’t try to fool himself. Even though he didn’t know how things would turn out, he knew he was up to the challenge, knew that the challenge meant something to him personally and trusted himself to get going and deal with whatever might be thrown at him.

Buzz was truly confident. A big round of applause for Buzz, please.

Which would you rather do – fake it or trust yourself implicitly?

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5 Comments »
  • http://everydaythoughtsfromlife.blogspot.com Sal

    Well, you pose a good question. What about fake it till you make it? This is a little of both. If you know you can’t do something but know you have to do SOMETHING, then you fake it until you get the confidence up in order to believe yourself. Then, once you have that inner confidence, you can truly “fall with style.”

  • http://www.thewritersmanifesto.com/blog Monika Mundell

    Hi Steve,

    That post was great wasn’t it? Buzz is such a groovy guy, always happy. I am a confident woman, but if I am not familiar with something I rather hold back. The least I want to do is fake confidence when I’m not feeling it. I’m a bad cheat anyway so people would see through me in a second.

    I also don’t have any problems with admitting my short comings. I can’t be good in anything I do. :-)

  • http://www.menwithpens.ca James Chartrand – Men with Pens

    I’m not so sure that “faking it” is a bad idea.

    Put in the way you explain it, yes, it is. But put in the context of taking on a persona to teach yourself that you can, in fact, do what you wanted, can be a very therapeutic action.

    Many psychologists and therapists use this means to break through to their clients and highly suggest it (I believe). What think you?

  • Steve

    @Sal – To be honest, I’ve never been a fan of ‘fake it til you make it’. I’ve seen that it leads people down a path of feeling less-than, and I squirm at the thought of trying to fool myself.

    Sure, if you know you have to do something and you don’t know how to do it, somehow you just have to get going. You’re so right that this is a bit of a chicken and egg situation, I’m just not sure that faking it is a good strategy for learning or growing confidence.

    @Monika – Buzz is pretty darn groovy, isn’t he?. I like your honesty and agree that faking confidence doesn’t make you feel confident. Watch that ‘holding back’ thing though. Sure, you can’t be good at everything but you never know unless you’re willing to explore it. That’s what Buzz would do :D

    BTW, hope you’re starting to feel better, and if not be sure to take more time.

    @James – Thanks James. I certainly recognise that therapists and psychologists have used this idea for longer than I’ve been alive and I’m sure there are good reasons for that. Those guys would probably tut and shake their heads, but there’s still something that doesn’t sit well with me. It’s the whole idea about ‘taking on a persona‘ that bothers me, when the focus of what I do is making people entirely and powerfully themselves.

    Where I think it’s useful is in being able to ‘try on’ different viewpoints and perspectives so that you find one that works better, but then take that piece of learning and go right back to being you. Then it’s worth its weight in gold.

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