This week’s conversation was partly inspired by a Thursday Thoughts newsletter I wrote awhile back. Someone asked me during a live stream: “How are you so confident?” Or something along those lines. I pondered it for a bit, and came to an interesting conclusion. I’m probably not the first person to think of it this way, but I’m sharing it here based on my personal experience as a potential pathway to greater confidence for dark skin folks. It can really apply to anyone, but I’m speaking specifically and directly to my dark-skinned siblings.
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I Understand the Struggle
I hear so many influential people say that they’ve always felt confident and have always felt absolutely great about themselves and everything they do. When it comes to self-esteem and self-confidence, a lot of folks have the “I woke up like this” perspective. That’s great for them, but it’s not helpful for people who do struggle with confidence or self-esteem.
When I started teaching English, I realized that my previous struggles with grammar and punctuation helped me understand and explain grammar and punctuation in ways that others who also struggle could better understand. What clicked for me turned into a strategy that helped make it click for my students as well. The folks who had a natural knack for grammar and punctuation were never helpful to me because they always seemed to have holes or gaps in their explanations. Things they could take for granted or simply assume, I could not take for granted or simply assume.
I thin that analogy applies to the question of self-confidence.
What I’m about to share is from the perspective of someone who had to work at it, had to put conscious, intentional, and dedicated effort into gaining confidence. So I’m not going to simply to tell you: “Just be confident! You have to be confident and believe in yourself.”
I’m here to show you how to do that. That said, I’m only sharing one strategy. There are other “how to” tips I can share in the future, and you can also work with me 1-on-1 or in my small group coaching. But this one tactic I’m sharing today is a game-changer. It’s my number 1 piece of advice for building confidence in yourself.
Challenges to Confidence
I think challenges to confidence are varied, but they ultimately boil down to a couple of things:
- Previous judgement or criticism. In the past, you might have been told directly or indirectly that you’re not good enough. Or you might have been harshly criticized or laughed at for doing something or for simply existing. This can seep into your subconscious, especially if it was a recurring message you received.
- Fear of potential judgement or criticism.
What I find fascinating is that these things can deflate your confidence even if they did not happen directly to you. If you witness someone else get teased, laughed at, criticized, shunned, etc. it sends a message to everyone in the group (society) that it’s not safe to do/be certain things.
If you see another dark-skinned person get teased for their complexion, it can make you want to shrink and cause you to avoid drawing attention to yourself.
All the criticism people throw at natural hair and people who wear natural hair is definitely a reason most of us are too scared to even try it.
If you hear someone say: “She know she too Black to be wearing that loud lipstick.” it can deter you from ever wearing that kind of lipstick, even though that specific criticism was not intentionally aimed at you.
SIDE NOTE: This does remind me of the passive aggressive tactic to criticize someone else who does the same thing you do as a subversive way to take a dig at you.
Humans as social creatures have evolved ways of policing ourselves and each other. So much of our collective struggle with confidence is a direct result of this kind of social policing.
Courage Before Confidence
Courage is the gateway to confidence. Don’t wait to feel confident. Instead, exercise the courage to start, to practice, and to keep trying. Exercise courage in one area often enough, and the confidence will come.
You can trigger a courage–confidence loop. As you exercise more courage, you build more confidence, and as you build your confidence, you become more courageous.
For most of my life, I think people have misrecognized or misidentified me as a confident person, when really I was a courageous person. I believe it was simply a matter of mislabeling, except for that one time a classmate named it out loud.
I am so much more confident now that I have ever been. But that’s on the backend of years of intentionally and consciously exercising courage.
You Shouldn’t Be Confident About Everything
In my Thursday Thoughts email, I used the example of someone asking me to swim across Lake Pontchartrain. A year after writing that email, I still do not feel confident about attempting that. And I shouldn’t. As it stands with my current level of swimming abilities, I would die trying.
But I had the courage to take swimming lessons as an adult at my university’s super cool rec center while I was in grad school. It took courage to try to learn swimming as an adult, but especially doing so at a public pool with college students walking by. I still can’t swim across… anything, yet, but I’m a little more confident about being in the water.
But I’m completely confident writing a blog post or making a TikTok! These are both things I actually practiced and got good at. I’m also fairly confident doing live streams and interviews. Also due to plenty of opportunities to practice.
What You Can Learn to Always Be Confident About
This is not an all-inclusive list, but there are other parts of life and self that you can always be confident about:
- That you can learn, grow, improve, try, practice, work hard, make progress, keep going, change, and get better.
- You are worthy. You are valuable. You are enough.
- You have choice. You have agency. You have power.
The Courage to Confidence Strategy:
1) Get more specific about what exactly you lack confidence about.
The more specific you are, the easier it is to take action to increase confidence in that area. Even if you say: “I’m not confident in how I look,” get more specific than that. If it’s multiple things, list them all out in your journal.
2) Get clear about whether it’s something you should already be confident about.
If you’re lacking confidence about speaking in front of people, ask yourself: Have I clarified and organized my ideas? Have I practiced? If the answer is NO, then let yourself off the hook. No need to feel confident yet. Get to work. Write your speech. And practice. However, if the answer is YES, then proceed to step 3.
To elaborate on the example of not feeling confident in how you look, you can ask yourself questions like: Have I taken care of basic things like bathing and brushing my teeth? Have I done my part to pick clothes I like to wear? Etc.
3) Find a tiny opportunity to test out courage!
Go as tiny as you need to. I like the loud, bright colors example since so many dark-skinned people have struggled with this one. Maybe your tiny act of courage is simply looking at other dark-skinned people wear bright colors boldly. That’s right. Your tiniest act of courage doesn’t even have to involve you going anywhere near that thing you’re afraid to do. There’s research that says just like peer pressure can discourage us, it can also encourage us. Start exposing yourself to and surrounding yourself with people who are doing the thing you want to be more confident about.
Then maybe a next step is to try on some bright colors in private. Then a few days or weeks later, maybe you actually choose one of the bright colors to buy and bring home! And then one day you put it on at home and wear it around the house all day. Repeat that a few times. And then get a little more audacious over time until you’re wearing a loud neon green dress with hot pink lipstick on a national talk show speaking to millions of viewers.
Okay, maybe that doesn’t sound appealing to you right now, but you get the point!
4) Keep exercising courage even when your fears come true.
This is a hard part of the Courage to Confidence strategy, but don’t jump off the train before you get to where you’re headed.
Reflection
Try the Courage to Confidence strategy. You can do part 1 and even part 2 within the next couple of days! Go ahead! Have the courage to start!!
Affirmation
I exercise the courage to start. I can find the strength to try. I can be brave enough to begin.
