My Litmus Test: Would You Regret it if You Didn't Do It?

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Virginia Chapter of the Women in Manufacturing’s Professional Development Day. It was all about cultivating confidence. 

To be honest, when they asked me to do it, I wasn’t sure if I would have anything to say on it. Frankly, I’m not someone who thinks about confidence a lot. But then I said one of my mantras to myself “Sure, I’ll figure it out.” Similar to this is “Sure, why  not?” 

Part of it is, I like a challenge. I like to dive into the research, read a lot about something, find the nuggets, create activities, and build a workshop that is engaging, fun, and brings a lot of value. The other question I ask myself, in anything I’m a little unsure of or not sure if I can figure out is “Would I regret it if I don’t do it?”

Since I don’t think about confidence a lot, I just do things, or “figure out things” it made me wonder - where does confidence come from? Turns out, my mantra is a little bit of a hint. Now, the mantras I have, some are borrowed, but this one is one I’ve lived day in and day out for a number of years.

Confidence comes from four main areas according to research: what’s called “mastery experiences” - where you try something, learn a little, have a little success, maybe a little failure, try again, and keep building on your successes. Think about learning to ride a bike - this is a great example of a mastery experience. The second place it comes from is social learning - where we watch others have success, and we learn from them.  The third place confidence comes from is called “verbal persuasion” - meaning we have other people, or importantly ourselves giving positive messages that highlight their or our belief in ourselves. “You got this/I got this.” And finally, confidence can come from our physical and emotional states - how we feel that day, things that have happened that are impacting us.

In fact, there’s a bunch of research on this too - seems like most people want more confidence. Here’s the good news. It’s not a personality trait. What that means then is it is a skill - one you can cultivate and build and support.

One of the biggest takeaways from my research, and one of my favorite articles I read on this topic sums it up brilliantly. “Choose Courage Over Confidence” says author Christie Hunter Arscott in her December 2022 Harvard Business Review article.

Turns out, having courage to take small actions (not even big ones!) is the key to building confidence. See, confidence is not only built from experience or success. It’s built like a muscle - the more you do it, the more you can do. To me, this explains a lot about why I don’t think about confidence. I have confidence most of the time. Even when I have self doubt. And it’s not because I have confidence in my success - it’s because I have confidence in my ability to try. I know how to take action. I know how to take small steps to figure something out - because I know when I take one step forward, I get more information and I get more clarity and then I can take the next step forward.

And just to be clear, in the middle of me building this workshop, I absolutely was in the messy middle. It wasn’t coming together clearly, I had a moment of doubt of whether or not I could pull it off. This is all normal for me. And because it’s normal for me, I know how to navigate it and remind myself that every time I do this - this is just the middle - it will come together. In the middle of wherever you are, know that as Morie Forleo says, “It’s all figureoutable.” 

Why Confidence Matters for Women

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, almost 80% of women struggle with self-esteem and shy away from self-advocacy at work. This means that we’re not truly getting the best ideas and talent from the very talented women in our workforce. This is not meant to say that we should be squeezing everything from women - not at all and I would never advocate for that. But what I mean is that we are missing out on great ideas, great success, making greater impact because of this challenge. And I think we’re in a place in the world where we need all of those things from all of the people, including and especially from more women.

When I asked my workshop participants to answer the question “What Impact does confidence have on your work or personal life” I got some great answers. I got them through an online polling tool, so you can see the answers below. It’s a word cloud - so the more times a word showed up, the bigger it got. 

Here’s the other thing about confidence - it’s not a steady state. Some days you may wake up not feeling it. Or something happens during the day that really hits you and leaves quite the wake and it takes a minute to recover your confidence. But. There are things you can do to help yourself and flip that switch when needed. Things like music, a playlist, a favorite outfit, or calling a friend who can give you a pep talk when needed. My participants also shared that when they compliment other people, they get a boost too - what a bonus! It also helps you get outside your own head.

The final piece of advice with regards to confidence is that courage is not always loud. It is sometimes quiet. It is brave to get back up the next morning when you’ve been knocked down or when you’re in the middle of a struggle. And no one else may see it, but I want you to know - that’s courage too. The courage to persevere, the courage to keep trying also helps improve your confidence.

And when you’re faced with a situation where you know something would be good to do or you have an inkling that you want to do it but you’re just not sure if you can do it, feel free to adopt the mantra that always clears things up for me and spurs me to action: “Would you regret it if you don’t do it?” If the answer is yes, then find a way to make it work for you (even and especially if it’s different than how anyone else may do it).

Turns out, I'm super happy I did this work. I learned a lot, met some great people, and I can't wait to deliver my next confidence workshop to help more people!